The idea of a separate arts council to deal with traditional music was unaminously rejected at the meeting the Arts Council called with traditional musicians, writes Tom Munnelly. So why has it risen again in the new Arts Bill?
I had a particularly nasty sense of déjà vu when I heard about the Standing Committee on traditional music in the new Arts Bill. You know the cliché - you've seen it in films like Terminator 2 and Fatal Attraction - after a long struggle the monster/villain is thought to be slain and there is general relief. Suddenly the ogre rises from apparent death and begins to attack again. This is exactly how I felt when I heard that this particular rough beast was still slouching toward Merrion Square to be born.
The suggestion that such a body should be formed sprang from the forehead of Labhrás Ó Murchú of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann in a document entitled Report on Traditional Irish Music, which he compiled for the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Heritage and the Irish Language in January 1999. The report was never adopted. It was seen by many as a special pleading and it seemed ignorant of vast areas in the field of Irish music. For the first time ever, submissions from interested parties were called for, after the publication of the report. Individuals, myself included, were asked to make oral submissions to the committee. As this process ended before many of the submissions were heard, it can be assumed that it will not be revived and the un-endorsed report will be allowed to moulder away in embarrassed obscurity.
One of the many bizarre recommendations of this report is that there should be "consideration of the formation of a national State council for the development and promotion of the traditional arts such as native music, song, dance, storytelling, etc".
The only medium in which the proposal found favour was in the pages of Comhaltas's magazine, Treoir, where articles and editorial comment on the matter increased in direct proportion to the number of photographs of Arts Minister Síle De Valera and Senator Ó Murchú at Comhaltas conventions in North America, Britain and Ireland.
Having established where the idea is coming from, it is not unreasonable to ask the question: what end it will serve? Having spent a lifetime working in the field of folklore and folk music, I can claim some familiarity with practitioners at ground level and can find no demand for such a body. Of those who are actually concerned and have an awareness, the word "ghetto-isation" is the term most frequently in use.
In this, they differ little from the voices in the public meetings which have been held on arts policy , in particular the meeting called by the Arts Council at Smithfield in October 2000. Thirty people were asked to attend because of their involvement with traditional music to discuss the idea of a Traditional Arts Council. After a long discussion the idea was rejected unanimously. Repeat, unanimously! The Council was asked to convey the deliberations of the meeting to the Minister.
At that and other meetings, I questioned the use of the term "traditional arts" and would go so far as to suggest that most of us were not competent to comment on this field, as the assembled expertise was almost exclusively in the field of music. The Bill is similarly lacking in definition. If we are to use the definition in the Arts Plan 2002-2006 ("music, song, dance and storytelling"), this is also, in the opinion of many, including the head of the Department of Irish Folklore in UCD, Séamas Ó Catháin, "deficient and inadequate".
If the Bill is to create a policy for traditional music, call it such. If it is for "the traditional arts", consultation with such bodies as, for instance, the Department of Irish Folklore, the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum or The Museum of Country Life should have taken place. It did not.
In formulating her document, Towards a New Framework For the Arts, the Minister once again asked for submissions. She received 232, which were summarised by Theo Dorgan and published in February 2001. He noted that some definitions offered were wide-ranging enough to embrace "literature and drama in the Irish Language, craftwork, thatching and ironwork". Of the many similar submissions forwarded by the mobilised CCÉ branches, Dorgan notes that "CCÉ calls on the Government to establish a Traditional Arts Council . . . but without specifying what the traditional arts actually are". The Bill is no help. A satisfactory and realistic definition must be found before the parameters of this section of the Bill make any sense. The three standing committees are asked to assist and advise the Council on "traditional Irish Arts . . . local authorities in relation to the arts" and "matters relating to artistic innovation". Why is only one art form singled out for individual attention? Does the Minister have somebody (or bodies) in mind? The facilitation of a takeover in this field would be particularly inappropriate in that, part of their remit would be to "make recommendations to the Council in relation to the advance of moneys to any person relating to traditional Irish arts". One may also ask why such monitory influence does not seem to be extended to other art forms.
One wonders at the purpose of the public meetings. A façade of democracy, perhaps? At any rate, the Minister seems to have taken little note of their suggestions. Speaking at the publication of the Bill, the chairman of the Council, Patrick Murphy, said: "It brings change, but change is necessary and healthy". It depends very much on the change.
Tom Munnelly is a folklore collector with the Department of Irish Folklore in UCD and a former Arts Council member
