THIS year marks thee quarter century of Scoil Samhraidh Willie Clancy, in Miltown Malbay, Co Clare. Begun just after its piper mentor's death in
1972, it has grown from a small, tight gathering of traditional music aficionados and their associates to be now of significant international prestige - last year almost a third of its thousand and more signed-up pupils came from outside the country.
Speaking at its opening two years ago Cathal Goan, ceannasai of Teilifis na Gaeilge, commented on this growth, and how in general, compared to the music, the Irish language "is still but a school subject".
The "Willie Week", which starts today, is just one of several music summer schools around the country. Even though it is the biggest - it is considered the highlight of the traditional music calendar, "Our Ascot", as Dermot McLoughlin of An Comhairle Ealaion puts it - one can ask how long it will remain viable. For already Prof Micheal O Suilleabhain's Blas Summer School on campus at the University of Limerick's Department of Music is biting into the apple by running the following week. Compared to the Willie Week's Pounds 50-plus-accommodation, at more than Pounds 600, Blas's all-in package is clearly in the Rolls Royce/sponsored end of the educational spectrum. But in its rigorous, professional academia it throws down a gauntlet to its older but poorer relation in being keen and able to engage in a wider spread of issues involved in traditional music.
Even so the Willie Week is prided for being "hands on", and the organisers expect it to swell the area's population by several thousand daily until Saturday week. This is of considerable and important economic value locally. A small portion of funding is raised from traders, but the bulk comes from outside: from An Comhairle Ealaion (biggest sponsor), Guinness, Clare County Council Shannon Development, Bord na Gaeilge, Raidio na Gaeltachta, IMRO and Bus Eireann. Reflecting the large US and Northern interest, Milwaukee Irish Festival and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland are important contributors. This year too, RTE swells the franchise coffers with their planned filming of several programmes from the event.
The main instruments used in Irish music will be taught each morning by a panel of almost 100 teachers - uilleann pipes, fiddle, concertina, whistle, flute and accordion. Many of the personnel are in the country's top stratum of players and most will take part in nightly recitals: fiddle on Monday, whistle and flute on Tuesday, pipes on Wednesday, step dancing on Thursday, song and concertina on Friday. Ceilithe cater for the dancers by night, the afternoons feature lectures: on BBC recordings (by Nicholas Carolan of the ITMA archive, Monday), on the heritage of local fiddler Bobby Casey (Tuesday, by Seamus MacMathuna of CCE), on the first Dublin Pipers' Club (by researcher Sean Donnelly, Wednesday), concluding with an assessment of Donegal fiddler John Doherty (Thursday, by Alun Evans of Queen's University, Belfast).