COLM McANTHONY,
Madam, - As a traditional musician with no affiliation to or membership of any traditional music organisation and as a free agent, may I add my support to the proposed new Arts Bill legislation coming up shortly? In particular I support Section 21 of that Act, which provides for three standing committees for traditional arts, innovation and local government and with only the traditional arts having a funding function.
Some comments have been made against the proposed Section 21 in your Letters page and on the Rattlebag Programme on RTE Radio 1. In his opposition to this new Act, Mr Sean Potts, formerly of the Chieftains, and president of Na Piobairí Uilleann, said that this was a retrograde step and should be rescinded immediately, his main point being that "you cannot control traditional Irish music - it needs no control".
I cannot understand the logic of his thinking. Mr Potts pointed the finger at Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann (CCE) when he said that they were the main lobbyists for this Act. Maybe 60 years ago, traditional Irish music did not need control but we are now in the 21st century and some sort of control is needed, especially in the classroom and more so if a group of young Pipers are trying to learn the skills of piping at Na Piobairí Uilleann.
Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann is a voluntary organisation which has been promoting and teaching young people the art of Irish music, song and dance for over half-a-century and which has, in my opinion, been grossly underfunded for the past 30 years by the Arts Council which looked down on traditional music as "inferior" or "culchie music" and allocated a mere 1 per cent of its funding to CCE. For how long more could the biggest stakeholder in traditional music survive on such a paltry sum? - Yours, etc.,
COLM McANTHONY, Grange Park, Rathfarnham, Dublin 14.