A chara, - Nicholas O'Carolan's letters (April 7th) taken in conjunction with the antics of his cohorts who have endeavoured to orchestrate a negative reaction to the Irish Traditional Music Report, makes sad reading. His letter is arrogant, exclusive and abusive in tone and reflects the transparently manipulative nature of the campaign.
Mr O'Carolan continues the blatant misinformation and misrepresentation which has characterised this miserable campaign and which gains no credit for the cause which the perpetrators claim to espouse. To date I have recorded no fewer than seven major pieces of misinformation circulated by the campaign organisers.
Mr O'Carolan states in reference to me: "He was given £2,000 of public money and a period of three months by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Heritage and the Irish Language to prepare a report on this subject." He is wrong on both counts:
The amount received was £1,080 which was expended as follows: design and printing £622.54; contributors and administration £457.46. Any additional costs were covered from my own personal resources. I have received no financial reward whatsoever for this work; the time at my disposal for the preparation of the report was a few weeks.
I will concede that in the matter of public money Mr O'Carolan could rightly claim to be an authority. His Irish Traditional Music Archive is the recipient of hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money and this continues to grow by the day. In fact, the handful of campaign organisers have a lot in common in their agenda and vested interests.
It is also disappointing to note that Mr O'Carolan would have a problem with what he sees as the Oireachtas Committee's recommendations for "expensive and far-reaching courses of action" in support of Irish traditional arts. - Yours, etc., Senator Labhras O Murchu,
Caiseal Mumhan, Co Thiobraid Arann.