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AT A loose end for something to do last Friday night, I read in The Ticket that Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill were playing Dublin’s “controversial” new traditional music venue, Clasac. That sounded interesting in more ways than one, I thought. So I jumped in the car and headed out to Clontarf, trying to remember what the supposed controversy involved.

It came back to me en route. There had been claims about a VAT refund irregularity that, while not involving misappropriation of funds, had been of sufficient concern for the headquarters of Comhaltas Ceoltóirií Éireann to dissolve its Clontarf branch last year. The latter had counter-argued that Comhaltas was just using the issue as a pretext to advance its agenda of seizing control of Clasac, the €9 million project initiated and driven by the Clontarf membership.