Sir, - Senator Labhras O Murchu (March 24th) accuses Mic Moroney of writing a "highly personalised article" and then goes on to attack him in a mean-minded and most unfair manner. Mr O Murchu states that Mr Moroney is "intent on keeping his eye on the man (or on Comhaltas!)". What gargantuan arrogance! The fact that he cannot realise that one could actually be more concerned with traditional music than with Mr O Murchu himself (or his organisation) results in the tunnel vision which makes the report on traditional Irish music compiled by him for the Joint Committee on Heritage and the Irish Language useless.
The document purports to be a balanced view of Irish traditional music. It is not. Following an inane "colour piece" on background, it concentrates almost entirely on Comhaltas, by which Mr O Murchu is employed.
The paranoia exhibited in such statements as, "There are those who would seek to air-brush Comhaltas out of the picture", is obvious. It may be absurd, but it helps to draw attention away from the report itself. This document is now so discredited that the committee is in retreat from it and some members at least have had the courage to admit publicly that it was a mistake. The call for submissions from the general public without any parameters or terms of reference is no more than a face-saving exercise.
As a close friend of the late Breandan Breathnach, who served on the Arts Council which withdrew funding from SEISIUN, I was informed by him that one of the main reasons for the decision was low artistic merit. After his death I took his place on that same council, and also understood this to be the case. But perhaps Mr O Murchu knows more about how the decision came about than we do? Incidentally, he is on record many times calling for the abolition of the Arts Council. Is this still his position?
Can we now move on to address the real needs of those concerned with the traditional arts, study, dissemination, collecting, preservation, etc? The need for a report with suitable terms of reference remains. If we can scrap this offending document and begin again on properly informed, scholarly and objective grounds, some spark of light may yet emanate from an exercise which, on the whole, has been thoroughly distasteful. - Is mise, Tom Munnelly,
Fintra Beg, Miltown Malbay, Co Clare.