The magazine Europ celebrates Ireland's musical success under the heading "Folk Entertainment a Worldwide Sell", and says: "Once they sang it in the kitchen. Nowadays it draws thousands between Beijing and New York. An ancient culture becomes a great new export." The writer, Birgit Liebelt, tells us of one performance "so picturesque that it almost lapses into cliche".
We are at the Cliffs of Moher, and Tina Mulrooney sings "with a mesmeric voice recalling the love and longing of Irish people - proof, for many, of the inherent enduring vitality of Irish traditional music. "From May to September, we are told, Tina gives romantic open-air performances at the Cliffs, and her CD's and tapes are in much demand. There is a photograph of her at her harp near the cliffs' edge, with a score or more of an audience. "The tourists love the music" Tina said, autographing a CD, appropriately entitled A Memory of Ireland. And, the author of the article remarks, "it is this combination of love of the music and business acumen that is typical of Irish traditional music today".
The big guns of the new musical world are well noticed, too. The Chieftains, "the doyens of today's Irish musicians, have been pulling huge crowds from New York to Beijing for more than 30 years. Groups like Altan and the Corrs are ranked in the charts and, beginning in the mid-1990's Irish shows such as Riverdance and Lord of the Dance began their triumphant progress all over the world with spectacular music and dance performances".
Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, the love of the traditional is still healthily alive. Fintan Vallely, who has written on the subject and who lectures in Maynooth College, says that Irish parents today want their children to learn traditional music: "It seems to correspond with their identity and the way the people see themselves."
A great deal more, with special mention, of course, for Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann. It has 20,000 members at home and abroad, we are told, and offers more than 600 music classes each week. Europ is the mazagine of the wonderful Fondation Journalistes en Europe, which brings together young journalists from many parts, there to receive a post-graduate, so to speak, experience of travel and hard work under splendid direction and example. John Horgan is Ireland's representative on the Board.