This article is from page 29 of the 2009-07-07 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 29 JPG
ONE of the largest collections of ar- chived traditional Irish music in the mid-west was officially opened in Ennis last Friday.
Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Eamon O Cuiv joined with members of the Board of Meitheal na hAbhna and man- agement at the opening of Cois na hAbhna Regional Resource Centre.
Cois na hAbhna is the regional base of Comhaltas Ceoiltoiri Eire- ann (CCE) for the Meitheal region.
It houses the Comhaltas Regional Archive in its Sean Reid Library. The venue also has an auditor1um for céili dances and concerts, a tradi- tional-style Irish kitchen, a bar/teach
cheoil where lively weekly sessions are held and classrooms for music lessons.
Speaking last week, Cois na hAbh- na manager, Doreen Norris said the venue has been busy since re-open- ing in 2007.
‘“We’ve been pretty busy. We have céilis, workshops and classes. It’s been fairly busy for the past two years. September to May is usually busier for us. There is a lot more go- ing on but we still have a few things happening in the summer. We have céilis on Wednesdays and Fridays,” she said.
The original Cois na hAbhna build- ing was constructed during the early 1980s by local Comhaltas members, who worked on a voluntary basis, and
was officially opened on St Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1983.
Redevelopment work on the Gort Road venue began in October 2006 and concluded in May 2007. The building was extended to include a teach cheoil and new conference room facilities.
The jewel in the crown is the Cois na hAbhna regional archive, one of several established by CCE through- out the country, to record collect and preserve the cultural heritage of parts of Munster.
Since work began in 1990 over 1,500 hours of recordings of mu- sic, songs, dance and folklore from Clare, Galway and Limerick have been collected in the form of 78s, LPs, reel to reel tapes, cds, videos,
books and photos.
Four main collections form the ma- jority of the archive’s holdings.
The Culturlann archive collections consists of recordings made and collected by Seamus MacMathuna, timire cheoil, CCE, covering a peri- od from the late 1950s to the 1970s.
The Vaughan collection is of a se- ries of private recordings made by Joe Vaughan from Miltown Malbay during the 1960s. The McNamara collection consists of recordings made by Martin McNamara from Scariff in the 1960s and 1970s. The fourth collection, the Field record- ings, 1s composed of material gath- ered by volounteers and participants in the ‘Meet the Musician Project’ since 1991.