Minister opens Miltown music centre

Social Protection Minister Joan Burton performed the official opening last weekend of a new visitor centre in Miltown Malbay, which celebrates the music makers of West Clare.

The centre is a collaboration between Oidhreacht an Chláir and Shannon Images.

Oidhreacht an Chláir was established in 2003 as a community-based, not-for-profit organisation, to preserve and promote the traditional arts in their natural environment in West Clare.

“The group of volunteers who created Oidhreacht an Chláir brought a wide range of skills and expertise to the planning of this special project. Sadly two of the volunteers, Tom Munnelly and Muiris O’Rochain, are no longer with us,” Minister Burton said in her speech in Miltown.

Among the core objectives of the new centre is to establish an archive of audio, video, photographic and print material dealing with the traditional arts and local studies and to provide a centre to facilitate the performance of traditional music, song and dance, the holding of lectures, classes and workshops and the mounting of themed exhibitions.

“In 2008, this house was bought and refurbished with grant aid from the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. It is next door to the house where Willie Clancy lived and during the course of renovations, his signature was found on a joist in the reception area – testament to the fact that Willie Clancy and his father worked on the building of this house. The archive is growing daily,” Minister Burton commented.

Material recorded in various formats over the years but lying around in people’s houses has been donated, archived, digitised and made available. Master classes, music classes, weekend courses, lectures, and exhibitions have been held along with formal and informal sessions.

“The house has come alive to the sound of fiddle, concertina and harp and is busy at all times of the year. Important links have been established with NUI Galway and with the University of Limerick.

“Pádraic and Clare O’Reilly of Shannon Images came to live in Miltown and became aware of what Oidhreacht an Chláir was doing. They proposed the idea of using the knowledge and expertise of Oidhreacht an Chláir and their own professional experience and resources to create a visitor centre in Miltown,” Minister Burton concluded.