1970’s
1970 saw a new festival appear in the Comhaltas calendar with the introduction of the Fleadh Nua on the June Bank Holiday weekend. Based in Dublin, the event was held across a number of venues including the Olympia Theatre, the Mansion House and Croke Park which featured a spectacular event comprising 500 performers across six platforms in front of the Hogan Stand. In 1974, Fleadh Nua moved to a new location, Ennis, where it has been a hugely successful annual event, celebrating its 50th year in the Clare town in 2024.
Innovation would be a feature of the Comhaltas approach throughout the 1970’s and in 1971 the ‘Seisiún’ programme was introduced in association with Bord Fáilte providing the blueprint for the very popular series of summer music concerts throughout Ireland that we know today.
Another ‘first’ in 1971 would be the Tour of Britian which, over the following decades, would become a firm favourite of the Irish community there. The first tour was notable for including some of our finest traditional performers including, Matt Molloy, Paddy O’Brien, Mary Bergin, Peadar O’Loughlin, Nioclás Tobín, Liam Óg O’Flynn, Paddy Glackin and Séamus MacMathúna. The following year, 1972, saw Comhaltas embark on their first tour of the USA with venues including Chicago, New York, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Trenton and St Louis. The group were also honoured with an invitation to Washington where they gave a special concert on the lawn of the White House.
The growing Troubles in the north of Ireland were soon to impact the organisation. In August 1971 internment without trial was introduced across the six counties and in response the Ard Comhairle of CCÉ postponed that years Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann due to be held in Listowel. The postponed competitions were subsequently held at the Fleadh Nua in Dublin in 1972.
The first ever Scoil Éigse, the Comhaltas summer school, was held in Miltown Malbay Co.Clare from 28th of July to 4th August 1973 and was dedicated to the memory of the late, great piper, Willie Clancy who had died only a few months previously. The week featured a programme of lectures, concerts, classes, workshops and music sessions throughout the town, drawing a large attendance from both home and abroad.
The Golden Jubilee year of 1976 was celebrated with the opening of the organisation’s new Headquarters at Monkstown in Dublin in April. ‘Cultúrlann na hÉireann’ (The Irish Cultural Institute) situated in a restored double Victorian era building, comprised office and administrative space, a theatre, a bar and session space, classrooms, a library and archive and a recording studio.
The same year saw the first performance of a Comhaltas group on the African continent when, in March, Comhaltas members were part of the first official cultural exchange between Ireland and Libya.
Listowel in county Kerry hosted Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann a total of five times throughout the 1970’s, the other venues that decade being Ennis and Buncrana.