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One of the oldest continuing branches of Comhaltas in the Fingal region, established in 1975. We have served the community on a voluntarily basis for close to 50 years, enriching the lives of many people in our locality with our cultural traditions through education, participation and performance programmes.\u00a0\u00a0As we near our half century, we strongly believe that these rich cultural traditions should be a living, highly visible and vibrant part of our community<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/malahidecce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/New-Street-2-edited-1024x683.avif\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nOur branch began as a dream of a few musicians who played music together in the Grand Hotel Malahide in the early 1970\u2019s. The main movers were Eoin Kavanagh and Aonghus Sheehan and they got great support from a wide range of people including Sr. Brendan who was a teacher in The Convent (now Scoil \u00cdosa, The Community School), Whistle teacher Patrick Joyce and Set Dancing teacher Brendan Brophy. It is understood that the first meeting of the Branch took place in the Grand Hotel about the year of 1975. Informal music gatherings continued and classes commenced in the old Grill Room later moving to the Red School (St. Sylvester\u2019s) on the Yellow Walls Road.\u00a0\u00a0Tin whistle and Dancing classes were held there, and Jim Collier ex Chairman recalls that the famous band U2 used also to practice in the same venue just before the tinwhistle classes, making \u201can awful racket\u201d!<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n
In March 1977 Mary Paula Hoyne Hon Secretary of Malahide and member of the County Board chaired the first meeting of Kinsealy CCE and the late 1970\u2019s early 1980\u2019s saw the beginning of a close relationship with the Kinsealy Branch of Comhaltas, which carries on to this Day.A move to the Parish Hall below St. Sylvester\u2019s Church followed on. Individuals and groups were tutored to a very high standard by some excellent teachers and the branch flourished right through the 80\u2019s. The Branch produced some very fine musicians down through the years and our Bands and Groups performed at various events around the area as well as competing in the\u00a0County\u00a0Fleadh\u00a0and Fleadh Laighean. Emir Morris did great work as leader of our Bands and Groups in the early 90,s after which Ciaran Condron took over this role in developing groups of young musicians to represent the Branch. <\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Malahide Branch developed a great tradition over the years and has also hosted multiple Fleadhanna Ceoil, in St. Oliver Plunkett’ school, Scoil \u00cdosa and the Grove Hotel. The roof of the Parish Hall was raised for several years with the happy sounds of Irish traditional music, until the growing amount of pupils and the demand for a greater variety of instruments led to the move from the Parish Hall to Oliver Plunkett\u2019s School, where classes continue to be held today. <\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Members of Malahide Comhaltas recall some lovely outings organised by the committee over the years. Our musicians and dancers performed at the Granard Harp Festival in the early 1992. June 1993 saw eight branch members invited by President Mary Robinson to visit \u00c1ras an \u00daachtar\u00e1in where they enjoyed a wonderful afternoon with a fine spread of tea and refreshments on the lawn.\u00a0\u00a0In August of that year, twenty-eight members of the Branch headed off on a trip to the midlands, enjoying a ride on the Bord na M\u00f3na bog train followed by a visit to Clonmacnoise and then on to Teach Cheol at Moate Heritage Park. <\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n
In August of 1994 the branch went to Holy Cross Abbey and then on to Cashel where they performed at an informal Session at Br\u00fa Boru before the Professional Show. In 1997 a much larger group returned to the midlands for a Bog of Allen train trip followed by a meal and music in Moate.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n
The following year 1998 saw a trip to Wexford and visit to the\u00a0National\u00a0Heritage\u00a0Park\u00a0in Ferrycarrig which was greatly enjoyed by all.<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 21st\u00a0Anniversary of Malahide Comhaltas was celebrated in April 1996 with a well-attended special mass followed by a seisi\u00fan in St. Andrew\u2019s School Hall.\u00a0\u00a0The proceeds of fundraising on that occasion were donated to the first People-in-Need event. The 25th\u00a0Anniversary was marked with a Special C\u00e9il\u00ed in Portmarnock GAA where Anne Kavanagh was the guest of honour and she accepted a presentation on behalf of her husband Eoin from the then Chairman Joseph Gunning.<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Malahide Comhaltas was also involved with organising monthly C\u00e9il\u00ed\u2019s, held initially in the Parish Hall and later in St. Sylvester\u2019s GAA Club. Jo Morris ex Chairperson introduced and organised these these C\u00e9ili\u2019s for a number of years and was assisted by a small dedicated bunch of people led by Joe Condron.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the early days the Shores of Erin Band played at these C\u00e9il\u00ed\u2019s, before they became more widely known and later The Sean \u00f3g and Green Grove C\u00e9il\u00ed Band played on alternate months. The last Wednesday in the month became known as the Malahide CCE C\u00e9il\u00ed Night in the local area and not only did it provide great enjoyment but it also generated much needed revenue for the Branch. <\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n
The C\u00e9il\u00ed moved in later years to the GAA club in Portmarnock because of the refurbishment of the Hall in St Sylvester\u2019s.\u00a0\u00a0Excellent Set-Dancer, Donncha \u00d3 Muinneach\u00e1in, was the well-loved Fear an T\u00ed on these occasions until he sadly died in January 2005 (R.I.P.) <\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Members of Malahide Comhaltas have gone on to become involved with the larger Comhaltas organisation; Jim Collier (RIP), ex-Chairman later became the Vice Chairman of the\u00a0County\u00a0Board\u00a0of Comhaltas Ceolt\u00f3ir\u00ed \u00c9ireann and Jo Morris (ex-Chairperson) served as Chairperson of the Leinster Council for twelve years before becoming delegate to Cult\u00farlann National Executive.<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the years many of the pupils of Malahide Comhaltas have enjoyed showing their musical talents at seisi\u00fans held in the Maalhide Parish Hall, The Grand Hotel and most recently at our monthly seisi\u00fans in the Malahide Yatch Club.\u00a0\u00a0Festive events have also been a tradition of the Branch, with dressing-up for the special Halloween seisi\u00fan and special visits from Santa Claus at Christmas. End of term seisiun are also held in the school and pupils are encouraged to perform for the peers and family members in a non competitive environment.<\/span><\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n Christina Cotter wrote and compiled a beautiful Music Book Co\u00eds T\u00edne in 2006 and this book is now used by all our teachers in their classes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n Close cooperation with other branches has always been the ethos of our Branch. In the past Bands and Gr\u00fapa\u00ed Ceol have competed at Fleadhs together with our neighbour\u2019s at Kinsealy CCE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was great to see our U18 Ceili Band qualify from Dublin to compete in Leinster Fleadh 2007. The two branches went on a very memorable week\u2019s Trip to Italy during the summer (2007) where they entertained some very large audiences with great music and dancing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Malahide Branch were also delighted to assist Kinsealy in running the County Fl\u00e9adh in 2007 to celebrate their 30th Anniversary and a very successful dancing event was run by the Branch in Malahide Rugby Club as part of the Fl\u00e9adh Festival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wednesday 28th November 2007 goes down as a notable historic event in the Branch with the launching of our website and providing our members both past and present with an opportunity to communicate with the Branch and keep up to date with all activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is not a definitive account of the history of Malahide Comhaltas so we welcome any corrections or additions anyone may wish to make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We acknowledge the fine work that everyone involved with Malahide Comhaltas has done down through the years and we thank them for keeping this great tradition alive in our local area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of the oldest continuing branches of Comhaltas in the Fingal region, established in 1975. We have served the community on a voluntarily basis for close to 50 years, enriching the lives of many people in our locality with our cultural traditions through education, participation and performance programmes.\u00a0\u00a0As we near our half century, we strongly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":248,"parent":81,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-no-title","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malahidecce.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malahidecce.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malahidecce.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malahidecce.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malahidecce.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2"}],"version-history":[{"count":82,"href":"https:\/\/malahidecce.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":569,"href":"https:\/\/malahidecce.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions\/569"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malahidecce.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/81"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malahidecce.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malahidecce.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/malahidecce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Branch-Book-768x1024.jpg\")
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