Spink Comhaltas

What we do - We promote and teach traditional Irish music, song, dance, story-telling as well as the Irish language and culture Who - our membership is primarily to young people from Co Laois, but we have adult classes too. How - We provide music lessons on a wide range of traditional instruments (whistle, flute, accordion, concertina, banjo, mandolin, pipes, bodhran, harp etc.), and prepare our students for both social & competitive music events. We also prepare our students for the official Comhaltas music exams up to the highest level. Ethos - Our primary focus is to develop a life-long love of music and good social and teamworking skills in young people, allowing them to play music in the future anywhere and with confidence. Playing music in groups is a key part of our focus. Assets - We have invested in a comprehensive instrument bank, which allows young people to get access to good quality instruments at a competitive price, and facilitates young people learning music who may not have the financial resources otherwise to do so. We strive to add to the range and depth of the instruments in this bank every year as our membership has grown. We recently invested in high quality sound equipment to facilitate better and more professional public performances, as well as introducing our younger members to learning sound technology. Networking – we encourage our musicians to attend music workshops as well as to get to know musicians from other genres and different parts of the country. Personal development – while we recognise that not every one of our members will wish to become a professional musician, we look to encourage those who are interested in such a career and provide them with opportunities to develop their composition and performance skills, and if they look to take the initiative in other music events, Spink Comhaltas looks to support them as best we can. We provide young musicians with the opportunity to build up their teaching experience and have provided young music groups like Goitse with a public platform to build their fan base in their early stages. Adventure – where possible, we try to open up new opportunities for our junior members to travel, both within Ireland and abroad. A trip to a European destination is one of our 2018 targets – we have previously travelled to Germany. Professionalism – while we are a voluntary group, we believe that as much as possible, we should operate in as professional a manner as possible, and the management committee have been working to a series of defined plans over the last 5 years to develop and grow our music branch.