Mullingar historian to launch book on Comhaltas

This Thursday will see the launch of a special commemorative book on the history of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann and the Fleadh Cheoil, which has it roots in Mullingar in the early 1950s.

The book, Seachtó Bliain ag Fás: Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, 1951-2021, is written by Mullingar historian, Dr Tom Hunt, and will be unveiled at a Comhaltas commemorative concert in St Paul’s Church, Mullingar at 5.30pm on Thursday.

Dr Hunt was engaged to write the book earlier this year, and says that the finished product has emerged after four months of “intensive research and writing”.

“‘Keep it simple’ was the brief from the Fleadh Executive Committee, and the history attempts to capture as many highlights of the CCÉ story as possible, and to illustrate the multi-dimensional and multi-faceted nature of the organisation as it has developed over the past 70 years, as it engaged with its primary task of promoting traditional Irish culture,” said Dr Hunt.

The book went to press last week, and Dr Hunt paid tribute to Mary Egan and Ciaran Guinan of Brosna Press for their work in seeing the project through to its conclusion.

Running to over 135 pages, the publication takes the reader through the history of Comhaltas right through from its embryonic days, its founding in Mullingar in 1951, the first Fleadh Cheoil in 1952 and through years of national and international growth to this year’s Homecoming to Mullingar.

Dr Hunt, a native of Clonea, Carrick-on-Suir, Co. Waterford and a former teacher at Mullingar Community College, is the current PRO of Mullingar Shamrocks GAA Club and Westmeath’s representative on the GAA’s Central Council. He has had a lifelong involvement in the GAA as both a player and administrator.

A PhD graduate from De Montfort University, Leicester in 2005, he has written extensively on social, economic and sports history. He is the author of Portlaw, County Waterford: Portrait of an Industrial Village and its Cotton Industry (2000); Sport and Society in Victorian Ireland: The Case of Westmeath (2007, based on his PhD thesis); The Little Book of Waterford (2017); The Little Book of Irish Athletics (2017); Castletown Geoghegan GAA, 1895-2020: Fostering a Passion (2020), and Peadar Cowan (1903-62): GAA Administrator and Political Maverick (2021).

Dr Hunt has contributed chapters to Sport and the Irish: histories, identities and issues; The Gaelic Athletic Association, 1884-2009 and The Evolution of the GAA, Ulaidh, Éire agus Eile.

He has also completed researching and writing the history of the Olympic Council of Ireland.