Dear John
I am writing in reply to your article in The Maine Valley Post in relation the grant funding approved for the Patrick O’Keeffe festival.
On Tuesday September 29th I gave a short presentation on the new LEADER programme to the Castleisland Chamber Alliance formation meeting. As part of this presentation a list was also provided outlining the grants approved in the Castleisland area under the previous programme.
The Patrick O’ Keeffe Festival was approved €10,500 as a once off grant in 2012. Unfortunately due to an error on my behalf the Patrick O’Keeffe approval was listed twice giving the impression that €21k was approved for the festival when in fact it was €10,500.
I wish to apologise for any misunderstanding caused. The grant is now been processed and payment will be made to the group in the next two to three weeks.
Regards
Sean Linnane
In response: Patrick O’Keeffe Traditional Music Festival Chairman, Cormac O’Mahony welcomed the clarification from Mr. Linnane and he said the imminent allocation of the €10,500 in grant aid to the festival would ease the financial pressure on the committee.
“I welcome the conclusion of the application as it means that we can now repay loans we had to take out in 2012 in order to pay musicians and to keep the festival afloat.
“We will still have to collect the streets to balance things out but this means that a weight of debt has been lifted off our shoulders – and that’s a welcome development.
“It also means that we can think ahead to 2016 with a relatively clean slate and we have a number of plans we’d like to implement for that and for our 25th in 2017,” said Mr. O’Mahony.
