The Clifden Branch was reformed in October 2009. The branch had originally being formed in the 1980’s and was very active through the 80’s and 90’s hosting regular monthly music sessions, Irish nights for tourists and of course two very successful County Fleadhs in 1989 and 1990. Some great musicians played a large and active part in the branch, including John G Walsh, Jimmy Mullen, Frank King, Kevin Barry, Richie Newman, Eammon McLoughlin and many more. They very much kept the music alive in the area throughout these times and the standard of the two fleadhs held in Clifden back in those years, are still talked about to this day.
 
The branch was reformed in 2009 and has gone from strength to strength with a large membership. It has members from all over the South and North Connemara Area.
 
The branch hosts monthly junior music sessions called ‘Seisiun na nÓg’ which encourages all our younger members to partake in an informal music and dance session. We also host a Senior and Youth Music Session monthly, usually in a different Connemara public house. These sessions are hugely popular and we often have special guests from all over the country joining us as part of them.

With great support from the Clifden and Connemara business community, Clifden CCE started a Traditional music festival 5 months after it was reformed – Clifden Trad Fest. Clifden Trad Fest, now in its 10^th year, has grown in stature each year into a nationally known quality Traditional Music Festival. It features Opening Concert, Youth Sessions, Session Trail, Open Air Gig on the Street, 5K Run, Marching Band, Music Workshops with musicians and participants coming from all over Ireland and indeed the world to partake.

The branch has also had great success at Fleadhanna Cheoil. The West Coast Grupai Cheoils and Ceili Bands, ranging in age from Under 15 to Senior level, are well known on the Fleadh scene, having won numerous County, Connacht and All Ireland Titles. The West Coast Performance group also won the All Ireland Plearacha title in 2017 as well as so many of our members having had had great successes at Solo and Duet level at Fleadhanna Cheoil throughout the years.
 

Outside of Fleadhs, the branch is also highly active in the local community. We perform regularly at many local events including: Clifden Arts Festival, St Patricks Day, Charity Events and much more and we run a Celebrity Sean Nos event each year in our community as a fundraiser for our branch. This event has become a great local success. We have also been involved in the production of 4 CDs of youth music in our area in cooperation with Leo Hallissey and Sea and Bog Week Festivals here in the North Connemara area. We were also delighted to host two Comhaltas Concert Tours of Ireland in our branch in October 2009 when our Chairperson Marie Walsh was on the tour, and again in October 2016 when Seamus Flaherty, one of our branch members was featured on the tour. 

We have also being very lucky to have gained great coverage by National Media throughout the years. The branch was selected to take part in a TG4 programme called Siar Chuig an bhFleadh, which was a series that followed a branch from their 1^st round of competition at County level to All Ireland Level. We have been lucky to host two programmes of RTE Radio 1’s Ceili House here in Clifden and many of our members have also featured in the following programmes: Fleadh TV, TG4 Fleadh 2020, RTE Fleadh Programme, Other Voices and many RnaG programmes.