Comhaltas Ceoltóiri Éireann
An Irish music and culture nonprofit chose Happy Cog to revamp their online presence, front to back.
Céad míle fáilte romhat! (A hundred thousand welcomes to you!)
Comhaltas Ceoltóiri Éireann is an Irish government-funded non-profit organization that preserves and promotes traditional Irish music, dance, and culture. With 35,000 members across 400 branches in thirteen countries on five continents, it is easily the largest organization of its kind in the world.
The organization operates a network of schools, organizes numerous events, and runs a major annual performance competition called the Fleadh Cheoil. Comhaltas also maintains a massive audio and video archive of Irish music recordings and publishes a line of CDs, DVDs, books, and magazines on Irish music and dance.
The dilemma
As a cultural ambassador with a huge membership, Comhaltas required a website that could attract new members while keeping existing members interested and informed. It needed a look, feel, and voice that evoked tradition, but also established Comhaltas as a modern, forward-thinking organization with broad appeal. Most importantly, the new site needed to convey the richness, accessibility, and communal nature of traditional Irish music.
The existing site fell short of those goals. Its disorganized structure confounded even Comhaltas veterans. Visitors who came in search of tunes or information about musicians found none. Further, the site’s branch listing linked only to branches that maintained their own external websites.
On the administrative side, the site was tough to update. With no content management system in place, all updates had to be performed manually, by someone with appropriate technical skills. For an organization so focused on community, the site spoke with a surprisingly singular, quiet voice.
Happy Cog’s approach
Inviting to newcomers and immediately familiar to longtime members, the new Comhaltas site puts the organization within reach of a global audience for the first time.
Information architecture
Visitors can keep up with the organization and weigh in on important issues in the Comhaltas blog. They can use a locations widget (powered by Google Maps) to find the nearest Comhaltas branch, and can coordinate vacations with upcoming events. Above all, they can access a growing archive of audio, video, photography, and sheet music related to traditional Irish music. RSS feeds peppered throughout the site allow users to subscribe to content that interests them.
The entire site is available in both English and Irish. Switching between the languages is never more than a click away, and the language switcher’s placement just beneath the Comhaltas logo reinforces the organization’s dedication to the Irish language.
Visual design
Taking cues from common color schemes and knot patterns in centuries-old Celtic art.
The site’s design avoids offensive and tired visual clichés (shamrocks, leprechauns, excessive use of green) in favor of subtle influences from traditional Celtic art. From the moment the homepage loads, Comhaltas’s essence is made manifest via clear, simple copy and immersive visuals. Straightforward navigation and page structure make it easy for visitors to find their way around—and impossible to get lost.
CMS integration
We also provided a custom content management system (CMS) that puts control of all of the site’s content in the hands of Comhaltas staff members. Since the site now includes pages for each of the organization’s hundreds of branches, the CMS accommodates hundreds of users (and allows an administrator to manage them with ease).
Read more
- Rob Weychert: Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann
- Dan Mall: Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann
Responsibilities
Information architecture, content strategy, graphic design, user interface design, CSS/XHTML template development, custom CMS development. Launched 15 February 2007.