Tunes in the Church/Cormac Begley Workshop - Did I Get Scammed?

[Ty Bowen]

Hello Everyone,

 

This all started early last year when I stumbled upon this Wordpress site claiming to be the site for famous concertinist Cormac Begley.

 

https://www.cormacbegley.com/workshops/

 

Here it promises that there is an upcoming concertina workshop, and that one can get on a list to be notified with further information, which I did, in early 2025, or maybe even late 2024.

 

I responded to this email, from "concertinacourses@gmail.com" to ask some details, which they never responded to. I then thought, "Well, I don't want to lose my spot!" so I went ahead and wired €500 to the account above (raw email edited out) in November.

 

I then sent an email asking them to confirm receipt of the deposit. I have not received a reply. I have never received a reply to anything I have sent this email address. I have tried other email addresses for Mr. Begley, and I have even tried emailing the titular church in "Tunes in the Church" who have also not responded. I reached out to a few other notable Irish concertinists whom I will not name, one of which I know has collaborated with Mr. Begley, who have not replied either. 

 

My question is, does anyone know anything about this course? Was it ever real? Is the site real? Do famous Irish musicians just take ridiculously long to reply to an email?

 

Thank you for any information.

 

-Ty

Oregon, USA

Edited January 7 by Ty Bowen

[Jillser Nic Amhlaoibh]

The course is very real - I attended the one held in Sept of last year and it was a great experience. I do know from following Cormac on Instagram that he's been away both performing and on holiday in recent months. Could just be the timing - end of the year, Christmas, New Year playing a role in the lack of communication, or perhaps there's someone new handling the admin side of things for him?

 

What I would suggest is removing the verbatim text of the email you got with the the bank details from your post above because having that posted here in a public forum does risk some scammer seeing it and editing it/using it for their own malicious purposes.

 

Hope things get sorted out for ye - I highly recommend the course: very happy with the accomodation, other activities and food, wonderful course content, the company of lovely people and great craic altogether in a beautiful part of the country.

Edited 14 hours ago by Jillser Nic Amhlaoibh