John O'Donoghue was a surprise choice for Arts Minister; one year on, he tells Deirdre Falvey why his job is like being a Kerry selector
John O'Donoghue, Minister for Arts of just one year, self-described "ethnic Kerryman" and John B. Keane fan, is a great one for the colourful analogy. Take, for instance, his response when asked about his appointment of the new, reduced Arts Council, which he will announce by the end of the month.
"It's great fun, isn't it? I feel like the Kerry selectors. I've got an abundance of talent; I know I'm going to win the match. It's only a question of where I place them." He laughs. "The problem is that in this match the subs get no medals! Even if we win!"
Though he keeps mum on any decisions he might have made, he does at least give an indication of his thinking on the appointment of six men, six women, plus a chairperson. "I have considered this in great detail," he says. "Suffice to say this: it's not going to be a kind of Arts Council which is in any way one- dimensional. It's not going to be blinkered. I'm not going to have an Arts Council which is representational of sectors. Neither am I going to have an Arts Council which is politically or geographically representative. I want to have an Arts Council where each individual feels that he or she can make a contribution to the overall interests of the sector. I don't have any time for narrow views."
We're talking in his office on the ground floor of the art deco building on Kildare Street, Dublin, which houses the department, an elegant room with a large, busy desk at one end, a board table and walls of contemporary art from the State collection. There's a Jane O'Malley, a Sean McSweeney, a Patrick Collins, a Martin Gale behind his desk. And his own personal picture, which travels with him to whichever office he occupies, of Daniel O'Connell, the Great Liberator, and a personal icon for O'Donoghue.
O'Connell, John B. Keane, Bryan MacMahon, folk history, the ethnic Kerryman thing - very traditional tastes in culture. O'Donoghue was born in 1956, but seems in some ways older than his years: in his interests, which are of an older generation, and in his almost courtly, deliberate use of language. He's stiff at first, but later relaxes a bit, charmingly lapsing into stories and verse.
He is also a consummate, professional politician. When he was appointed to the newly created Ministry of Arts, Sport and Tourism last year, after seven years at Justice - five as minister, two as opposition spokesman - there was widespread surprise, and not just within the arts sector. No one knew what to expect of Mr Zero Tolerance transplanted to a garden of dance and poetry; he was a mystery man in terms of where he stood on cultural policy, and what possible interest he had in the area. He must have been just as surprised, or even horrified, himself - but he's too much the politician to give away how he really felt.
"When I left the Department of Justice and those days behind me, I closed a chapter in my political life, which I always wanted to open and which I have no regrets about opening, but I looked upon the new position as a brand new chapter. All right, I carried with me the experience of administrating a very large department over a relatively protracted period of time, but I saw it as an opportunity and a challenge - and perhaps a chance to look on the sunnier side of the street," he says.
This couldn't be a more different brief, "but at this remove, one year on, it's fair to say the vista of a Patrick Collins painting or the lakes of Killarney or the football fields of Ireland are just that little bit more enticing than the gates of Mountjoy". Later, he comments "to the uninitiated it seems like a far easier job, but what people forget is the vast majority of people I know have a far greater interest in what I am at now than when I was minister of justice. It's a complete change of position for me, but it isn't a change of culture. I regard it as a return to roots. You must remember I grew up on the sporting fields, on the racing fields, on the greyhound fields of Ireland, and I'm from the county of Bryan McMahon and John B. Keane, Peig Sayers and Sigerson Clifford. I'm also from the tourism capital of Ireland. So it's really a return-to-sender".
All the same, it has been perceived by colleagues that arts is the part of his brief with which he is least comfortable. There may have been times when he has seemed a fish out of water, but he has been visible at theatre openings, galleries, sending Katie Holten off to the Venice biennale, at the Irish enclosure at Cannes, launching the Music Board report. He has spent time over the year meeting a huge range of people "from film to theatre, from literature to dance, right across the spectrum really, and what I have found in my year here, without wanting to seem in any way patronising, is a very vibrant arts community which is excited about the future".
His tastes may not be in contemporary art, but he's keen to listen to what everyone has to say. He says it's been "a great learning experience". And, indeed, that seems to be a key to it. He doesn't have the lifetime of genuine commitment that poet and first arts minister Michael D had, nor even the interest that Síle Dev had, in the arts, but he seems to have set to acquainting himself fully with the brief, appointing Fiach Mac Conghail (who has a finger in any number of arty pies) as adviser, taking soundings, getting involved (nay, relishing) the rough and tumble of the Arts Bill debate. He's a formidable politician, used to tough briefs. He seems, and this is a perception echoed by people in the arts, to have taken it as a challenge, to get on top of it and make a success of it.
"I'm a veteran of 50 different pieces of legislation in criminal law and civil law reform," he comments. "And I cannot remember any piece of legislation which had as much passion, as much debate, as the Arts Bill. At first, that surprised me."
And if he's got systematically stuck into the brief because of political expediency rather than personal commitment, it may be no bad thing to have someone tough at Cabinet level fighting for the arts. He will be judged on what he does rather than what he says; most immediately, there are the Arts Council appointments, then how he delivers financially when it comes to Estimates time, particularly after last year's bruising cuts. "I'll have to go and fight my corner in relation to funding for my department, like every other minister," he says.
"The council has set out its multi- annual funding plan. It wasn't set out by the Government - because funding for any department is based on the Estimates. My function is to maximise the money obtainable for the arts, and that I will do to the best of my ability."
He points out that Charlie McCreevy increased spending on the Arts Council by 80 per cent between 1997 and 2002, even if was from a low base and during a boom. "I think to be fair to him, he is well-disposed. So fingers crossed. And gloves on as well." Kid or boxing? I ask. Well, metaphorical boxing, he laughs.
Given the cuts in December's budget there is obviously a question mark over the Arts Plan, which envisages increases in funding until 2006. So what is the status of the plan? "The Arts Plan is Government policy at the moment," he says (and you wonder about the phrase "at the moment"). He stresses that without knowing the figures, it's hard to proceed, but if funding isn't enough, "then we have to see if it is necessary to lengthen the period of the Plan or, in the alternative, look at specific areas which require attention now and try and enhance those".
He comments that he'd like "to see the arts sector itself assume a greater degree of ownership of the Arts Plan" and be involved if any changes have to be made. And that's a definite question-mark he detects over attitudes to the Arts Plan: "I'm not being in any way critical of people who drew up the plan - but sometimes I get a sense from people involved in the arts that at least some of them are detached from the provisions of the Plan itself, as if it were made up by somebody else and they had no say in its formulation. I have definitely detected it, and it's not something that has been a nuance, it has been bluntly said at times. Which surprised me, to be honest."
He talks about the Plan's objective to make becoming an artist a realistic ambition, and says that "funding cannot be the sole motivator in terms of the arts", and that a "partnership approach" is important. "If we are to be successful in bringing the arts to the people, be it through arts in education or through local authorities, if we are to be successful at quarrying at the coalface, then I think we have to have a spirit of partnership between the Arts Council and individual artists, a spirit of partnership between the Council and the various institutions."
He cites the vibrancy of the regional arts scene, and the role of local authorities and arts officers. "You can centralise all you like, but it brings me back to what President Jefferson said to John Marshall. Jefferson, as we know, was a fairly tough man and Marshall was chief justice of the United States of America, and Marshall delivered a judgment which Jefferson didn't like, and Jefferson said: 'John Marshall has given his judgment. Let him now enforce it - if he can.' And in the same way it is not possible for the Arts Council to enforce any diktat. That's what I mean by a spirit of partnership. I am not saying it is involved in diktats, far from it, but I am saying that if you actually want to become involved in getting into the schools, the local communities, if you want to get into the housing estates and the factories and the homes of people, then you have to have somebody on the ground to help deliver that service."
He is in favour of the council's move towards development. "I am also very much in favour of ensuring a far wider degree of participation. Back in 1934, Daniel Corkery wasn't satisfied with the manner in which post-colonial English literature was travelling and he pointed an accusing finger at the crowd at the Munster hurling final and he asked the immortal question: 'Who speaks for these?' It was a great question, and it's deserving of an answer. And I think that it can be answered by us ensuring - and I know this might just sound populist or even patronising, or almost a cliché, but nonetheless it's true - that people actually have the opportunity to develop their creative natures. If we can succeed in doing that in my ministry I will regard it as a success."
This all fits in with his thinking on what makes great art, and how a sense of snobbery should not be tolerated or encouraged. "I've never held to the notion that you are a great poet if an expert on English literature says you are a great poet. OK, it's fair to say that if experts say you are a great poet then you normally are, but it's also fair to say sometimes the best judges of a great poet are the people. I am greatly reminded of the poet of the Yukon, Robert Service. Service wrote, as you know, 'The Cremation of Sam McGee'." And he quotes a bit of the ditty: "Sam McGee was from Tennessee,/ Where the cotton blooms and blows . . ."
He then mentions another swash- buckling Service poem, 'The Shooting of Dan McGrew', which "I'm sure you might have heard at your father's knee. In the same way, Sigerson Clifford in Kerry wrote of 'the boys of Barr na Sraide, hunting for the wran'. I don't see writers like him mentioned in any analysis of people who made an enormous contribution to English literature. But the truth is that in Service's time it was recognised he did and, in Kerry terms, Sigerson Clifford was a god, and he sits at the right hand of JBK. But he doesn't sit at the left hand of professors of English literature at Trinity College".
His own tastes are unashamedly populist, localised, folksy. "Well, what is art? You could ask what is the stars, I suppose. The truth is that if I walk into this room and - I like that painting by Patrick Collins - and some expert comes in and says 'well, that's worth nothing now' . . . well, you see, it is true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What I'm really trying to get across is - let's allow people to appreciate what they believe to be good. Let's not superimpose our view or anybody else's view of what constitutes good art."
Even when he was in Justice he often went to the theatre. "I'm a Kerryman, after all, so I would have to like the Irish playwrights, especially John B. Keane, who was a very, very good friend of mine. I like to go to the theatre to enjoy what is happening, not necessarily to have to delve into the deeper meaning - although one can do that with Mr Keane and other playwrights as well; perhaps all great playwrights, irrespective of how colourful the language might be.
"I like plays. I like films. I have a great interest in history and literature based on history. I like English literature. I used to like Irish literature more than I do because my Irish isn't as good as it was, but there's no gainsaying the fact that some of the greatest living writers have been writers in the Irish vernacular. And I think we have one or two of them around at the moment, people like Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Máire Mac An tSaoi.
"I'm an ethnic Kerryman, so therefore I would have an interest in matters more colourful. I'm not as boring as I might first seem! You should never judge a book by the cover, if you don't mind me using the pun."
He talks about how "I think we have a form of renaissance, if you like, which hasn't happened since the Famine. That's a fact!" And he talks about artists' retreats, such as Cil Rialaig in his constituency. "I'm certain from my visits around the country that it is replicated. And our function is to try and ensure that the blossoms are opened. That is what I mean by ensuring that we will allow room for creativity to flourish. To allow the blossoms to open. And having the wherewithal to find a fertiliser for that."
