Relief that the sky didn’t fall on Budget day
Though anxiety inevitably remains in the air, after all the dire advance warnings there was a sense of relief in the book and publishing world after Tuesday’s Budget. “The cut to the Arts Council, while clearly detrimental, is less than we might have feared,” said Jean Harrington, president of Publishing Ireland, the umbrella organisation for Irish publishers.” “This budget has recognised the important role that the arts can play in helping Ireland to economic recovery,” said the Literature Alliance.
Though the 5 per cent cut to Arts Council funding would further reduce literature-promotion programmes, the alliance was confident its members, such as Poetry Ireland, Children’s Books Ireland and Ireland Literature Exchange, could continue to support writers and readers.
Jack Harte of the Irish Writers’ Centre, in survival mode for the past two years, since it lost its core funding from the Arts Council, said the centre was relieved that cuts in the arts were not out of kilter with those throughout the economy; restoration of core funding to the centre was essential, however.
Joseph Woods, director of Poetry Ireland, said, “Given the portents of the last few months, the Budget wasn’t as bad as we had expected, and we’ve already been taking our medicine, with a major cutback in funding last year, and we expect more.” He added, however, that they were concerned about the additional savings required over the next four years as part of the National Recovery Plan.
The Literature Alliance and Publishing Ireland both regretted the reduction in the threshold of the artist’s tax exemption to €40,000. “This does not reflect the reality of an author’s working life, where income earned in one year may reflect many years of unpaid endeavour,” said Harrington.
JG Farrell’s final days as an Irish resident recalled
JG Farrell (pictured), whose novel Troublesobserves the Irish side of the decline of the British empire through the goings-on at a once-grand hotel, and which earlier this year won the Lost Booker Prize, is the subject of a radio documentary next weekend.
Farrell, born in Liverpool of Irish descent, moved to Kilrohane, on the Sheep’s Head Peninsula in west Cork, in March 1979. The previous autumn, on impulse, he’d bought a house there, a quiet place to work in; the new tax scheme for artists was another incentive.
But he lived there for only 149 days before drowning when he was swept off rocks while fishing. On August 10th he wrote to his publisher, saying he hoped to deliver his new novel, The Hill Station, by the end of the year, "barring some unforeseen disaster". By the next day he was dead. He was 44.
This brief, final, time in Ireland is the subject of the documentary, produced by Ciaran Cassidy, called JG Farrell: 149 Days in the Life Of,on RTÉ Radio 1 on Saturday, December 18th, at 6.05pm, repeated the following day at 7pm. It features neighbours, family and friends, including his brother Richard, who recalls seeing the writer's small London flat crammed with wooden cases of vintage wine. The day after Farrell won the Booker in 1973, with The Siege of Krishnapur, he'd spent half his winnings at a wine auction.
Pauline Foley, an Englishwoman who was living near Bantry, recalls witnessing the drowning. “Farrell turned back, started to cast and slipped. I think it was more of a slip than the waves,” she says. “He looked at me and he went under.” Farrell’s body was recovered a month later; he is buried in St James’s Church of Ireland cemetery in Durrus.
