EVERYTHING is great, isn't its We're all fine, aren't we? We're better than fine, we're brilliant glittering and gifted by birth each and every one. You, me, him, her, that guy over there. All of us. These really are the days. Aren't they? Listen, it's a simple, two step programme. Step one you believe it. Step two it's true.

Speaking in Paris recently at the launch of a series of Irish arts events in the city, President Robinson spoke of "a cultural renaissance" which had taken place in Ireland in recent years. There was, it seems, a kind of unique period of renewal underway. While any speech made by any president must necessarily be constructed with several agendas in mind, it seemed in some way that President Robinson was giving voice to, well something plenty of people "back home felt.

There was a time when, although Ireland could boast writers of international repute, activity in other areas of the arts did not achieve the same level of recognition or, perhaps, competency. As far back as 1993, the international art magazine, Art forum noted that while English literature students throughout the world could probably name a number of Irish writers, "the visual arts classes across the hall" would be hard pressed to name any Irish artist before the 1970s. This was about to change, the magazine hinted.

In the three years since Art forum's Irish issue, the cultural sector in Ireland has altered even more dramatically that the magazine anticipated. In the area of visual arts, for example, Irish practitioners can now aspire not only to participate in mammoth initiatives, such as L'Imaginaire Irlandais, but also to show at contemporary art biennials as far apart as Venice and Sao Paulo. Indeed, it will soon be considered a very poor year in which no Irish artist takes an award at the Venice Biennale, wins the Booker Prize, gets nominated for the Turner Prize or obtains a Nobel Prize. Or so it seems.

"Renaissance may just be a marketing term which sounds nice," says Paula Clancy, who has studied extensively the business and marketing face of the Irish arts scene. "But if it covers a notion that there is increased activity and development, I think there is evidence that is happening, certainly in some art forms the very fact that so many people seem convinced that there is something unique in Ireland is certainly worth investigating."

Clancy was responsible for (among other things) The Public and the Arts, a 1994 document which attempted to put a notion of a resurgence in the arts in Ireland into statistical perspective. "Are arts growing in some way in Ireland which is different to other countries? Well, I'm not sure that there is any evidence to suggest that," she says. "There is a growth in audiences, but whether that means there is a growth in activity is a moot point. Certainly, what we found was that there were lots of new organisations, but there was a big turnover in organisations too. So whether there is a real growth, it's hard to be sure.

There are, however, certain key areas in which Clancy perceives change. Changes in attitudes towards strategic planning and marketing in the sector, she says, have been dramatic. "When I started this work, there was still a resistance in some quarters to looking on the arts as an industry rather than an artistic endeavour. There have been a lot of efforts made at different levels to shape the arts as an industry and to convince people that it has potential at that level with, you might say, a fair degree of success.

Clancy's latest study examines three key Irish industries music, software and dairy in an attempt to uncover something akin to "The Irishness of Irish Art, or as it is translated in the language of marketing the source of competitiveness" which Ireland enjoys.

There is a notion that there is something peculiarly attractive about Ireland as a cultural location, which leads into the whole notion that we're a good source for cultural tourism and that we have this heritage of excellence in certain art forms... the notion around is that Ireland Inc., or some element of Ireland Inc., is actually a source of competitiveness.

At least one part of the expansion of the cultural sector in recent times has been an increase in emphasis on a political level. Almost everybody contacted in the course of this piece saw the creation of a Ministry of Culture, and the presence of a minister seriously engaged with cultural provision as crucial to this period of renewal in the arts in Ireland. Most feared that, if the post were to disappear with the present government, expansion could be seriously stymied.

All of which is not to say that there are no other forces at play. Arts Council chairman Ciaran Benson believes that any growth experienced in the arts in Ireland today has to be related to changes, such as the introduction of free education and the widespread expectation for third level education.

Consequently, he would prefer the term "efflorescence" to describe the current state of the arts "I think efflorescence suggests seeds that have been planted, they've been tended and cared for and now they're coming into spring and sunshine. What is happening now is the result of changes in the past, as well as the talents of the present generation. Infrastructure is not very glamorous but it is terribly important to sustain this sort of work."

Not that all infrastructure is without glamour. If there is an Irish cultural renaissance, then Temple Bar would be its Florence. A gleaming, riverside home for cultural production, the area often feels like a tiny city state ruled by a royal family of arts administrators. It offers all the facilities an artistic community could ask for painting, sculpture and photographic studios, exhibition space, archives, training centres, performance spaces, bars and at least one, Arthouse, that it might not have thought of Patricia Quinn is Cultural Director of Temple Bar Properties, the organisation established to run the various arts facilities in the "cultural quarter". As Quinn sees it, any talk of renaissance would have to be seen in term of alteration in the nature of cultural practice. "To put it at its simplest, the perceptible change that I can see is that artists are more engaged with other people to produce, or to produce and disseminate work," says Quinn.

This in turn has lead to a much greater visibility for the arts. "The fact that cultural practice, or culture, or art, or whatever your preferred definition, is recognised by a wider and wider group of people is very important. Political recognition is important, of course, but so is recognition by people who are not necessarily interested in the arts.

Although institutions in the Temple Bar area have yet to prove their value, their existence seems to stand as the monument to a expansive cultural climate, or as Quinn stresses, to a new confidence about entering onto a larger stage. Monuments need not, of course, be in built in glass and re enforced concrete. President Robinson's presence in France last month marked one of the high points of L'Imaginaire Irlandais, one of two major cultural export drives that will be launched in Europe this year.

"I think there is a feeling that over the last ten years there has been a particularly good period for art in Ireland, but the names people know abroad are older ones," says Doireann Ni Bhriain, Irish commissioner for L'Imaginaire Irlandais. "So perhaps `renaissance' is just the type of word we have to use to explain that there is something new going on.

ALTHOUGH she sees the coincidence of the initiatives in France and Germany as simply that, coincidence, there are also other factors at play. "You don't go out and flog yourself unless you feel good about yourself. So it's not complete chance in that sense. I think the festival is evidence of a new sense of self confidence."

Meanwhile, in Germany, speaking at the launch of the second of our European invasions this year, the Ireland and Its Diaspora Festival, a few days after President Robinson's comments, Lar Cassidy spoke of "bringing some of the flavour of the Irish cultural renaissance with us to Germany in the autumn. But while Cassidy, in his role as Festival Director, is happy to highlight a "renaissance" the German press, he suggests, have already latched onto the word he is sensible of a gap between how cultural life in Ireland might described abroad and how it might be experience at home.

We do have to celebrate that at the moment there is an extraordinary rang of very gifted individual artists, living together and interacting together all in one place," says Cassidy. "But I think it's all still at the beginning, and it's all still fragile."