The Arts Council of Northern Ireland is taking new directions. This year's revenue funding allocations mark a break from the past. "The directions are new and they do give an indication of the way we'll be going in the next few years," confirms the Council's Director of Public Affairs, Damian Smyth.

Briefly put, a lot of the money is now going to community arts organisations, to widen access to the arts. The Culturlann Mac Adam O Fiaich, an Irish-language cultural centre on the Falls Road received £100,000 this year, for instance, an increase of £44,000 on the previous year. Feile an Phobail, the summer festival in nationalist West Belfast will receive £45,000, an increase of £35,000. Both had lobbied long, loud and at times, bitterly, for more Arts Council funding. iona Ruane, Director of Feile an Phobail: "No-one," wrote Smyth, "is going to mistake Feile's old crock's football challenge, bus run to Butlins, taxi tours, the annual black mountain walk, the Pound Loney day (all pints £1), Sooty's disco or the West Belfast guider grand prix - splendid though they are - as specifically artistic experiences."

Among the other community arts initiatives which have received major funding increases are the Aisling Ghear Irish-language theatre group, whose funding went up from £13,000 to £40,000, and the Community Arts Forum, whose funding doubled, to £50,000. JustUs Theatre Company, which has up to now staged controversial plays about the nationalist, working-class experience, got their first Arts Council grant, £15,000.

Meanwhile, some more traditional venues have lost out. The Grand Opera House's revenue funding has been cut by £46,000.

The Arts Council of Northern Ireland's funding stands at around £15 million, of which £9 million was disbursed in the revenue funding allocations which were announced. The council's funding has not increased significantly in the last 10 years and the Minister for Culture, Arts and Leisure stated last year that jobs would be lost due to the Government's failure to support the arts to a greater degree. However, this year the Arts Council managed to use Lottery funds as part of their revenue funding, rather than being forced to spend them on capital projects. Aided by this, support for the individual artist in the North will more than double this year, to roughly £500,000. Informed by Anthony Everitt's assessment of the council's delivery of its last plan, To the Millennium, the council is making a pitch to Government with a new five year plan. Like An Chomairle Ealaion, it wants to move to multi-annual funding - and it wants more money.

The council's new direction is also informed by Everitt's report, as well as the existence and vision of DECAL, as the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure is affectionately known. Responsibility for the change is also being laid at the door of the new chief executive of the council, Roisin Mc Donough, who has a background in community development organisations such as the West Belfast Partnership and there have been accusations of "social engineering". Mc Donough argues that the North is a special case in terms of its levels of division and exclusion; that's why, she says, there is an emphasis on funding art "located in places and communities which provide a very rich product and access for people who wouldn't maybe go to traditional arts venues." She echoes Damian Smyth's denial that the council's funding seems tilted towards nationalist communities. Smyth cites the increase in funding from £13,000 to £40,000 to the Beat Initiative in East Belfast which runs the Belfast Carnival, for instance, and adds that links between community arts workers are so strong that you can't judge exactly to which community funding is going to from the street the organisation is on "any more than you have to be a Catholic if you're a bus driver on the Falls Road."

"We know," says Roisin Mc Donough, "that some of the differences we have in Northern Ireland are because we have such a strong sense of place and identity and people's vision is driven inwards. By making the arts more accessible, we're hoping to open out people's vision."

So the arts are being used to engineer a new society. But in 10 years' time, I suggest, there might no longer be a need for such engineering - there might be a quite different Northern Ireland. "We hope very much there will be," says Mc Donough.