THERE IS a bandwagon rolling through the country at the moment and there’s a danger it could break down under the weight of the number of people jumping on it. It was set in motion at the Global Economic Forum in Farmleigh last September when one particular idea very much came to the fore – the key role of the arts in our economic regeneration.
Since Farmleigh the notion that “Brand Ireland” is synonymous with our creativity has commanded attention that was unimaginable not so long ago. This championing of the importance of the arts is a welcome recognition of their value and there is a great deal of merit in exploring, and supporting through adequate investment, the potential of this great resource.
The appointment of Gabriel Byrne as a cultural emissary is imaginative and he will be a force in that role; so too, the importance of Culture Ireland in promoting the work of our artists abroad should not be underestimated. But the real investment must centre on those who actually create the art that drives people outside of Ireland to connect with our heritage and traditions.
The arts – and the role of artists – have to be valued on their own terms and not as a commodity. Musician and film-maker Philip King’s address to the Willie Clancy summer school over the weekend is worth heeding, especially his cautionary note that “the language of the market place, with its distortions of the ordinary into the unintelligible, is not compatible with the language of our tradition. The market does not husband and nurture resources. It exploits and ‘leverages’ them, it mines them, and if unchecked will open cast mine them before moving on ”.
Ireland’s new Professor of Poetry, Harry Clifton, took up a similar theme when he spoke about “the crush of market forces where the human mind becomes a commodity to be sold to the highest bidder”. No doubt what was on his mind was the current debate about the downgrading of the liberal arts in our universities.
The suggestion that Ireland’s “world-class achievement in creativity” can provide a panacea is now being bounced around, almost willy-nilly, as part of political and economic discourse. Hopes for a boost in visitor numbers are pinned on “cultural tourism”: what we do not appear to have, as yet, is any joined up thinking and what is emphatically missing from the current discourse is any acknowledgment of the more fundamental role of the arts in the wellbeing and balance of society. It is not all about tourism.