Sir, - The Irish Times has always been diligent in covering the arts in Northern Ireland. It is all the more disappointing, then, that Pol O Muiri should misrepresent the Arts Council of Northern Ireland's funding of the arts in the Irish language (Front Row, September 10th).
The Arts Council's policy regarding Irish is laid out in two languages in To The Millennium: A Strategy for the Arts in Northern Ireland. As an adviser on funding matters to this same Arts Council in creative arts (covering literature, visual arts, craft and traditional arts), Dr O Muiri will know that. He will also know that the council's record in providing for Irish-language arts is a credible one, stretching back more than 21 years. Where there is an arts organisation which provides quality creative activity in Irish, the council will be found as either its sole or among its core funders, whether it be Culturlann McAdam-O Fiaich, the Irish-language arts centre on the Falls Road, Aisling Ghear Theatre Company or Ti Chulainn in south Armagh, which alone has received £373,944.
Dr O Muiri goes on to quote Aodan Mac Poilin's "sharp analysis" of "the council's failure to provide properly for the Irish language". Again, this is a misrepresentation. It is not the Arts Council's job to "provide" for any language; it is, however, somewhat ironically, the job of the government-funded ULTACH Trust of which Mr Mac Poilin is director. Furthermore, as far as the arts in Irish are concerned, Mr Mac Poilin is ideally placed to influence the Council's funding, as he too is a member of the Creative Arts advisory panel.
The council's staff is capable of processing applications for funding in whatever language they appear. It is the role of members of advisory panels to give additional and independent advice on the eligibility and artistic merit of such applications. Hence, the council is soon to announce a joint writer's residency in Irish at both Queen's University and the University of Ulster.
All this simply reinforces the point made by Prof Brian Walker, the new Arts Council chairman, at the Visioning the Future conference in Enniskillen on September 3rd. It may be, in Dr O Muiri's view, a "worn mantra" that the council supports the arts in Irish and applications from writers of Irish. Another observation is that it is also true. - Yours, etc., Damian Smyth,
Public Affairs Officer,
Arts Council of Northern Ireland,
Belfast.