Culture Ireland (Friday 3 October 2008)

I worry that I am going the wrong way about Culture Ireland, for a lot of reasons (see the most recirca.com news item here). I have been complaining, not so much that the amount Culture Ireland gives to the visual arts is relatively small, compared to other artforms; my complaint is more that we don’t know why it is relatively small. Over the time of existence of Culture Ireland, the visual arts have taken 13% of the total disbursed. Is this fair? We don’t know, because we don’t know how the visual arts are performing in relation to other artforms, in terms of amounts requested and amounts granted; ie, there is no transparency. Had the visual arts been fortunate enough to receive the same amount of funding over the lifetime of Culture Ireland as have Theatre + Dance (Culture Ireland lumps them together), the visual arts would have received an extra €3.5 million. That’s a lot of profile, promotion, careers. More anon.