After years of struggle, and in the middle of a global pandemic, the value of cultural work seems to have been rewarded in Ireland. Toner Quinn charts the fall and rise of appreciation for - and funding of - the arts.
The scale of the funding increase for the arts and music sector in last week’s Budget was so significant that it is important to understand fully what happened.
The government gave €130m to the Arts Council, plus another €50m for the live entertainment sector. To put this into context, the Council’s funding had peaked at €83m during the Celtic Tiger, thirteen years ago. When the economic crash hit in 2008, the government cut arts funding every year for seven years, by 30% in total. The infrastructure that relied on it was enfeebled. With less work, artists changed careers or emigrated. In those years, it seemed that no matter how strong an argument the arts sector put forward – for creativity in the digital age, for the economic impact of the arts, for its importance to tourism – it had little impact on the state. Politicians listened attentively but did little and muttered about ‘difficult decisions’... Keep reading on The Journal of Music
The scale of the funding increase for the arts and music sector in last week’s Budget was so significant that it is important to understand fully what happened.
The government gave €130m to the Arts Council, plus another €50m for the live entertainment sector. To put this into context, the Council’s funding had peaked at €83m during the Celtic Tiger, thirteen years ago. When the economic crash hit in 2008, the government cut arts funding every year for seven years, by 30% in total. The infrastructure that relied on it was enfeebled. With less work, artists changed careers or emigrated. In those years, it seemed that no matter how strong an argument the arts sector put forward – for creativity in the digital age, for the economic impact of the arts, for its importance to tourism – it had little impact on the state. Politicians listened attentively but did little and muttered about ‘difficult decisions’... Keep reading on The Journal of Music