Just published in Verbal Magazine

Ireland has a reputation as a land where artists can thrive. Often, Ireland don’t deserve that reputation. I believe it makes long term economic, social, and cultural sense to ensure we keep funding the arts in Ireland for two reasons. First, the arts are an end in themselves; they mature us as a society, they provoke us, enthral us, and, at their best, the arts hold a mirror to the nation.

The arts are like healthcare. Healthcare provisions in Ireland are inefficient, expensive, and the true benefits are seldom seen, but if we take state provision of healthcare away, it is obvious society as a whole will suffer. This is because healthcare has lots of positive spillovers—healthy people enjoy life more, are more productive, and make society wealthier than sick people. Infectious disease control, for example, helps everyone in society, because it reduces the likelihood of everyone else getting sick. The government pays to build and run a hospital, not for a profit, but because, in the end, it is the only one who can afford to provide a service that no-one could possibly profit from, such as disease control.

The arts have a similar role as a pure public good. Great art enhances our lives indirectly, even though we don’t directly pay for the art ourselves. Ordinary people can’t afford a Carravaggio: they couldn’t afford to pay him to paint a picture, nor could they afford to keep the picture in the correct manner. The government can. We all benefit when we see great works displayed. It makes our lives richer, and the paintings of the masters don’t go away: we can keep them for centuries if we are careful. The arts represent a long-term investment in the cultural and economic health of the nation.

Which brings me to my second reason for urging for continued support for the arts: it makes economic sense. Ireland is the land of WB (and JB) Yeats, of Patrick Kavanagh, of James Joyce, of Brendan Kennelly and even Celia Ahern. Millions of people come each year to visit the places these writers took inspiration from. They don’t bring sandwiches. Tourists spend millions in Ireland every year, bringing revenue to, and creating jobs in, one of the most labour-intensive sectors—the hotel and catering industries, which together employ more people than the civil service.

Continued support of the arts makes economic and cultural sense, both in the short term and long-term. In the short term the art we produced in the past brings visitors here, which sustains and creates jobs today, and the art we produce today and tomorrow will bring visitors to our shores for decades to come, and enrich our society as surely as the poets, painters, and visual artists of the past have done so far.
To the long-term. What can we expect from the arts by 2050? 2050 isn’t that far away. Most of the people reading this piece will be alive to see it. Children born this year can expect to live to be 100. Chances are your kids, your nieces, and your nephews will see the 22nd Century. You might too. If you took out a mortgage in 2006 for 35 years, you’ll only pay that off by 2042 at the earliest. We are all invested in Ireland’s future. I believe our focus is too short term in many respects. Yes, we do face serious challenges, from a rising unemployment rate, a banking sector in crisis, and an international economy in free fall. But as serious as they are, these crises will pass.

And where will be then?

Assuming our policy makers cut funding to the arts in the next few months, and assuming further that series of cuts has a real effect on the level and quality of art being produced in Ireland—films not getting made, artists unable to realise projects fully, and so forth—the long run impact of this funding cut will never be felt. It won’t be felt, because we won’t know what we’ve lost, because the art will never have been created. The artist will move on to other projects, perhaps other countries, and where the statue might have stood, we will just have grass. Tourists, by and large, don’t travel to see grass. Funding will return when the economy improves, bit by bit, but that art won’t return with the funding, because great art is a function of the artist’s reaction to their subject at a moment in time. Ireland will be poorer for it.

The arts in 2050 will be changed by a host of factors. Hopefully we can stop the damaging effects of the Leaving Certificate, which turns our best and brightest into gifted list learners, rather than bringing out their creativity.

I have a hard-nosed reason for emphasizing creativity as a necessary educational tool. Creative people make things. They want to sell those things. They create businesses to sell those things, and hire people to help them do that. The jobs created are normally high value (French for: well-paid) jobs, and so society will get richer as a result of the taxes these well heeled individuals and business owners pay to the State, to support their by now wrinkly forebears: that’s, you and I, dear reader.

More creative people means more, and perhaps better, art. I’m sure they will use the best available collaborative tools on the web to do some of this work, using their increased free time to do so, but I’m not really interested in technology in my new book. Yes, technology will change things, but not sufficiently so that they are unrecognisable. I’m more interested in Ireland in 2050 in the fundamental forces that will shape Ireland’s production of art for years to come.

Ireland’s population will be older, richer, and healthier. Some older people (like us) with large discretionary incomes will buy art, and will be in a position to support artists through their taxes. A more creative and art-savvy population is likely to provide excellent markets for the artists of the future to sell their work into. Thanks to increases in the leisure time available to them, older people will also be able to enjoy the benefits of our country’s investment in art in previous generations.

Climate change will also change the type of art we enjoy outdoors. Projected increases in the level of rainfall ensure that we will do more of our daily activities indoors, including enjoying artwork. Flooding of sites of historical and cultural interest, like Ringsend, will have to be avoided through the creation of levies and other coastal and river defences.

The future is bright for Ireland’s artists today and tomorrow, if we take a longer view, and look upon the creation and usage of art in the right way—as an investment in the interests of the public good by providing this public good.