Coronavirus arts measures: The government took an arts policy and made it into a branding strategy

Last week, Minister for Culture Josepha Madigan launched new arts measures to cope with the pandemic, with €500,000 invested by the department. Photo: Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht

There’s a scene in Here Comes the Night, Rosemary Jenkinson’s lacerating comedy set during the 1916 centenary, when a culture minister arrives at the house of two new homeowners in Belfast. The minister wants to install a plaque onsite to commemorate a nationalist writer, but the couple don’t want the attention. 

“Is this some kind of joke to you? The whole point is to interrogate the past, give voice to the forgotten, give these streets a new identity,” says the minister. Here is a politician responsible for the arts, on the scent of good publicity. Who can quote the hunger strikers, but doesn’t know who Sophocles was. 

In 2013, there was similar talk of culture being used for publicity. Jimmy Deenihan, the first Fine Gael politician assigned the arts ministry when the party became the largest in government, was answering parliamentary questions about Limerick City of Culture. “It is about buy-in. Limerick must seize this opportunity to brand itself in a positive way, capitalising on its rich culture,” he said, making art sound like a marketing tool. 

The day-to-day reality of Ireland sitting at the bottom of the European investment league wasn’t a priority for Deenihan’s successor Heather Humphries. But she did make an additional €48m appear out of thin air, for an initiative marking the 1916 centenary. €2.5 million of this went into Centenary, an acclaimed concert televised from the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre. It told the story of a nation, stirred by artists and agitators, inspired to occupy the GPO, and undergo the work of building a republic.

In branding, the quality of the product reflects on the producer. It was easy to peer into the centenary celebrations as one impressive large-scale spectacle, to be awed by the government for the strength of its cultural assets, the brilliance of collective imagination, and the convincing illusion that it funds artists properly. 

By the time Josepha Madigan became Minister for Culture, the corrosive effects of the arts policy were already being seen, in the decline of national touring, the disappearance of venues, and the closure of production companies. A promise to double funding from 2017 levels was published in her department’s Culture 2025 document, but it already lagged behind. A €1.25m increase was allocated to the Arts Council this year. It needed to be €13.5m to stay on course. 

Last week, the minister launched new arts measures to cope with the pandemic, with €500,000 invested by the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. In other words, 20% of the budget for the Centenary concert. 

It was a vapid launch, where the minister mostly spoke of the importance of online content. A new Arts Council Covid-19 Crisis Response Award has been created, comparable to a support grant designed by the English Arts Council, except award recipients must make art to upload online. Rather than help artists recover losses, they might be put to work as digital media creators. 

The launch contrasted with an announcement made last month by Germany’s Culture Minister, where the language was all about rescuing cultural institutions, making loans available to venues and employers, a relaxing of housing expenses, all made possible by a €50 billion euro aid package. 

Grimly, the government’s brand-obsessed arts policy has seized the pandemic as the opportunity for another spectacle, one that reflects on the resourcefulness and imagination of the state, while not having to invest properly in artists. With the Sunday Times reporting that €6.4m of income has been lost from cancelled art events, this unsustainable policy is dangerously close to its endgame, exploiting creativity until artists face ruin. 

W.B. Yeats was no labour man, but once, during another workers’ struggle, he did capture greedy elites by how they “fumble in a greasy till”. That money box now seems so covered with grime, the buttons no longer function.

What on earth will it take to release the funding inside?