Artists will be at the heart of renewal

Like many organisations, the National Campaign for the Arts (NCFA) has over the past few weeks been busy preparing its pre-budget submission for the Government, local authorities and other funding bodies.

It has also launched an ambitious longer-term campaign, ‘2016 The Republic of Culture’, which aims to restore arts and culture to the central role in Irish society which they enjoyed at the foundation of the state.

The NCFA, a volunteer-led movement which makes the case for the arts in Ireland, sees the new campaign as particularly relevant given the current Decade of Commemorations and, more especially, the centenary of the 1916 Rising in which writers and artists played such a prominent role. Indeed, artists have long enjoyed an honoured place in our national consciousness, from cairn builders 5,000 years ago and manuscript illuminators of early Christian times to those involved as protagonists and rebels in the foundation of the state.