Arts Council cuts funding to children’s books yet still supports animal circuses

Suzanne Harrington asks whose genius idea was it to cut children’s books while still funding animal suffering?

My kids are half Irish – my half, thank you – but don’t live in Ireland. This means that at school they don’t learn about Irish history and culture, but I’m sure they’ll read the great Irish writers when they’re older, if they can ever drag their faces away from their phones and iPads long enough to focus on Ulysses.

So not anytime soon, obviously.

Meanwhile, their Irish cultural education has been through children’s books. That is, books written for children and young adults that are about Ireland and Irish history and culture.

From the usual Celtic fairy tales when they were small to a potted history of the life of James Joyce in graphic novel form (because you can hardly offer a 14-year-old the brilliant but five-ton Richard Ellmann biography, unless you wanted to put them off both Joyce and reading in general for life); Irish cultural books for kids are an amazing invention.

We have come a long way from the kill-me-now tedium of Peig Sayers’ prototype misery memoir. Sorry, Peig, but your name still induces entire generations to rummage for their cyanide pill.

Thankfullly we have moved on from Peig, but what about Irish kids who may not want an exclusive diet of Anglicsed or Americanised culture?

What about kids abroad of Irish parentage who would like to know about Finn MacCool, Brian Boru, Samuel Beckett, or why Easter 1916 is an important date? (Or more accurately, have parents who would like them to know).

The Joyce graphic novel, written by a Spaniard called Alfonso Zapico and published by O’Brien Press, was so good I read it myself all in one go.

O’Brien Press is the biggest publisher of children’s books in Ireland. They also do graphic novels on stuff like Jim Larkin and the War of Independence, bringing history to life in formats accessible to kids.

What they produce is unique, and culturally invaluable. So why then has the Arts Council of Ireland cut their funding for these kids’ books by 84% this year, hacking their budget for this particular literary resource from €63,000 to a miserable €10,000?

Oh, well, it must be austerity. That usually explains everything these days, right? Except it most definitely is not.

A recent report in The Journal.ie reported how the Arts Council of Ireland has given nearly €750,000 to animal circuses over the last six years. According to my calculator, that’s €125,000 per year on animal captivity, exploitation and suffering.

You may as well fund a fur farm, so outmoded and hideous is the concept of putting ‘arts funding’ and ‘captive animals’ in the same sentence, never mind writing it on the same cheque.

WTF, Arts Council of Ireland?

Whose genius idea was that, to cut children’s books while still funding animal suffering?

According to a 2012 investigation by the Captive Animals’ Protection Society, the Arts Council gave almost €1 million Irish tax payers’ money to animal circuses between 2006 and 2012. Yet just €10,000 for Irish kids books this year.

Does anyone else think this might be just a tiny bit WRONG?