Recognising that only culture can credibly define the country

Engagement with culture and art as an essential part of every child’s education, writes Gerard Howlin

TOMORROW, Creative Ireland (CI) will be launched, having been approved at cabinet yesterday.

It will be the second CI among the State’s arts acronyms, the other being Culture Ireland. It is both an aftermath of the successful 1916 centenary celebrations, and a bridge to the more contentious centenaries of the Treaty and civil war. It is billed as a bureaucratic start-up to energise, synthesise, and leave behind an official Ireland that belatedly recognises the centrality of culture in national life. It is monogrammed with the Taoiseach’s imprimatur. Critically, the official group supporting the initiative will be headed by the secretary general of the Taoiseach’s department, Martin Fraser. In terms of system, that’s heft and potentially more of it than any official cultural programme has had for a long time.