Marketing is not business of art, so let’s get creative on how we treat arts

Arts funding should never be given the agenda of projecting a positive image of its country of origin, writes Victoria White.

If you’re telling me we’re in for another five years of women in big hats and boys on messenger bikes, a la the 1916 centenary celebrations, I’ll have to emigrate. Creative Ireland, launched last week with much fanfare by the Taoiseach, is a plan for arts and culture to form a centre-point of our discussions and celebrations of the foundation of the State in the next five years, to 2022.

I’m cool with that. As the Minister for the Arts, Heather Humphreys and the Taoiseach have mentioned, arts and culture were among the main springboards for Irish independence and their centrality to our existence needs to be recognised.