Clodagh Finn: Why we need to invest in the arts even more in a crisis

Even before Covid, every artist needed to have a “side-hustle”, as artist Jesse Jones put it, just to make ends meet, writes Clodagh Finn

When it all gets a little too much, as it frequently does in these Covid-lashed days, I turn up the music and do a not-fit-for-public-consumption dance across the kitchen floor.

I shake off the week in politics with the help of a potent mix of Ella Fitzgerald, Mary Coughlan, and Patsy Cline. The volume goes indecently high for Patsy’s heartfelt classic Crazy, but instead of singing (after a fashion) the line “I’m crazy for feeling so lonely”, I imagine a heartfelt, soul-wringing version that goes: “I’m crazy for feeling sooo left-out”.