‘This is just the beginning. We can work together to put culture at the heart of our lives’

We want to prioritise the cultural life of the nation as our economy continues to strengthen, writes Heather Humphreys

IWANT to start by saying a massive ‘Míle Buíochas’ to the thousands of people from all over Ireland who came to our 36 public workshops for Creative Ireland over the last few months. We had hugely engaging and passionate debates in every county about culture, citizenship, our identity, and the result has been that every local authority has now published its first ‘culture and creativity’ plan based on these discussions. This has been a very positive, enriching and constructive exercise in citizen engagement and democracy.

Creative Ireland is a culture-based programme designed to promote individual, community and national wellbeing. It’s an invitation to everyone to get involved, or more involved, in our cultural life. Its core proposition is that participation in cultural activity drives personal and collective creativity, with significant implications for individual and societal wellbeing and achievement. In other words, engaging in cultural activities is good for you.

So what does all this mean for you? Well, it means that if you are a parent, we want to make sure that your child, and every child, has access to tuition or participation in art, music, drama or coding over the next five years. We also want to ensure that the arts are much more embedded in education generally, because research shows that children who engage in cultural activity are happier, they do better in school and they have less anxiety.

We also want to put culture at the very heart of communities nationwide. Culture Teams have already been appointed in every local authority nationwide. These teams bring together key staff from across the local authorities who will be working together to drive culture and creativity in every county. Just consider the many festivals which will be taking place around the country this summer; from the Listowel Writers’ Week to the Kilkenny Arts Festival and Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann. They are all wonderful expressions of our culture and creativity, and we want to encourage everyone to get more involved.

Through Creative Ireland, the Government is stating very clearly, that we value culture and creativity, and we want to prioritise the cultural life of the nation as our economy continues to strengthen. I view culture as a unifying force, as a way of celebrating diversity and inclusion and enriching our wellbeing.

There are five pillars in the Creative Ireland Programme. Pillar 1 is about enabling the creative potential of every child and young person; making it easier for children to access arts and creativity both inside and outside school, as a key part of their development.

Pillar 2 is about enabling creativity in every community; ensuring that creativity is encouraged and resourced from the bottom up. I want to empower communities — rural and urban — to maximise their creative strengths, and boost their sense of community pride and wellbeing.

Pillar 3 is about investing in our creative and cultural infrastructure, making our National Cultural Institutions fit for the 21st century. That means, if the public finances allow and the economy continues to grow, we want to invest more in institutions like our National Library and the National Museum, which are such an essential part of our national infrastructure.

Pillar 4 is about our creative industries, with the initial focus on making Ireland a Centre of Excellence in global Media Production for film, TV drama and animation. We have big ambitions for the film sector. We’ve all been incredibly proud in recent years to see films like Brooklyn and

Room and actors like Saoirse Ronan and Colin Farrell do so well on the international stage, not to mention our fantastic animation sector. We want to grow the domestic film sector here and attract more big blockbusters, like Star

Wars, to film in Ireland. Pillar 5 is about unifying our global reputation around the richness of our arts, culture, language and heritage. We’ll be reaching out to our Diaspora and presenting a message to the world that Ireland is a creative and dynamic nation, in which to live, work and invest. We are well advanced with work programmes on all five pillars and I am happy to say that Creative Ireland is already embedded in our national policy agenda. An Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Minister for Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Heather Humphreys meet children from the Chinese Children’s Dance Academy during Cruinniú na Cásca

Creative Ireland is already embedded in our national policy agenda

Artists are central to Creative Ireland. It is through the work of artists that our eyes are opened and the potential for the creativity of every person becomes apparent. Through Creative Ireland we will see direct benefits to artists, direct engagement and collaboration with artists, more artistic output and greater audiences for the work of artists. That is fundamental to the Programme.

A huge amount of work has already been done by Creative Ireland. But in truth this is just the beginning. I believe that this is an important moment for Ireland, a moment when we can work together to put culture at the heart of our lives, and make creativity our defining characteristic.