Has it been overlooked or underestimated that in most media reporting of Gabriel Byrne’s appointment, ‘the United States of America’ and ‘the world’ are interchangeable terms? Should we be worried about Ireland’s cultural profile in, for example, Europe, Russia or China, if most of Mr Byrne’s access to ‘places that most people don’t get to’ is located in the US? I wonder what more Mr Byrne can achieve than Joyce or Beckett did when they relocated to Paris, or the theatre productions which travel to the world’s stages year round. Also, the formalization and labeling of things once considered natural and inspiring occurrences goes on for the procurement of money and ultimately results in an ignorance of the true reasons for and benefits of art.

I think Mary Hanafin will do a decent job in Arts & Tourism–she’s about the only one I’d have confidence in among the FF crowd. Gabriel Byrne is a smalltime showbiz personality–do you remember him not being recorgnized on the Oscar runway one year?–and his reach beyond New York will be modest. Very modest.

Well he does seem to have a lot of spare time of late.

Sure aren’t we all ambassadors for our country! The only difference, in my case, is that i would tend to hold court in less salubrious places than The White House or The Reichstag or wherever Mr. Byrne’s presence may be required.

Personally, I think Gabriel Byrne is a fine cultural ambassador. And why not? He is directly involved with the arts in his capacity as an actor – which is more than can be said for the army of employees at the Arts Council, whose decisions on grants’ have so thoroughly wrecked the arts and the work of so many arts’ practitioners – cutting the grant to the venerable literary magazine, ‘Cyphers’ being only one of their more recent sins. So we need a lot of professional help if we are not to end up depicted as shamrock-wielding begorrah-merchants. We need Gabriel Byrne.

From a cultural point of view and as far as the rest of the world is concerned “Ireland’s Past” is it’s culture. People (tourists) from otherr parts of the world do not travel to Ireland to use the internet. Demoting and diminishing such cultural icons as “The Quiet Man” is counter-productive. The experience of experiencing “Reversed Rreality” in Ireland is what interests those not familier with our odd way of carrying on.

Gabriel is a fine choice. From his brooding days at the Riordans and his effects on Maggie to his recent hit series on HBO, one that reached cult status, he has shown his real talent. He is not a publicity hound, but is well known in circles that matter in theatre.

What can he do? In the tradition of FF, I suppose he might sell a few Irish-made films or attract investment to the industry in Ireland. And the Irish showing at the Oscars won’t harm his efforts.

Given all the shamrocks and shillelaghs and may the road rise up to meet you at the top of the morning, no harm to keep telling the world that such gombeen constructs are only a small miserable part of Ireland. No matter how bizarre the government is.