Role of the dole: How benefits benefit artists

Frank Buckley, the artist behind the Billion Euro House in Smithfield, in Dublin’s north city, a construction made of decommissioned bank notes, is on the dole. “Over the past eight months my work has been seen in 113 countries and featured in national newspapers all over the world. People just presume you’re making money when they see that. When you tell them about the reality, they say, ‘Ah sure, it’s only a matter of time . . . you’re famous.’ But I live on €188 a week. My mortgage is in arrears, and only for the guy giving me [an empty office building on Coke Lane] to use, I wouldn’t be able to do this.”

This perception of success can lead to problems when artists turn up at the dole office, and Kelly says the way the system deals with artists is inconsistent. “Of those we surveyed who had sought social welfare, 23 per cent were told to apply for alternative jobs, 14 per cent were threatened with the removal of benefits and 27 per cent noted variations between social-welfare officers. A lot of them are encouraged to get out of the arts.”

This is a shame, because art needs time. Jinx Lennon, Dundalk’s fine political songwriter and punk poet, who is playing at the Liss Ard festival today, says his own artistic development benefited greatly from an involuntary spell of unemployment a decade ago. “At the moment I have a sort of a night job,” he says. “About 10 or 11 years ago I wasn’t working. I didn’t have much money but I found something that was worth a lot more – the ability to create. I was on the dole and I could have used that time vegetating or getting stoned or watching TV, but I decided I had a lot to write about and I needed to get it out. It was about finding my art, if you like. The anger or the energy I had from being on the dole: I found that if I could just get the thoughts down on paper that was really, really good. And now I’m really grateful for that time because I was able to start and give myself a kick.”

Julian Gough, a novelist, musician and playwright (see Culture Shock, below), who also left the dole queue a long time ago, agrees that when it comes to art, time is of the essence. “Samuel Beckett had a very modest private income, James Joyce had hand-outs from Sylvia Beach and my generation had the dole,” he says. “It’s how most artists I know bought the time to become good at what they do. Without it I don’t think we’d have had any of the great artists, stand-ups, writers or actors we’ve seen in recent decades . . . You have to immerse yourself completely in your art to become good at it and the dole is one of the only ways a lot of people can achieve that.”