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THE ARTS:The success of this year’s Galway Arts Festival, on a much more constrained budget, is an emblem of all that is encouraging in the arts and all that is deeply unfair, says PETER CRAWLEY

IT IS HARD to imagine that the speech could have been better made, at a more important time or to a more appropriate crowd. Even as Garry Hynes anticipated the opening of a tremendous new production of Tom Murphy’s The Gigli Concert, itself a dazzling display of oratory, her words were as stirring: extemporary, incisive, succinct. The end of the first week of this year’s Galway Arts Festival, with Druid unveiling its handsomely refurbished theatre, was a celebration. But with the implications of the McCarthy report heavy in the air – such as the possible dismantling of the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism and the abolition of Culture Ireland and the Irish Film Board – Hynes used the occasion to make a broader impact.