‘IT IS A matter of great gratification that we have, in this period of strife and stress, such a unanimous and, I may say, enthusiastic support for a Bill dealing with matters of the spirit, the fine arts . . .”

With those words, the taoiseach of the day, John A Costello, declared the passing of the first Arts Act, the legislative framework establishing the Arts Council. Yesterday the 60th anniversary of that inaugural council and the appointment of its first director on December 4th, 1951.

Those 60 years have not been without periods of “strife and stress” for the council itself: the ever-recurring battle for sufficient State support and occasions when the cuts it delivered to clients brought it into conflict with the arts community, accusations of pursuing elitist policies and taking an over-bureaucratic approach, as well as having to counter political threats to its autonomy and sometimes its existence.

Remarkably, in the economic circumstance of the early 1950s when the public purse was a depleted one, the setting up of the council was an enlightened act, only six years after the creation of the Arts Council of Great Britain by the economist John Maynard Keynes, making it one of only two such institutions in the world.

It very much owes its existence to Costello’s response to a report by a former National Gallery of Ireland director Dr Thomas Bodkin, who for decades had been dogged in his determination that the new State should find a place for the arts. His report was a damning one: “No civilised nation of modern times has neglected the arts to the extent that we have during the past 50 years.”

Costello responded positively – and bravely given the general political indifference to the arts – with his bill facilitating the setting up of An Chomhairle Ealaíon. His action was in sharp contrast to what Mervyn Wall, a future council secretary, identified in the 1930s as a “general intolerant attitude to writing, painting and sculpture”.

The Dáil debate on the bill has familiar echoes today: the Fianna Fáil TD, Paddy Little – the council’s first director whose input into the design of the Bill had been overshadowed by Bodkin – was prescient when he said “We can easily regard the development of our cultural activity as the biggest dollar-earning activity we have.”

Éamon de Valera, then leader of the Fianna Fáil opposition, broadly supported the Bill. His views, too, chime with some of what we hear today from political figures about the role of culture in restoring the country’s reputation. “If we are to have any place in the world we will get it only through the intellectual and, for want of a word, the spiritual line. It is in that realm we can hope to have some pre-eminence,” he declared.

Despite the seemingly well-intentioned statements of political support at the inaugural meeting, attended by de Valera and Costello in January 1952, in its first days the council had to contend with dismissive responses to some of its endeavours and its lowly status, what this newspaper described as the “microscopic sum at its disposal”, which was not improved for more than a decade.

That need for constant vindication of the "arm's length policy" – "the basic principle underlying the establishment of the council and kept it from political interference", is a recurring theme of Brian Kennedy's excellent history of the relationship between the arts and the State, Dreams and Responsibilities, which the council published in 1990.

Although he had been de Valera’s appointee, Little knew the importance of the council as a buffer between artist and government when he said “any cultural institution should be as free as possible from political or government control”.

The writer Sean O’Faolain, appointed in 1957 as the second director, had to assert the council’s independence when de Valera tried to impose a particular nominee as the council’s secretary and his department sought to have council funding to the Wexford Opera Festival reduced.

The 1960s were no better when Seán Lemass came to power and removed responsibility for industrial design from the council’s remit. More seriously, he undermined its discretionary powers of grant allocation by instructing it to channel money from his department to the Gate Theatre and the Dublin Grand Opera Society. Kennedy identifies other breaches of the arm’s length principle, with the Lynch government of the late 1960s taking command of cultural initiatives to such an extent that “the council found itself increasingly on the sideline when decisions were taken. Politicians and civil servants were quietly taking control of arts issues which had previously been debated only at Arts Council meetings.”

All of which was very much in contrast to the noble-sounding words of the politician regarded as having done most for the arts, Charles Haughey, who declared that State cultural policy “must be confined to creating the conditions within which art can flourish – to foster and not to control”.

When his party finally enacted its first piece of legislation, the Arts Act of 2003, it strengthened the minister’s policy-making role to such a degree that Labour TD Jan O’Sullivan saw it as the introduction of “an autocratic system in which the minister makes policy, the Arts Council implements it and it then comes down the line”.

This danger proved to be exactly the case when then minister for arts Séamus Brennan presented his own arts plan even though the council was the acknowledged author of such plans. The words of his predecessor, John O’Donoghue, had been forgotten when he described the council as “the arm’s length body so that the State is placed in the position of doing what it has historically done well – funding – and not what it has historically done very badly – control of the arts.”

Fine Gael’s direct hand, first as Cumann na nGaedheal, in creating the Arts Council 60 years ago and then in an updating of the Arts Act in 1973 that determined the model we have today, is proudly acknowledged in last year’s pre-election policy document that also promises that the “arm’s length principle will be respected”.

The same document states that the department will “commission comprehensive, concrete ongoing research on arts and cultural practice and delivery”. That may be a slippage of language but such a function has heretofore been in the hands of the council.

Many of the objectives set out by Bodkin, Little and a few others have been achieved but often only through the council resorting to very public pressure on the government for the necessary funds – a situation that sometimes created tension and conflict. While its greatest achievement has been a steady increase in resources and its ongoing cultivation of contemporary arts – often by stealth against the odds – financial stability has been a key issue and seems set to become more so in the current round of austerities.

Making access widely available through its drive, overseen by several directors, to create a countrywide network of homes for the arts has been the greatest memorial to the council’s pioneers. It has sustained organisations, venues, festivals and individual artists through the better and worse times. Now, on its 60th anniversary it faces the challenges of stemming the ongoing decline in State patronage and continuing to sustain what it has created.

To mark its anniversary the Arts Council has launched a new timeline archive of significant events in each of its decades – the first phase of which can be accessed at archivestories.artscouncil.ie

Brian Kennedy’s history of the Arts Council, Dreams and Responsibilities, can be read here: artscouncilie/Publications/Dreamsand Responsibilities.pdf