There was no public outcry at the banishing of the word "culture" from the title of the Government's arts department - (let's try it again, it's the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands.) However, the former Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, Michael D. Higgins, raised the issue in his response last week on the letters page to a Mr. Caimin Jones, who had criticised his record on local radio. He noted that, as "Minister for Culture", he had succeeded, during the Irish presidency of the EU, in gaining respect for "the culture space" in a protocol to the draft European Treaty: "Having done that, my successors have abolished the word `culture' at home," he went on. "The term `culture' has been removed from the Ministry and the Department. That will remove much more than the `convoluted' thinking Mr. Jones so objected to in my Green Paper on Broadcasting." He looked forward to a day when the word "culture" would be "acceptable" again in Irish society. The new Minister, Sile de Valera counters thus: "I think that the word "heritage" in the overall title of the Department signals the fact that there will be a greater emphasis on heritage. "Some people have worried that the word `culture' hasn't been used in the Department's heading, but I would see `culture' as encom passing all of these (Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands)."

Why not use it, then? In Britain, the possible adoption of the "c" word by a new Heritage Department is a hot issue: "The inclusion of the word `culture' in the new title will be interpreted as a daring affirmation of a more pro-active cultural policy from government," writes The Guardian's Arts Correspondent, Dan Glaister, who adds that it might be seen as excessively Mitterandian; a Commons National Heritage committee last year reported that a Department of Culture "sounds as if it needs a commissar." The new Heritage Secretary, Chris Smith, says, however: "The name `Heritage' only describes a small amount of what the department does, and it describes the past." It's a little worrying. New Labour is thinking of adopting our abandoned "culture", while we have just taken in the Tories' wandering "heritage". . .