Our man in Hanover

The eyes of the world will soon be turning to Hanover, the quiet home town of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, as each of the 193 participating countries in EXPO 2000 prepares to sell itself for the duration of the five-month-long event. Ireland is no exception and will be contributing a cultural programme under the theme: Experience Ireland.

Ireland's EXPO cultural director, Fiach MacConghail explains: "I will be offering a perception of Ireland through its culture and architecture. We have a fantastic pavilion which is inspired by our landscape. It marries the traditional landscape with modern technology. Of course EXPO 2000, like all world fairs, is about business, industry and trade, but it must also be concerned with how a country not only projects itself, but how others see it. And how you see a country is through its culture, and its expression of that culture."

As his seven years as artistic director of the Project Arts Centre confirmed, MacConghail has always possessed imagination and energy in abundance. Diversity is the essence of his cultural programme for Hanover. Among its highlights are the first-time pairing of Donal Lunny with the RTE Concert Orchestra and performances of The Cube by theatre group Barrabas throughout EXPO 2000. "We have specially commissioned Barrabas to build a unique moving theatre where both live performance and miniatures will investigate the various perceptions of Ireland held by German and international visitors."

MacConghail is also bringing over a hurling team, "10 specially selected players from a competition", to give exhibition displays, while Eavan Boland, Edna O'Brien, Dermot Healy and Frank Harte are presenting an evening of Irish writing and song. "I'm very proud of that night because it undercuts the diversity of the entire programme and on top of all that John McGahern is writing a new piece for us which will also be published in German in our journal, Portal, which will appear each month throughout EXPO." His whistle-stop tour through the programme suggests that he has tried to include all genres, all traditions. "We have commissioned a group of 16 young people from Belfast, representing the traditions. They are being trained to present their own vision of their city through dance and music. It's up to them to give a picture of Belfast as they see it. The city needs to live with itself before dealing with the South."

This is the first EXPO since Seville 1992, which attracted 111 countries - a record at that time. World fairs are not recent inventions. It is a Victorian idea. The first "Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations" was held in London in 1851 at the Crystal Palace. At the Philadelphia World Fair of 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was awarded a gold medal for his invention, the telephone. Paris triumphed in 1900 and capitalised on what has become one of the world's enduring symbols, the Eiffel Tower, while entertainment was the theme of the 1904 event held at St Louis. MacConghail stresses the importance of the Hanover event. "It's the first major world event to be held in Germany since the Munich Olympics in 1972 and is also, of course, the first major international happening on German soil since unification in 1989. The German economy is the richest in Europe; it is also the third largest in the world. It is also our third largest trading partner - only Britain and the US are bigger. And it's our third biggest source of tourism; the Germans love coming to Ireland," he says with a beatific smile. But he is an arts administrator, not a businessman, so how is he approaching this project?

"I know it's not an arts festival, and that culture was simply a catalyst in achieving the objectives of participating at EXPO. However, within that I felt quite strongly about sustaining the careers of contemporary artists by commissioning new work. I'm playing with the perceived notion of perception; I'm changing the profile. I want to challenge the German view of us. I'm stressing that it is not just Boyzone and Westlife."

MacConghail might well think twice as fast as the speed of light; he certainly talks quickly and is a funny, passionate, opinionated character. His personality could be described as larger than life. Try sitting in even a quiet coffee shop with him and people do look - and listen. He is a motivator. If he were an athletics coach, we'd all be breaking world records. If anyone can sell Irish culture, he can. While so many arts administrators acquire a gravitas which apparently elevates them far above the humble artist, MacConghail stresses: "The artist is everything. We are here to serve the artist." How does he feel about the Arts Council? "It needs a vision, and it must place the artist at the core of its policies, both nationally and internationally." For him it is simple. "If you don't understand and protect the belief and motivation of artists, well, then you shouldn't be involved in the arts."

Titles of books, the names of writers, playwrights and painters race through his speech: "I love Chekhov and Raymond Carver. I am committed to the visual arts, I always have been, particularly conceptual art. I love theatre and books. Basically I want to serve the artist. I discovered that very early in life. My father has always had an eye for talent. So do I."

His father is Muiris MacConghail, a former controller of programmes in RTE. Fiach MacConghail's spoken English is probably almost as colourful as the Irish which he grew up speaking at home and which he speaks now with his two small daughters. Irish remains hugely important. He is married to actor Brid Ni Neachtain. When asked how he did as a pupil at Colaiste Eoin in Booterstown, he says his best subject was talking. "I was always very good at that, at talking and debating. I always organised ceilis. I wasn't good at sport, but I liked it." On leaving school he went to Trinity College, "mainly because all my friends were going to UCD and I didn't want college to be an extension of school". He studied politics and sociology. After second year, he took two years off.

"I went to Copenhagen and worked in Burger King. I didn't know what I wanted." On his return he completed his degree and worked as a visual arts officer in the Arts Council. "I also did one of those radio producers' courses in RTE and while I was doing that, I applied for the job at the Project. MacConghail does not believe in creating myths about himself, and is completely honest about his debt to the Project. "It made me. I got a tremendous sense of what I wanted to do there. It was wonderful."

Headhunted for EXPO 2000 by the Minister for Labour, Trade and Consumer Affairs, Tom Kitt, MacConghail has, he says, spent his life being described as "the son of Muiris". He asks if I think he looks like his father? He sure does. "When I was younger I knew what it was like to leave a room and hear someone say `is he Muiris's son?' It bothered me then, but not now." It is true that you can't look at him without seeing the face of his father as if superimposed upon the younger version.

While he is the son of Muiris, he is also the grandson of artist Maurice MacGonigal. "I remember him. I was 15 when he died in 1979. He was a remote man and suffered from black depressions. I think he was a great artist. I've been buying his work since 1991-92. He was very prolific but the family have very few of his pictures." The latter stages of his career were difficult. "He was seen as the conservative element of the Irish art establishment and was ousted from his position in the College of Art by artists such as Brian Maguire. The wonderful irony of that is that I worked with Brian Maguire as Commissioner of the Sao Paulo Biennal in 1997."

Fiach MacCongail's sense of himself stems from his father. "My father has dominated my life. I am the eldest of five children, and my relationship with my father was always stormy, complicated, bloody difficult. There were terrible clashes. I got involved in theatre because it was the one thing my father was not involved in. So I thought, `great that's for me'. It's great now. I don't see him as a parent, he is a colleague, a blood relative. I think he is far better with my children than he was with us. He never hugged us, I'm always hugging my children."

The younger MacConghail, who was born in Dublin in 1964, makes no secret of the fact that he sees his father as a major influence in Irish broadcasting life. "He was the editor of Seven Days; it had a huge impact on Irish television. He has contributed greatly, he was controller of programmes in RTE and was also head of Raidio na Gaeltachta as well as the first chairman of the Irish Film Board. I don't think this contribution has been recognised; he peaked very early. He is still only 59."

Muiris MacConghail also had a political life: "When I was growing up, I could come down stairs at night, woken up by the sound of the Cabinet in my sitting room - and see Justin Keating, Garret FitzGerald, Brendan Corish and Michael O'Leary in the house. My father was head of the Government Information Services, in effect the press secretary, and while he was never a member, he worked on behalf of the Labour Party. I feel his contribution there went unnoticed, and he was eventually marginalised by the subsequent hierarchy of the Labour Party. It did hurt him."

If he has been shaped by Muiris, Muiris was shaped by his father Maurice. "My father had a difficult upbringing. There were 17 moves, can you imagine that? And sent to various boarding schools. Like his father, he was distant, he didn't mean to be but he was. It was hard on my mother who, at one time, had five children under seven. My grandfather had those black moods; it was terrible and probably caused all those house moves. Sometimes after only six weeks. He would fall into a state of depression and lose all confidence in his work.

"My father and my uncle have these sad stories of seeing Maurice burning pictures, just getting rid of them and keeping only the frames so he could use them again." Maurice MacGonigal - "he always signed his pictures MacConghail" - was survived by his wife, "but she died within six months." Both were 100 cigarettes-a-day smokers. "She was a wonderful personality and got me very interested in literature and politics. A profound influence on me was seeing her with the late F.X. Martin doing the sit-in at Wood Quay and me trying to figure out what my granny was doing in this bizarre situation."

Brought up in Rathgar in an Irish-speaking family, he remembers feeling different from the other children in the neighbourhood because of the language. "We were dependent on the extended family for social interaction." His parents separated "about 1992, 1993. Literally as soon as the last child left the house. It came as a shock to me as they had seemed to get on well. But then I had left for a few years by then, so I was not aware of the tensions. We had a very ordinary upbringing; it's just that our parents split up. It shouldn't be a stigma, to them or to us. The five of us have to begin a new relationship with each of our parents. We have to get to know our parents as individuals rather than as a couple."

His father, who now lives in Wicklow, has been in a new relationship for the past five years. "My mother, Maire Doran, is a genealogist and has been instrumental in providing a free service on family histories through the National Library. She has co-written a best selling book for Collins on how to trace your ancestors. She is the daughter of Nessa Ni She, who was an important Gaelic scholar and produced the school version of the Toraiocht Dhiarmada agus Ghrainne."

Referring to two "other significant characters" in the family, he mentions Frank MacGonigal and his first cousin, Harry Clarke. "The two of them were from Sligo and they travelled the country like something out of a latter-day road movie, convincing innocent nuns and priests that they needed stained-glass windows. And then there's my mother's grandfather, an extraordinary man who began life in Cork and then settled in Birmingham, where he played for Aston Villa and first class cricket for Warickshire."

At the time MacConghail was appointed to EXPO 2000 he was already aware that his time at the Project had come to an end. "I knew I had to leave. It was wonderful and I loved it, but I knew it was the moment to move on. The great thing about the Project was the risk-taking. It's more about encouragement and trying things than just success. It has a policy of giving artists their head, which is so important." The short film he produced, Lip Service (1998), written and directed by playwright Paul Mercier, won two awards: the Irish Film and Television Academy Award for Best Short, as well as the Celtic Film Festival Award. "It is the first Irish-language movie that was commercially released in Ireland." A film of Mercier's play Studs is currently in progress and will be produced next year by MacConghail's company, Brother Films, which he runs with his brother Cuan.

After years of feeling far older than his years, speaking on the phone before the interview he warned: "I'm 35 but I look at least 10 years older." He says "I've always felt older than I was until now, probably from years of being told, `you're the image of your father'. Now I actually do feel exactly the age I am. It's great."

EXPO 2000 opens in Hanover, Germany on June 1st and will continue until October 31st