IT SEEMS appropriate that, in response to An Bord Snip Nua’s proposals for cutting arts funding, the first rallying call to the sector should be made in Galway, a city synonymous with the arts and one that exemplifies their value to a local community. As well as a festival of international standards and significant economic benefits, Galway has given Irish theatre one of its most dynamic and creative companies, Druid, whose artistic director, Garry Hynes, has justifiably declared as incredible the “suggestion that the arts are no longer important”.
The occasion for Hynes’s angry commentary was, ironically, a celebration of the kind of achievement that modest investment in the arts can yield: the nurturing of a small local theatre company into one with a world-wide reputation. Druid’s award-winning productions in several major capitals have contributed to the enhancement of Ireland’s image and its status as a country of the imagination.
From its humble origins to its standing on the world stage, Druid – and Hynes’s remarkable record of consolidation of the company’s key role in Irish theatre – provides a true example of why we must cherish, rather than downgrade, the arts.
Like many other stories of artistic success, Druid emerged out of youthful aspiration – a classic case of a group of people finding the opportunity to act out their dreams and use their “creative capital” to the benefit of a much wider community. This of course could not have been achieved without the kind of funding support that now faces the possibility of being, as Hynes put it, “swept away ” under the Bord Snip recommendations.
It is early days yet to make choices as to what should or should not be closed down. The Government first has to make decisions on the policies it will pursue in the McCarthy report. It is too early to offer a verdict on choices which have yet to be made.
Last weekend Druid saw the fulfilment of another dream, the refurbishment of its Galway venue that first opened 30 years ago and the opening of a world-class production of a play that stands at the pinnacle of achievement in modern Irish drama, Tom Murphy's The Gigli Concert. If we are to dismantle the framework for the arts, put in place as a result of the enlightened thinking of recent years, we are in effect denying the Druids of the future the opportunity to act out their dreams. And in doing so, we may all lose out.