Hillary Clinton visits the Lyric Theatre Belfast to watch Owen McCafferty's 'Agreement', as part of the 25th anniversary events in April marking the signing of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. Photo: Claire Murray.
Message from the Chair of the Arts Council
I want to commend our artists and arts organisations who, despite the most challenging of working environments, continue to produce work of such outstanding quality and value. Your passion for the arts was there for everyone to see at the public meeting organised by Equity in Belfast at the end of last month. The media coverage generated by the event will most certainly have made a strong impression, and reinforced the message that, in the face of government cuts, the arts deserve better! For our part, I want to reassure you that we at the Arts Council have no intention of taking our shoulder from the wheel. We will continue to use all of our influence to press government on the urgent need to reinvest in the arts, backed by the hard evidence and insights that we provide through our research, and which we gladly share with you and representative groups, including representatives of the Arts Collaboration Network, with whom we work closely.
Government investment in the arts in Northern Ireland has fallen over the past decade from £14.1m in 2011 to £9.7m in 2023, or £5.07 per capita. We want to see the reduction to this year’s budget reversed. Moreover, we contend that a region which in the last year alone laid claim to an Oscar, ‘Theatre of the Year’, ‘Best Opera Production’, the Feltrinelli Poetry Prize and the Turner Prize, qualifies for at least as much as our closest comparator, Wales, currently standing at £10.51 per capita.
It should not have to be left to the imagination to think of the extraordinary heights our artists could scale, with a little more support from Government.
Liam Hannaway, Chair
Latest News
The Arts Council promoted Northern Ireland’s arts and highlighted the government funding differential that exists on this island, at the invitation of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media in Dublin on Wednesday 10th May.
Our Chair, CEO and Senior Executive team have put the case strongly for more investment in the arts to key decision makers and influencers at the highest level, including the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the Head of the Civil Service and the Permanent Secretary of the Department for Communities.
In addition to regular senior-level meetings with officials from across the government departments and institutions, the Arts Council is involved in exploring international opportunities with politicians, academics, universities, Arts Councils and other bodies from across Ireland, the UK, Europe and North America.
The Arts Council recently represented the sector’s interests at a number of significant UK events, of note:
House of Commons Science and Technology Committee: The Role of Technology, Research and Innovation in the Covid-19 Recovery (July 2022)
UK Trade and Business Commission: evidence session providing parliamentarians with insight on what the UK’s culture and arts sectors require from Government in terms of future trade deals and general support (Jan. 2023)
Treasury Connect: Creative Industries roundtable Jeremy Hunt (May 2023)
Supporting our Creative Champions
The amazing work and the passionate voice of our artists and arts organisations provides the most compelling case for the arts. We continue to support them and their representative groups, including representatives of the Arts Collaboration Network, in their vital role as Champions of the Arts.
We continue to provide the Department of Communities with robust evidence to support the strong case for investing in the arts. Our research informs policy development and supports advocating for the sector on a range of important issues, such as the impact of the current cost of living crisis. We also contribute to wider research programmes, including UCD's recent 'Building Capacity for the Cultural Industries; Towards a Shared-Island Approach for Dance and Theatre'.
We are the national voice for the arts in Northern Ireland, promoting the quality, value and importance of the region’s artists and arts organisations and the impact they make. Our job is to ensure that the contribution of the arts is recognised by the range of stakeholders, from Government and policymakers, to investors and wider society.
