Culture Irelands Vital Role

Increasingly, those in the artistic community have been more vocal and persuasive that their work is a very meaningful mirror on the society that it springs from.

Their work comes to us in sophisticated forms through all the media and outlets that are available to the other political, social and economic communities familiar to us globally as the worldwide community interacts.

That convergence and realization gave rise to Culture Ireland in 2005 under John O'Donoghue, the then Irish minister for arts, sports and tourism who dedicated over *2 million from his budget that first year to increase Ireland's profile throughout the cultural realm of the broad-based artistic community in Ireland.

In 2007 that amount more than doubled to *4.5 million, and also necessitated the need for a steward to guide and lead the growing government entity on a full-time basis.

Eight months ago, Dubliner Eugene Downes was appointed to be the chief executive officer of Culture Ireland with a mandate to make it grow and become an effective modern organization tending to the needs of Ireland's vast and varied artistic community.

He recently organized and led a 50-person task force representing Ireland at the 51st annual Association for Performing Arts Presenters at the New York Hilton over an action-packed January weekend.

Not surprisingly, the youthful 35 year-old fits the prototype of what has become the norm as Ireland has stepped into worldwide prominence. Reared in a musical household and educated in the arts with a concentration in music at Trinity College, he got valuable international exposure through the Irish Foreign Service after leaving college.

While assigned as the cultural attaché in Moscow and exposed to the massive Russian arts scene daily and nightly, he recognized the power of culture to help define a people. The opportunity to pioneer in broadcasting at RTE's Lyric FM radio in the 1990s afforded him the chance to study and pursue more personal goals, though it seemed like the lure of governmental involvement in promoting the Irish arts loomed over the horizon.

He entered into a consultancy role in advising the Irish government how to augment presidential or ministerial trad missions abroad through the inclusion of artists, including many traditional music groups or performers, that lightened up the usual protocol or diplomatic bill of fare.

Whether it was sheer serendipity or vision, that increasingly important and expanding role that accompanied these diplomatic forays abroad developed by Downes validated the need to recognize a significant role for the Irish arts abroad.

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Nster.com