ARTSCAPE:THE REACTION TO the fate of the Arts portfolio in this week's minimalist rearrangement of the deckchairs was strikingly, if predictably, two-sided.

Political comment, as well as seeing the appointment of Mary Hanafin as a demotion for her (see Culture Shock), was negative, but the reaction from the arts world was positive – both to the retention of the portfolio as a senior ministry, and to Hanafin as Minister for a department with a slightly altered title.

Fine Gael’s arts, sports and tourism spokeswoman Olivia Mitchell called the name change a “dictionary description of a farce”. Former minister for arts, culture and the Gaeltacht Michael D Higgins welcomed the use of the word “culture”, but described the move as “little more than a small step in the philistinism involved in the destruction of the department which I founded”. As minister (1993-1997), his department had responsibility for arts, broadcasting, film, the natural and built heritage, the cultural institutions and industries, waterways, the Irish language, the Gaeltacht and other functions. Now, he said, “it is unfortunately not clear as to what precisely will be the content of the culture component of the new department. In order to have a meaningful role, it would need to recover these important aspects of culture that were scattered vindictively across a number of departments in 1997.

“Indeed, some functions were returned to departments from which I had removed them, so that their policy role could be abolished . . . because I was minister for broadcasting and minister for the Gaeltacht and the Irish language, TnaG could be established . . . I am well aware of the consequences of restoring Heritage to the Department of the Environment . . . The sending of heritage back to the Department of the Environment has had as one result the desecration of Tara.

“It would be a tragedy if ‘culture’ in the title of a Department now simply means the use of culture for tourism purposes. Culture is the building block of citizenship and a crucial component of intergenerational justice. That is the role I sought for it. I would like to think that the rolling back of the philistinism has begun. I am not convinced.”

On the other hand, the National Campaign for the Arts (NCFA) welcomed the retention of a full-time ministerial position for arts and committed itself to working with the new Minister “to ensure that the arts remain a vital part of Ireland’s economic and social landscape”. Speaking for NCFA, Gerry Godley said: “We are relieved that the Department’s portfolio has been retained in its entirety, which indicates a genuine political appreciation of the pivotal role of the arts in Ireland’s long-term prospects, a point made by An Taoiseach when he stated that culture will contribute to ‘the vital task of economic renewal’ . . . We’re delighted it will be under the stewardship of as able and dedicated a parliamentarian as Mary Hanafin. Her track record in previous portfolios adds further weight to the growing consensus that the arts are an important agent of the knowledge economy, on which we are all aware our future collective well-being is dependent.”

Founding a new Irish National Opera was virtually Martin Cullen’s last act before leaving office, with the formation of an interim board led by Ray Bates. The big question in this regard is financial – what will its budget be, and what happens to Opera Ireland’s deficit? A spokesperson for the minister this week said the budget for the new company will be determined in the Budget Estimates for 2011, and also, interestingly, that it would be expected that the affairs of the two existing companies will be wound down in an orderly way “with the support of the Arts Council”.

Both constituent companies, Opera Ireland and Opera Theatre Company were quick off the bat in congratulating the new Minister and welcoming the outgoing minister’s formation of the new company.

Cúirt avoids the ‘predictable’

Artists as part of a new "cultural industry"? Lelia Doolan's face said it all when she marked this week's publication of the Cúirt International Festival of Literature programme in Galway – just a couple of hours after Mary Hanafin had been appointed Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport, writes Lorna Siggins.

So “arts” had been dropped from the departmental title at a time when culture was being “branded”, and political correspondents were busy describing Hanafin’s appointment as a “demotion”. As far as Doolan was concerned, it was a “good thing . . . good that it’s a woman”.

As for “cultural industries”, they “would not interfere with art, with poets, with story-tellers, with everyone struggling for an image that calls all to it in an act of vision”, Doolan said. Paying tribute to Cúirt’s silver anniversary, and an extensive programme that ranges from musicians Richard Hawley and Josh Ritter to former Granta editor Ian Jack to AL Kennedy and Barrie Cooke, Doolan spoke of the “danger of blandness, of repetition, of doing the predictable”.

Yeats was “right in pointing to the fascination of what’s difficult”, she said, and she described how she celebrated the “unexpected, the moment of insight that roots us to the spot . . . the chaos that calls for order” and how she greeted “the rebel, the troublemaker, the peacemaker, the seer, the one who does not give up”.

Like the Nobel prize-winning Polish poet Szymborska, Doolan believed in the “danger of discovery”, the “ruined career”, and the “secret taken to the grave”. She enjoyed the notion articulated by the late Conor Cruise O’Brien that “violent movements which contain poets are more dangerous than movements which do not”.

And before anyone could get too uncomfortable, Doolan had several direct messages for her Galway audience – to the business community, why not build an artspace? And to the arts administrators, “do not stay in your job too long”, but return to practising in the field.

Cúirt, which is directed for a second consecutive year on behalf of Galway Arts Centre by Maureen Kennelly, affords the “direct channel from artist to us, unmediated by workshops or creative writing groups – just the very thing itself”, Doolan said.

Cuirt is in Galway April 20-25th: Galway Arts Centre at 091-565886, cuirt.ie; or Town Hall Theatre at 091-569777 and tht.ie.

• Leopoldvilleby Irish poet and playwright Jaki McCarrick has won this year's Papatango New Writing Award in London. A production of the dark Irish play set in 1990 opens at the Tristan Bates Theatre, Covent Garden, London on April 7th.