Sir, - Aodan Mac Poilin of the ULTACH Trust writes a letter full of information (September 30th), most of it inaccurate.
The Arts Council of Northern Ireland does have a development strategy for the arts in Irish. Aodan may not like it; it may not chime with the ambitions of his own organisation; but it exists nonetheless. Nor does he contradict my earlier statement: where there is an arts organisation which provides quality creative activity in Irish in Northern Ireland, the council will be found as either its sole or among its core funders, whether it be Culturlann McAdam-O Fiaich (the Irish-language arts centre on the Falls Road) or Aisling Ghear Theatre Company.
But these organisations do not appear to count in the world-view of the ULTACH Trust. Nor does Ti Chulainn in south Armagh. In the very edition of The Irish Times in which Aodan unburdens himself, the Arts Council is credited as one of the main funders of that Irish-language cultural activity centre, which received an Arts Council Lottery grant of £373,944, in addition to annual revenue funding. If Aodan sees himself, as a member of the council's advisory panel on such funding matters, as "collud[ing] with a flawed and aimless policy", he is indeed a harsh judge of his own behaviour.
Arts funding is responsive. In spite of his arm-waving, the substance of Aodan's complaint is slight. Does he claim that the Council discriminates against Irish? No. Does he suggest that there is a rich and full Irish-language arts world untouched by Arts Council funding? No. He knows as well as I do that both contentions are ludicrous. So why is he so moved?
Unfortunately, after almost 10 years of the ULTACH Trust, funded by government precisely to "widen the appreciation of the Irish language and culture", the number of arts projects in Irish and, consequently, the number of applications to the Arts Council, remains small. It is the council's job to subvent the arts, not invent them. It is not its task to write poetry or produce plays, for example, in English or Irish; its task is to subvent those who do, in An tUlach, An Clochan, Club Leabhair Coisceim Feirste and Aisling Ghear.
In the teeth of the funding opportunities available to Irish-language arts from revenue, project and lottery funding. Aodan prefers to play the poor mouth, on his own admission indulging in "headline-grabbing theatricality", blaming other organisations. It is the ULTACH Trust which should examine its conscience on its advocacy of Irish as a creative language.
Ronald Reagan, shrugging his shoulders and blaming it all on "those folks in Congress", never had such aplomb. - Yours, etc., Damian Smyth,
Public Affairs Officer, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Malone Road, Belfast 9.