Volume 9, 2021 – 2022

Table of Contents

RESEARCH PAPER: Prominent careers and Irish screen policy

RUTH BARTON & DENIS MURPHY

p. 4 – 42

Drawing on detailed data-driven research, this study examines career construction in the Irish screen industries, and the implications for policy makers. 

Key words: screen policy; creative workers

POLICY REVIEW: A policy review of Basic Income for the Arts Pilot Scheme

JOHN O’BRIEN & ANNETTE CLANCY

p. 43 – 57

This review article analyses the Basic Income for the Arts in Ireland scheme, addressing it within the context of wider cultural policies on the arts and universal basic income schemes. 

Key words: Basic income for the arts; Universal basic income; welfare; cultural and creative industries

POLICY REVIEW: A policy review of Strategy 2022 – 2025, Culture Ireland 

MARIA O’BRIEN 

p. 58 – 69

A review of Culture Ireland’s new strategy (Strategy 2022-2025) as a culturally and politically strategic document

Key words: Culture Ireland strategy, soft power, Irish cultural policy

POLICY REVIEW: A policy review of The Art of Recovery – Survive: Stabilise: Strengthen. The Report of the Culture, Arts and Heritage Recovery Taskforce, Northern Ireland Executive. August 2021

JOHN WRIGHT

p. 70 – 80

Focusing on a report published by the Department for Communities (DfC) in the Northern Ireland Executive and the recently established Culture, Arts and Heritage Recovery Taskforce, this paper employs a narrative policy analysis methodology to trace the different and often competing stories which underpin the report.

Key words: Department for Communities, Northern Ireland Executive; Narrative Policy Analysis; Covid-19; Cultural Recovery

PERSPECTIVES IN PRACTICE: Artist-led spaces during regeneration – an interview with Niamh Brown, co-director of Ormston House

ASHLING MCGRORY

p. 81 – 97

In this interview for Perspectives on Practice, Niamh Brown, curator at Ormston House, speaks to Ashling McGrory about the journey behind establishing Ormston House as a long-term, artist-led arts space in the heart of Limerick City. The discussion explores the importance of Ormston House’s relationships with its programme participants, local creative communities, and wider audiences in securing a 30-year tenancy agreement with Limerick City and County Council. The interview highlights various opportunities and challenges Ormston House encountered in securing a space for culture during a period of economic regeneration. 

Key words: Artist-led spaces; creative cities; cultural regeneration; precarious tenancy; local government partnerships

BOOK REVIEW: Culture is Bad for You: Inequality in the Cultural and Creative Industries by Orian Brook, Dave O’Brien and Mark Taylor, Manchester University Press (2020)

MAGGIE CRONIN

p. 98 – 110

Culture is Bad for You: Inequality in the Cultural and Creative Industries investigates interconnected inequalities within the UK Creative and Cultural Industries (CCIs), producing a manifesto for change as well as valuable scholarship countering the ‘celebratory discourse’ in relation to the CCIs over the past 25 years. 

Key words: cultural labour; creative and cultural industries; inequality

BOOK REVIEW: The Politics and Polemics of Culture in Ireland, 1800–2010 by Pat Cooke(2022), Routledge

CONNELL VAUGHAN

p. 111 – 117

Pat Cooke’s recent book is a wide-ranging survey of the discourse and development of cultural policy in Ireland over the past 200 years that highlights ‘Post-Colonial ironies’.

Key words: Cultural History; Arts Policy; Ireland; Post-colonialism

BOOK REVIEW: The Sociology of Arts and Markets: New Developments and Persistent Patterns eds. A. Glauser,  P. Holder, T. Mazzurana, O. Moeschler, V. Rolle, and F. Schultheis (2020), Palgrave Macmillan

JONATHAN ADEYEMI

p. 118 – 127

Through empirical studies in various artistic, historical and spatial contexts, this volume justifies the market’s fundamental role in the autonomization of art. It also establishes the impact of social inequalities, power relationships, and opportunities for agency in the production, mediation, and consumption of art.

Key words: Renaissance; Art Market; Postcolonial Exclusion; Autonomisation of Art