An Chomhairle Ealaíon

An Naoú Turascáil Bhliantúil is Fiche, maille le Cúntais don bhliain dár chrioch 31ú Nollaig 1980. Tíolacadh don Rialtas agus leagadh faoi bhráid gach Tí den Oireachtas de bhun Altanna 6 (3) agus 7 (1) den Acht Ealáion 1951.

Twenty-ninth Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31st December, 1980. Presented to the Government and laid before each House of the Oireachtas pursuant to Sections 6 (3) and 7 (1) of the Arts Act, 1951.

Cover: Druid Theatre's presentation of "Island Surrounded by a Bridge of Glass" by Gary Hynes. The play featured live music by De Danann. Photography by Fergus Bourke. Drawing and layout by Robert Armstrong.

Members James White, Chairman Brendan Adams Kathleen Barrington Brian Boydell Make de Paor Andrew Devane Bridget Doolan Dr J. B. Kearney Hugh Maguire Louis Marcus Seán Ó Tuama Donald Potter Nora Relihan Michael Scott Richard Stokes Dr T.J.Walsh James Warwick

Staff Director Colm Ó Briain Drama and Dance Officer Arthur Lappin Opera and Music Officer Marion Creely Traditional Music Officer Paddy Glackin Education and Community Arts Officer Adrian Munnelly Literature and Combined Arts Officer Laurence Cassidy Visual Arts Officer/Grants Medb Ruane Visual Arts Officer/Exhibitions Patrick Murphy Finance and Regional Development Officer David McConnell Administration, Research and Film Officer David Kavanagh Administrative Assistant Nuala O'Byrne Secretarial Assistants Veronica Barker Patricia Callaly Bernadette Eastwood Kevin Healy Bernadette O'Leary Colette Waters Receptionist Kathryn Cahille

70 Merrion Square, Dublin 2. Tel: (01) 764685

An Chomhairle Ealaíon

An Chomhairle Ealaíon/The Arts Council is an independent organization set up under the Arts Acts 1951 and 1973 to promote the arts. It operates through a wide-ranging programme of financial assistance and special services, offered to both individuals and organizations. The Council also acts as an adviser an artistic matters to the Government and Government Departments and is one of four bodies which have a statutory duty to make representations to planning authorities in connection with applications For planning permission in areas of special amenity throughout the country.

The Council consists of a board of not more than seventeen members appointed by the Taoiseach. The present board was appointed in December 1978 and its term of office will expire in 1983. The board -meets about ten times a year to set Council policies and make decisions within the terms of the Arts Acts. These policies and decisions are implemented by a staff headed by a Director, appointed by the Council.

The Council reports to the Oireachtas through the Taoiseach and its accounts are audited by the Auditor General.

Annual grants from the Oireachtas are the Council's main source of income. These grants are supplemented by income from local authorities and private organizations and the Council also administers a number of trust funds, set up privately for specific purposes.

The arts are defined in the Arts Acts and include: The Visual Arts (painting, sculpture, architecture, print-making, design); The Performing Arts (theatre, dance, music, opera); Literature; Film; Crafts.

Chairman's Introduction

Much of the Council's work and indeed much of this Report, is concerned with institutions and organisations involved with the promotion of the arts. In providing grants to these organisations the Council involves itself in a complex set of relationships which seeks to balance artistic freedom and financial accountability. The Council perceives its role as one of assessing the validity of the artistic objectives set by these organisations, measuring how the resources available are employed in the service of these objectives and ensuring that the funds available are efficiently and effectively utilised. This requires grant-aided organisations to keep the Council fully briefed on all artistic and financial questions so that to the best of all our abilities we can show that investment in the arts is value for money.

Important as these organisations are they were not the main focus of the Council's deliberations during this year. The question of the individual artist was examined in considerable depth. Early in the year we published our survey on the Living and Working Conditions of Artists in Ireland. The information provided to the Council in this survey was not new but for the first time a statistical basis was available against which we could measure our own effectiveness as a Council in this regard. The bursary programme which has been developed over recent years has met with considerable success. However, the large volume of deserving applications which have had to be refused gave some indication of how limited a solution this programme was to meeting the needs of artists.

A special scheme was introduced during the year to encourage new compositions by Irish composers and to ensure the public performance of these new works. A similar scheme has already been introduced in relation to assisting the commissioning of new books from Irish writers and publishers began to avail of this scheme during the year. In both these schemes the artist is chosen, not by the Council, but by the commissioning organisation. Ironically, the Council's traditional role as a patron of the visual arts presented difficulties in developing a similar scheme in relation to painting and sculpture. However, it is hoped that a scheme for commissioned works of art for public places will be introduced in the coming year.

It is clear, however, on the basis of the information provided by the Survey that these schemes in themselves will not be sufficient to provide a framework within which writers, composers, painters and sculptors can concentrate on their artistic work without considerable financial deprivations. We have decided, therefore, to initiate a comprehensive proposal which will offer opportunities for the development of the creative artist in Ireland.

James White,

May, 1981

Post scriptum January 22nd 1982 The very late publication of this report is a matter of regret and concern. A number of factors have conspired in the delay not the least of which is the ever increasing workload which the Council's staff are required to undertake.

The restriction on additional staff in the public sector makes it difficult to avoid such a delay and the Council may have to prepare future reports in a different format.

Brian Friel's Translations

Report

The year was marked by a new confidence in the arts. The Cultural Relations Committee of the Department of Foreign Affairs funded the ambitious Sense of Ireland Festival which took place in London at the beginning of the year. The six week programme of artistic events was a reflection of the development in the arts which has been achieved by the Arts Council and those involved in the arts in recent years.

The music, theatre, dance, visual art and literature presentations demonstrated a clarity of cultural identity and artistic purpose never before so strongly expressed.

Some of the events in this major festival received generous private sponsorship. The Council has been anxious that the greatest possible encouragement should be given to private companies and individuals to support the arts and has been seeking a clarification of the terms of Section 547 of the Income Tax Act 1967 which provides for tax relief on "... a gift of money, which on or after the 6th day of April, 1965, is made to the Minister for Finance for use for any purposes for or towards the cost of which public moneys are provided and which is accepted by that Minister."

A sponsor who was prepared to make a contribution of £10,000 to the Arts Council for the benefit of theatre activities was informed by the Department of Finance that such a donation would qualify for tax relief. On the basis of this precedent the Council' made representations to the Department for agreed procedures which would ensure tax relief for sponsors of the arts. The Council failed to get guidelines from the Department on the application of the section to donations of more than £500. However a gift of £5 for the promotion of opera subsequently qualified for tax relief.

There is further provision for tax relief on donations which are covenanted over a period of years for the purposes of education or research in the natural sciences. The Council has submitted a proposal to the Department of the Taoiseach for the inclusion of "creative and performing arts" under this legislative heading

The most significant piece of legislation affecting the arts in 1980 was the Film Board Act, which is discussed later in this Report (see page 00). This legislation is broad in its intention and scope and enables the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Tourism to establish a Board to "assist and encourage by any means it considers appropriate the making of films in the State and the development of an industry in the State for the making of films."

However, as the Act also empowers the Minister to direct the Film Board on matters of policy the crucial test of the value of this legislation will be whether the Board will be able to initiate and implement a policy for film culture, or whether directions by the Minister will effectively limit the autonomy of the Board in this regard. The Act does provide for the first time a framework for the development of film making in Ireland, but the Council shares the apprehensions of Irish film makers about the dangers of an undue emphasis on studio-based foreign productions.

The constitutional and procedural framework of organisations receiving grants from the Arts Council was considered by the Council during the year. It is important that publicly funded arts organisations, should have an overall structure which promotes the development of dynamic artistic programmes and utilises artistic and financial resources to the maximum benefit of the community. The Arts Council assumed responsibility for four major organisations in 1976 all of which are established under the Companies Acts - the Abbey (1904), the Gate (1928), the Irish Theatre Company (1974), and the Irish Ballet Company (1974). It was decided to begin a process of review of the legal framework of these companies with a view to ensuring that both the companies and the Council are satisfied that the best possible arrangements exist to meet the needs of the '80's.

It is important to emphasise that the Council operates "an arm's-length principle" in its relationships with grant-aided organisations. The board or management committee of a grant-aided body is expected to initiate artistic policies and artistic proposals and to present these to the Council in the context of financial requirements each year. This enables the Council to respond to specific priorities where this is appropriate. Except where a grant is allocated for a specific purpose, the board is autonomous of the Arts Council in the use of the funds provided. In order to assist a constructive liaison between the Council and grant-aided organisations throughout the year the board meetings of some twenty-four organisations are attended by an observer from the Council's staff. The success with which artistic objectives have been achieved in the previous year is a criterion for the Council in determining increases in the level of grant.

The procedures of the Arts Council, of course, now apply to those twenty-three organisations which formerly received grants from Bord Fáilte. It was the view of Bord Fáilte that tourism criteria were no longer appropriate in the assessment of grants for arts activities and these grants are now the responsibility of the Council. Unfortunately, the Council was not informed when notified of the Oireachtas grant-in-aid for 1980 that following discussions between the Department of the Taoiseach, the Department of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, and the Department of Finance, the Department of Finance now considered the formal transfer of these organisations to the Arts Council to be effective from the beginning of 1980. As a result the transfer occurred at a time when the Council had not sufficient funds to meet these new responsibilities in addition to commitments it had already entered into with long standing clients; these were clearly not the best circumstances in which to develop a trusting and confident relationship with organisations who had previously no dealings with the Council. Some of the Bord Fáilte clients were also in receipt of grants from the Arts Council and it was possible to re-assure them that the new arrangements would ultimately be to their advantage. A small number also had some difficulty in adjusting to the different assessment procedures employed by the Council from those of Bord Failte, an organisation with fundamentally different objectives from those of the Council.

The largest single grant formerly administered by Bord Fáilte was that given to Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann for its summer entertainment programme, entitled Seisiun. Comhaltas Ceoltoirí were under-standably alarmed that no increase could be granted to them in 1980. There was also some resentment that hitherto unfamiliar procedures in relation to the grant were being employed. The Council is firmly of the opinion that the best interests of Comhaltas can be served through the well developed procedures which the Council applies to all applicants for grant-aid. Unfortunately, these initial difficulties have been the cause of tension between Comhaltas and the Council but it is hoped a new relationship can be established in the year ahead.

The Council is fully committed to supporting the development of traditional music and during the year received the necessary statutory authority to appoint a Traditional Music Officer. In September Paddy Glackin took up his appointment to this post. Paddy, who is a well know performer and broadcaster with extensive experience of many of the organisations involved in the promotion of traditional music, has also been given responsibilities for encouraging the arts in the regions. Paula McCarthy resigned as Visual Arts Officer on the occasion of her marriage and moved to north America. She has since been engaged in the setting up of the Ireland America Arts Exchange Organisation. Her duties with the Council included both the organisation of exhibitions and the administration of the Council's grants in the area of visual arts. These functions have now been separated and Medb Ruane, formerly of the Department of the Public Service, assumes responsibility for the grant functions and Patrick Murphy assumes responsibility for organisation of exhibitions. He joined the Council from Comhairle na nOspidéal. David Collins joined the Project Arts Centre as Artistic Director and was replaced as Literature Officer by Laurence Cassidy who was previously involved in freelance arts promotions. He will also administer the Council's grants to festivals and arts centres catering for a multiplicity of art forms. The increased volume of administrative and financial transactions being carried out by the Council required the appointment of an Administrative Assistant during the year and Nuala O'Byrne formerly of Guinness Mahon, the banking company, was appointed to this post.

The Tyrone Guthrie Centre, which will be a working retreat place for artists, appointed Bernard Loughlin as Director of the Centre with effect from January 1981. The Centre, which was bequeathed by Sir Tyrone Guthrie to the State, has been entrusted by the Minister for Finance to the Council. The Council, in partnership with the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, has set up a jointly funded company to manage the house. Both Arts Councils also provided support for a new theatre company. Field Day Productions, for its production of a new play by Brian Friel, Translations. The play was first presented in Derry and then toured to Belfast, Coleraine and six other northern venues, Dublin, Galway, Cork and Killarney, Tralee and Ballyshannon. The close working relationship between the two Councils was further strengthened by the Fourth Joint Meeting of the Arts Council with the Arts Council of Northern Ireland in Dublin in November. One of the issues discussed at this meeting was a proposal for the editoral development of Film Directions, the magazine funded by both Councils since 1977. Unfortunately, this initiative could not be proceeded with due to the decision of the Irish Film Theatre to discontinue the distribution of the magazine to its members.

However, an earlier initiative of the two Councils came to fruition during the year. A committee of board members from both Councils had been set up in the previous year to examine the possibility of securing UNESCO support for cultural programmes in Ireland. The sub-committee prepared a resolution in this regard which was adopted by the Irish National Commission for UNESCO for presentation at the UNESCO General Conference in Belgrade in October. The Irish Ambassador to UNESCO, Mr. Hugh McCann, and the General Secretary of the Irish National Commission for UNESCO, Mr, Seamus O hUallachain, secured the support of France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, Italy, Luxembourg, Belgium, Holland and Switzerland for the resolution which was adopted by the General Conference in October 1980 and which agreed: "to initiate a programme of studies, based on relevant UNESCO experience, into the various aspects of the cultures of the Celtic peoples - and to organise meetings of specialists chosen by UNESCO on the advice of the participating countries."

The General Conference of UNESCO also adopted a major resolution affecting the Status of the Artist and the document setting out the need for Government action is co-published by the Irish National Commission for UNESCO and the Arts Council since it echoes the Council's concern, expressed by the Chairman in his introduction to this Report. A delegation drawn from the Department of the Taoiseach, Irish Actors' Equity and the Arts Council was active in preparing the draft of this very important document.

A significant development during the year was the publication by the Minister for Education of a White Paper on Educational Development. Chapter 8 of the White Paper was devoted to discussing the role of the arts in education. This is the first occasion on which the arts have featured as part of Government planning in Education and this in itself is most welcome. A serious omission in the White Paper however, is the absence of any references to the future of the music colleges in Cork, Dublin and Limerick. Training in music skills at both second and third levels has not been receiving the attention it deserves and this vital area of education is facing serious problems of finance and accommodation. The continuing absence of a school of music in the West is a concern to the Council. One scheme which the Council would like to commend has been established in Co. Kerry by the Kerry Vocational Education Committee in co-operation with Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann. The introduction of similar schemes by V.E.C. s throughout the country should be seriously considered.

In his White Paper, the Minister proposes the establishment of a committee within his Department to examine the position of all the arts at second level. The terms of reference of this committee could make it one of the most important developments for the arts in many decades. The Council will offer whatever advice and assistance may be needed in order to ensure the effectiveness of this proposal.

The results which may follow from sufficient investment in the arts in education are hard to quantify. In contrast, the results of investment in new facilities for the arts can be appreciated within a much shorter time-scale. Two major venues for the arts were decided upon by the Council during the year. In Limerick the conversion of the old Amharclann na Feile to an Arts Centre was undertaken by the Mid-West Regional Development Organisation with grants from Limerick Corporation, SFADCO, Shannonside Tourism and the Council. While in Sligo a 320 seat theatre for the North-West Tourism Organisation commenced construction with funding from Bord Fáilte, Sligo Corporation and the Council. This theatre will be completed in late 1981.

The modest programme of capital grants introduced by the Council in 1979 is slowly beginning to show results.

Conor Fallon - Ceann Preachain III

Visual Arts

ROSC is by now a major fixture of the Irish visual arts, and is the most costly and most talked about of the regular exhibitions. This year the organisers made something of a break-through on the financial side by attracting the single largest grant to date to the arts from a commercial concern; Guinness Peat Aviation became the principal sponsor of the exhibition in Dublin. The exhibition set out to represent the best of international art over the past four years. This is, necessarily, a subjective judgement of the selectors but it was generally agreed that the exhibition succeeded quite well with its intentions. The weakness of the exhibition owed more to the generally mundane level of innovation in the visual arts in recent years than to any fault of the organisers. This is not to say that the exhibition failed to excite comment. Works such as Marta Minujins' bread tower, meant as a reflection on Joyce's tower, provoked a powerful reaction from the media. Not surprisingly this reaction tended to concentrate on the more sensational or news-worthy works and many which were perhaps more important, were consequently neglected.

There is also a ROSC exhibition in Cork. The Cork show, which was selected by Cyril Barret, was a retrospective of Irish painting from 1940. The exhibition was attractively hung in the Crawford Municipal Gallery which, now that the School of Art has at last got splendid premises of its own, has sufficient space to deal with exhibitions on this scale. This development should have the effect of allowing more large-scale exhibitions to be seen in Cork.

The Council remains concerned, in that context, with the role of the municipal galleries. The Douglas Hyde Gallery and (although its completion has been delayed) the Gallagher Gallery both have the capacity to put on major exhibitions. This could be made both financially feasible and more relevant if exhibitions of a major scale could be toured throughout the country utilising the municipal galleries in Cork, Limerick, Sligo, Waterford and Dublin.

The Council's own touring exhibitions make it evident that there is a substantial audience for the visual arts outside Dublin.

In 1980 the Council toured four exhibitions to twenty-five venues. An exhibition of the work of Robert Ballagh - Robert Ballagh - an artist's response to Northern Ireland toured Deny, Cork, Limerick, Sligo, Kilkenny and Mallow.

The Council's exhibition, The Delighted Eye which was assembled for the Sense of Ireland Festival in London, was toured to Dublin, Galway, Wexford, Cork, Limerick and Kilkenny. The exhibition, which was quite substantial, was only suitable for the larger venues. On the completion of its tour of the south the exhibition went to Derry and Belfast with the assistance of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

An exhibition of the graphic work of James Ensor, which came to Ireland through the good offices of the Belgian Embassy, was seen in Dublin, Wexford, Limerick, Galway and Sligo. Finally the Polish Cultural Institute in London provided an exhibition of film and theatre posters for Dublin.

A number of annual open exhibitions were funded by the Council in 1980. It can be argued that regular funding of these exhibitions may well contribute to the survival of exhibitions which have outlived their usefulness. The difficulty for the Council is in deciding whether poor standards in a show over a number of years are a temporary weakness in an exhibition which still has a valuable role to play. This argument would be of little relevance if it were not for the worrying possibility that sustaining inadequate shows with uncritical Council funding may have a stultifying influence, preventing new and more vital exhibitions from coming into being. Another, and important element in this discussion is the question of the efficiency and administrative competence with which these grants are being handled. The Council has had, on occasion, to pay off substantial deficits in the years following an exhibition and this represents a serious drain on the funds available for any innovative proposals in the visual arts.

The Council's continuing interest in developing the arts outside Dublin is also relevant to this matter. The success of the Claremorris Exhibition and of the Exhibition of Visual Art in Limerick are evidence of this; the Council was able to give grants to both. Of the other exhibitions funded by the Council the Independent Artists' Exhibition seems to have been revitalised. Recent changes on the committee may have been responsible; this is. one way in which the problem of sustaining low standards by uncritical funding can be avoided.

Another aspect of the funding of exhibitions is the prospect that this may hold back money from individual artists. Certainly until the last year or so this case could be supported by the figures. In 1976 25.2% of expenditure in the visual arts went straight to individual artists. By 1978 this percentage had actually dropped to 15.8%. The Council has been aware of this trend and the rapid increase in bursaries in recent years has been intended to offset it.

In 1980 nineteen artists received grants ranging from £500 to £3,000 to assist them with post-graduate studies, studio equipment and materials and with special or major projects.

The major innovation in the visual arts bursaries was the awarding for the first time of two awards to assist artists to prepare for exhibitions. Graham Knuttel and Eili's O'Connell were awarded £1,500 and £2,000 respectively for this purpose. Two sculptors, Gordon Woods and Brian King received major awards - £4,000 and £5,000 - to allow them to complete major sculptural projects. Gordon Woods's works will be sited in Donegal and Brian King's in Wicklow.

A number of sculptors were also helped with studio facilities. Joe Butler, Helen Comerford, Vivienne Roche, Philip Carrick, and Alanna O'Kelly received grants ranging in value from £800 to £2,250. Moya Bligh, who has recently returned from Japan, was given a grant to equip her studio with the equipment she needs for the relief and intaglio printing she studied in Japan.

Robert Ballagh and Samuel Walsh received grants for the development of their studios as did Patrick Collins who was awarded £9,000 over the next three years.

Tom Grace, a photographer, became the second photographer to receive a grant from the Council; the first such award was made in 1979. The Council continued its policy of assisting post-graduate studies. Andrew Folan and Margaret Gillan are continuing their studies at the Slade in London for a second year. In addition Paul O'Keeffe, Kathleen Cronin and Inez Nordell are being helped with the cost of their studies at the University of California in Los Angeles, Belfast College of Art and with English National Opera respectively.

The Spanish Cultural Institute and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland co-operated with the Council in organising the George Campbell Memorial Travel Scholarship. Sean McSweeney, the landscape painter, won the scholarship which, in 1981, will be awarded to an artist from Northern Ireland.

The Mont Kavanagh Award for Environmental Art, which is also a new award, was jointly won by Eilís O'Connell and Michael Warren. Eilís O'Connell's winning work was commissioned by Brown Boveri for their premises at Tallaght, County Dublin and Michael Warren's by RTE.

An aspect of the Council's work which does not receive much public notice is its work under the terms of the Planning Acts. The Council has a statutory responsibility to make representations to local authorities on applications for planning permission in areas of high amenity. This work, though time-consuming, is rarely controversial as, in general, problems can be resolved through the co-operation of the planning officers and their staffs. Occasionally the Council has lodged appeals with An Bord Pleanàla against decisions of the planning authorities. When disagreement does occur between the Council and the planning authorities it is often on matters of general principle. An example of this is the Council's concern about the encouragement in recent years of pastiche architecture, particularly on sites which adjoin existing Georgian buildings. The Council's view is that these buildings are neither Georgian nor modern and represent an easy way out of an architectural problem to which more creative solutions could be found. Towards the end of 1980 the Council wrote to the Planning Officer of Dublin Corporation about this problem. The Council outlined its worries and reservations about the rash of mock Georgian fronts hiding modern interiors, especially in Dublin and asked for the Corporation's view on the matter.

PURCHASES FOR COLLECTION ARTIST TITLE MEDIUM John Behan The Morrigan Bronze and Granite Brian Bourke Two Heads of Don Quixote Silkscreen print Jim Buckley Navy Winch Steel John Burke Plateau Dancer VI Steel LeoDuffy Murphy: Samuel Beckett Carbon on Paper David Dunne Reflections Bronze Conor Fallon Ceann Préacháin III Steel Mary Farl Powers Landscape Colour Etching Tom Fitzgerald Black Rainbow Stone and Cane Uesbeth Fonkert Labourer Tapestry Uesbeth Fonkert Pregnant Lady Tapestry Adri Frigge Visions de l'Amen I Mezzotint and Screenprint Patrick Hall Man with Vertical Bar Screenprint Joseph Hanly Untitled Screenprint Alice Hanratty Aristocratic Child II Screenprint Charles Harper Head Series No. 1 Screenprint Charles Harper Conversation Watercolour on Paper Michael Kane Head: Kokoschka Screenprint Brenda Kelliher Shields Handmade Paper John Kelly Head with Letters Screenprint John Kelly Fragment Watercolour Donncha MacGabhann Untitled Pen and Ink Donncha MacGabhann Untitled Lithograph and Embossing Renee McNeice Intersect Viscosity Etching Deirdre Meaney Poppy Field Batik Evin Nolan Triangle Breaking up in Flight Acrylic Paul O'Keefe Across Steel and Charcoal Michael O'Neill Great Oval City Etching and Aquatint Floyd Placzek Untitle Mixed Media Vivienne Roche The Hangman's Beautiful Painted Steel Daughter Rory Rodgers Tory Habour Oil Maria Simonds- Store Place Fresco on Plaster Pigment Gooding Andrew Shiels Pandora's Box III Painted Steel Samuel Walsh Drawings 10/vii/80 Pencil on Watercolour Paper Michael Warren Untitled Painted Steel

VISUAL ARTS

GRANTS Annual Open Exhibitions £ Listowel Art Committee 5,000 An tOireachtas 2,100 Claremorris Art Committee 1,750 Irish Exhibition of Living Art 2,000 Exhibition of Visual Art, Limerick 2,000 Independent Artists 2,500 ROSC-Cork 1,000 -Dublin 37,370

Galleries Douglas Hyde Gallery 28,498 Sligo Art Gallery Society 600 Gallery of Photography 2,000 National Gallery of Ireland/Klee Exhibition 1,841 Kilkenny Art Gallery Society 900 Cork Arts Society 6,000 Artists' Studios and Organisations Association of Print Workshops 200 Black Church Print Studio 8,900 Graphic Studio, Dublin 8,000 Sculptors' Society 343 Visual Arts Centre, Dublin 2,800 Wicklow Fine Art Press 599 Others "Art About Ireland" 2,000 International Association of Art Critics 2,000 Irish Art Historians 100 National Trust Archive 2,200 Irish Photographic Federation 130

130,831 Less: previous year's grants not required (310) £130,521

General £ Exhibition Quarterly 2,353 Slide Library l,957 Planning advice 1,633 Purchase of Lithographic Stones 1,304 Sundries 938 £8,185 Exhibitions Contemporary Yugoslav Art 1,195 The Delighted Eye 10,483 Robert Ballagh — The Artist's Response to Northern Ireland 4,345 Harry Clarke Retrospective 595 James Ensor 3,192 Escher 624 O.H.Hajek 1,525 Polish Film and Theatre Posters 325 An Táin 485 Arts Council of Northern Ireland Touring Exhibitions 1,630 Sundries 1,093 25,492

JOINT PURCHASE GRANTS Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, Cork 210 Athlone Regional Technical College 385 Dundrum Boys Vocational School 109 Kildare County Council 618 Kildare County Libraries 80 Kilkenny Art Gallery Society 450 Limerick County Library 750 Mount Temple Comprehensive School 200 Scoil Mhuire National School, Howth 138 Trinity College, Dublin, Gallery 1,506 Radio Telefís Eireann 1,012 University College, Cork 1,000 University College, Dublin 1,500 University College, Galway 960 £8,918 GRANTS TO INDIVIDUALS £ Visual Arts: Major Projects Bursaries Gordon Woods 4,000 Brian King 5,000 Eilis O'Connell 2,000 Graham Knuttel 1,500 Tom Grace 850 Visual Arts: Post-Graduate Studies Bursaries Paul O'Keefe 3,000 Kathleen Cronin 600 Inez Nordell 1,500 Visual Arts: Studio Equipment and Materials Bursaries Patrick Collins 9,000 Vivienne Roche 2,250 Joe Butler 1,100 Robert Ballagh 1,000 Moya Bligh 1,000 Helen Con-ierford 800 Alanna O'Kelly 800 Philip Carrick 550 Samuel Walsh 500 The George Campbell Memorial Travel Award Sean McSweeney 1,000 Mont Kavanagh Award Eilís O'Connell 1,250 Michael Warren 1,250 Travel Grants Edward Delaney 400 Liam Ó Broin 315 Eilís O'Connell 620

INTEREST-FREE LOANS £ Robinson Gallery 1,500 ROSC 5,250 £6,750

A selection of books published during 1980 with the assistance of the Arts Council.

Literature

In contrast with remarks made in other parts of this report, the essential alteration in the Council's approach to literature over the last two years or so has been the move towards assisting the non-creative, subsidiary aspects of literature. It was in literature that the Council first awarded bursaries and its policies have tended to emphasise the individual writer before any other concern. This is probably the result of historical accident, in that, when the major development of the Council as a funding agency occurred in 1973 the publishing industry was comparatively undeveloped and it was left to the Council to decide its own priorities without substantial pressure to maintain existing institutions. The Council funded individual artists and their publishers over the past few years and will continue to do so. But it has become increasingly obvious that, if the situation is to improve further, then it is vital that publishing as an industry be encouraged in every possible way. This approach has involved the Council in funding, by grant-aiding and by the provision of interest-free loans, organisations such as the Irish Book Publishers Association (CLÉ) and Irish Bookhandling Ltd. These organisations are concerned with publishing in general not just with the publishing of contemporary literature and their aim is to make publishing a profitable industry.

CLÉ (the Irish Book Publishers Association) concentrated a good deal of its attention, in 1980, on international markets for Irish books. The association attended the book-fairs at Chicago and Frankfurt. The resurgence in the industry seems to be attracting substantial interest in America which, it is hoped, can be turned into increased sales.

Irish Bookhandling Ltd. exists as a centralised warehousing and distribution system. Last year was its first full year of operation and the results bode well for the future. The system has a very important implication for publishers trying to expand their activity, as Irish Bookhandling will actually pay for books at the time of delivery, rather than on sale, thereby substantially easing the cash-flow problems of expanding businesses The problem of cash-flow is also met by the system of interest-free loans to publishers which the Council operates. These interest-free loans are usually given in conjunction with grants for particular titles which publishers propose to produce. The number of such publishers has increased over the past years and in 1980 ten publishers were assisted to produce thirty-two titles. The growth of some of these publishers has been remarkably rapid and the quality of production — for example the emphasis on attractive jacket-design of recent Poolbeg books — is excellent.

It would be wrong to give the impression that all is well with book publishing in Ireland — that there is a happy confluence between creative output and profitable selling. There is a long way to go even for the more widely popular forms of literature but, in addition, there remain very substantial problems with the less popular or less accessible aspects of publishing, such as plays and poetry. Gallery Press is the publisher most clearly associated with the publication of poetry and, despite difficult circumstances it has kept going for ten years, achieving the significant coup in 1980 of publishing Brian Friel's play Aristocrats.

The difficulties of assisting a press such as this has led the Council to consider the possibility of giving grants specifically to help with administration.

The publication of new plays received a significant boost as a result of the imaginative policy of Co-Op Books which, in close co-operation with the Abbey and Peacock Theatres, has been publishing plays to coincide with their productions.

The financial difficulty of publishing poetry did not deter Raven Press. This press published Jesus, Break his Fall by Paul Durcan, and Reductionist Poem by Anthony Cronin.

The other aspect of poetry is, of course, that of readings and the role of Poetry Ireland in this remains crucial. During 1980 Poetry Ireland held twenty-five readings in various venues throughout the country. The Council's own scheme of Writers-in-Schools introduces writers and their work to schoolchildren. In 1980 fifty-one writers made one hundred and

ninety-two visits to one hundred and four schools.

The increased emphasis in recent years on the administrative elements of literature has not in any sense meant that the Council has reduced its commitment to the individual writer. Bursaries continue to be a central concern. In addition the Council is interested in any proposal which would provide writers with the range of services they require for their work. An example of such a service is that of the professional association of writers and the Council was able to provide a grant for the Society of Irish Playwrights to allow them to establish an administrative office.

The Council continued its scheme to assist publishers who wished to commission new works from Irish writers. The Authors' Royalty Fund offers grants and loans to publishers to enable them to offer advances on royalties. In 1980 four such loans were made — two to Poolbeg Press and two to Arlen House Press. Arlen House has commissioned a novel entitled Night Feed from Eavan Boland and a novel entitled Mothers from Mary Rose Callaghan. Poolbeg has commissioned novels from Emma Cooke and Maura Treacy entitled, respectively, A Single Sensation and Scenes from a Country Wedding.

In the Council's recent survey of artists sixty percent of writers claimed to be not very satisfied, or not at all satisfied, with the bursary system. Despite this fact 1980 saw a very marked increase in the number of writers applying to the Council for such grants. Whether this reflects increasing confidence in the bursaries or simply acceptance that they are all that is available is not clear.

The effect of so many additional applicants is, that competition becomes fiercer and, perhaps, that applicants who might have been assisted in other years are disappointed. In order to avoid this the Council attempted to increase the amount of money available. In all, twelve writers were assisted under three headings in 1980. The Marten Toonder Award, which is made in recognition of achievement, was presented to the poet Richard Murphy. The Council was also involved for the first time with the American Embassy in the arrangements for Irish representation at the Iowa International Writing Programme. The Embassy asked the Council to select the participants and it was decided that there should be two co-winners. Des Hogan opted to go to Iowa in 1981 and John Banville travelled in 1980.

Under the main scheme of bursaries in literature ten writers were successful. Perhaps the best known of these is Francis Stuart. Mr. Stuart was awarded £9,000, which will be paid annually over three years. Paul Durcan was also assisted in this way, for a period of two years. Mr. Durcan intends to use his bursary to allow him to travel, as does Ronan Sheehan who has been awarded £1,500. Michael Davitt, Aidan Higgins, Eavan Boland and Gerald Dawe are comparatively well known writers who received awards. Less known, perhaps, are the young writers Tony Cafferky and Kevin Kiely. Both of these will be using their bursaries to allow them to concentrate on novels. The only playwright to win an award was Peter Sheridan, who received £2,500.

Tugann an Chomhairle an Duais don bhFilíocht i nGaeilge gach trí bhliain ar an mbailiúcháin is fearr don chomhaimseartha a foilsítear i nGaeilge. Bhronn an Chomhairle an Duais i 1980 are Micheál Ó hAirtneide le haghaidh an bhailiuchain Adharca Broic.

The Denis Devlin Award for the best published collection of poetry is awarded every three years. It went to Seamus Heaney for his book Field Work.

GRANTS

Publishers £ Irish Writers' Co-operative 6,000 The Happy Elephants, Peter O'Connor Emigrants, Peter Sheridan I do not like thee. Dr. Fell. Bernard Farrell Humpty Dumpty, J. Graham Reid One Act Plays, Volume I One Act Plays, Volume II Canaries, Bernard Farrell A Closed Door, J. Graham Reid Nightshade, Stewart Parker Upstarts, Neil Donnelly Captives, F. D. Sheridan.

Wolfhound Press 3,900 Art Learning and Teaching, Diarmuid Larkin Voyovic and Other Stories, Niall Quinn Dolmen Press 1,600 Poems 1956-1973, Thomas Kinsella Martin, Brien and O'Keefe Ltd. 1,000 The High Consistory, Francis Stuart

Arlen House 800 In Her Own Image, Eavan Boland The War Horse, Eavan Boland A Dream Recurring, Poems and Short Stories Academy Press 1,000 Rex Ingrams, Master of the Silent Cinema Liam O'Leary Egotist Press 200 Boys oh Boys, J. B. Lyons (Net yet published) Gallery Press 1,200 The Boats are Home, Brendan Kennelly Aristocrats, Brian Friel Poolbeg Press 3,000 Female Forms, Emma Cooke The New Perspective, K. Arnold Price Tales from the Blue Stacks, Robert Bernen A Season for Mothers, Helen Lucy Burke The Lady with the Red Shoes, Ita Daly An Idle Woman, Val Mulkerns Apple on the Treetop, Richard Power (translated Victor Power) One for Sorrow, Anthony Glavin Raven Arts Press 1,100 Reductionist Poem, Anthony Cronin Jesus, Break his Fall, Paul Durcan Magazines and Periodicals Books Ireland 1,500 The Crane Bag 1,300 Cyphers 1,350 Irish University Review 1,000 ERA 200

Organisations and Events Ballyshannon Allingham Society 100 Cumann Merriman 1,000 North Cork Writers Festival 200 O'Kelly Centenary 100 Society of Irish Playwrights 600 Yeats Society, Sligo 1,500 Iowa Writing Programme 300 Writers Week, Listowel 5,500 Poetry Ireland 2,338 Publishing Industry Irish Bookhandling 9,630 CLÉ (Association of Irish Book Publishers) 5,500 £51,918

DIRECTLY PROMOTED ACTIVITIES £ £ Writers-in-Schools:Expenditure 9,197 Income (3,322) Sundries 721 Sundry Income (132) £6,464 GRANTS TO INDIVIDUALS Bursaried in Literature Michael Davitt 5,000 Aidan Higgins 5,000 Eavan Boland 3,000 Francis Stuart (over 3 years) 9,000 Paul Durcan (over 2 years) 5,000 Tony Cafferky 1,500 Gerald Dawe 1,500 Kevin Kiely 1,500 Ronan Sheelan 1,500 Peter Sheridan 2,500 Marten Toonder Award Richard Murphy 2,500 Irish Poetry Award Michael Hartnett 1,000 Travel Grants Gerald Dawe 300 Tom Murphy 300 Denis Devlin Award Seamus Heaney 600

INTEREST-FREE LOANS Academy Press 2,500 Irish Writers Co-Operative 2,000 Goldsmith Press 2,000 Irish Bookhandling 30,000 Poetry Ireland 5,000 Poolbeg Press 30,000 Wolfhound Press 2,200 £73,700

Opera

The pursuit of high standards of performance should be the motivating factor in opera. Innovation, creativity, new forms of expression are all subjugated in an art form where the emphasis is placed on the quality of the performance of existing and well-known works.

This emphasis is undoubtedly a contributing factor in the rationale of those who view opera as elitist. What is sometimes externally regarded as elitism means commitment to those involved, and it is this commitment that has given opera in Ireland a large and dependable audience.

In recent years the Council has been critical of the standards being attained in opera. In the Council's view the standards of staging and of singing have, on occasions, fallen short of what is essential in an art form dependent on the maintenance of particularly high standards. Happily the concern for high standards is shared by those involved in the art form and 1980 saw a number of initiatives undertaken both artistically and administratively which should have the effect of underlining existing areas of success and of promoting improvements in others.

Wexford Festival Opera's programme in 1980 presented, in addition to Puccini's Edgar and Handel's Orlando, an American opera Of Mice and Men, based on Steinbeck's book and composed in 1970 by Carlisle Floyd. This opera, which was the most outstanding of the year's productions, was also note-worthy and unusual in the number of principal roles taken by Irish singers.

For the Council of Wexford Festival Opera 1980 has been a particularly active year. A subcommittee on the development of the festival presented its report which is being considered by the Festival Council. The report makes proposals for substantive changes and developments in the festival.

The Dublin Grand Opera Society had, as usual, two seasons during 1980. The Spring season included Massanet's Manon, Cilea's Adrianna Lecouvreur, Puccini's Madame Butterfly and a particularly successful production of Ponchielli's La Giaconda. This last named production included the Irish Ballet Company in the cast as did Gluck's Orfeo and Euridice in the Winter season. Orfeo was unusual in that both the sets and costumes were designed and made in Ireland. Pat Murray, the designer, also designed the sets for the production of La Giaconda. An interesting innovation by the DGOS during 1980, which had a noticeable effect on their productions, was the decision to increase rehearsal time. This, like all initiatives in the arts, costs money and it is therefore gratifying to note that opera's consistently high earning capacity, based on the support of a committed audience, was even more marked in 1980.

Innovations and plans for the future in the established opera companies were complemented by the growth of smaller companies. Kilkenny Chamber Opera toured a production, by Anne Makower, of Cosi fan tutti. The production was very successfully included in the Castletown House series of concerts. Wicklow Opera Society toured its production of The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Irish National Opera toured The Barber of Seville. It would, of course, be a marvellous prospect for growth in opera if new operas were being written by Irish composers. In this context, it is sad to note the death of Dr. A. J. Potter who had recently completed, with the assistance of an Arts Council bursary, a new opera titled The Wedding. Plans for the production of the opera are in train and it is intended that it will have its first performance in 1981.

GRANTS Wexford Festival Opera 48,200 Dublin Grand Opera Society 49,500 Waterford International Festival of Light Opera 8,500 Irish National Opera 15,000 Kilkenny Chamber Opera 480 Wicklow Opera Society 875 £122,555 INTEREST-FREE LOAN Dublin Grand Opera Society £15,000

Antoin Mac Gabhann on fiddle and Dan O'Dowd on the pipes at a session in Culturlann na hEireann.

Traditional Music

The Council owes the increase in its level of involvement with traditional music to the transference to the Council of responsibility for a number of organisations which had previously been funded by Bord Failte (see the Council's 1979 Annual Report). It is clear that the Council is, and should be, only one of a number of bodies, state-sponsored and otherwise, with a role to play in the funding of the traditional arts but the Council has felt for a number of years that its ability to fulfil its statutory role of developing the arts was limited by its lack of involvement in this area. The Willie Clancy Summer School concentrates, as its name implies, on courses in pipes and pipemaking, but is also runs courses on other instruments and includes lectures on a wide variety of related topics. The school has been receiving grants from the Council for five years.

The largest single grant which the Council now administers in traditional music is Seisiún. Seisiun is a scheme developed by Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, through which performances of traditional music take place in Tithe Cheoil and hotels throughout the country during the summer months.

The sudden increase in the number of traditional music organisations seeking funding from the Council made it imperative that the Council should employ specialist staff to advise it. The appointment of an officer with sole responsibility for this area quickly led to the Council making further grants on its own initiative.

Na Píobairí Uileann, for example, were assisted with the financing of the renovation of their newly acquired premises in Henrietta Street in Dublin, a grant which also had the effect of helping to preserve an important aspect of our architectural heritage. The building, which was made available to Na Píobairí Uileann through the generosity of Dublin Corporation will house a museum, exhibitions, offices and classrooms.

A grant was also given to Éigse Ceol Tire the magazine of the Folk Music Society of Ireland.

Instrument-making has been a concern of the Council for a number of years and it is obviously of interest in traditional music also. During 1980 the Council offered assistance to two instrument-makers — a flute-maker and a pipe-maker — and it hopes to continue this kind of assistance. There is an obvious need for a clear demarcation of the Council's role in relation to instrument-making, as the IDA Small Industries Division and Údarás na Gaeltachta are also concerned with support for this activity.

In this as in other areas of the arts the Council does not wish to be merely a funding organisation and consequently is involved in discussions which may have no immediate funding implication. An example of this is the Council's interest in the establishment of a centralised folk music archive. Meetings with many of the experts who have experience in this area have been held, in the hope that the Council can assist in coordinating existing activity and promoting jointly agreed initiatives.

The Council has also introduced the principle of interest-free loans into fostering traditional music, a flexible way of using available money creatively. In 1980 the Council made a substantial interest-free loan to Mulligan Records. Mulligan includes the New Irish Recording Company which has done important work in recording contemporary Irish composers.

GRANTS Festivals £ Cork Folk Festival 500 Féile Oriel 350 Letterkenny International Folk Festival 1,250 Willie Clancy Summer School 700 Féile Pan Celtic 1,500 Organisations Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann 41,300 Irish Pipe Band Association 600 Seo Samhraidh 2,200 £48,400 INTEREST-FREE LOAN Mulligan Records £17,500

The Master Musicians of Jajouka.

Music

Despite its increased involvement in the area of traditional music in the past year, the area of classical music remains a major aspect of the Council's work.

The sheer volume of activity in music is reflected in the number of organisations assisted rather than in the amount of money granted - it remains the case, as noted in previous reports, that the high level of amateur and semi-professional enthusiasm of many music organisers results in a comparatively high degee of financial self-reliance.

In 1980 thirty-five organisations received assistance from the Council.

Co-ordinating activity, while avoiding clumsy or bureaucratic interference, has been a priority for the Council in recent years. The success of the Music Association of Ireland is the best example of this approach and the Council has been anxious to assist the MAI with its development programmes. During 1980 the Council initiated discussions with interested parties in the hope of bringing into being an association for choirs in Ireland. In October Cumann NáisiúntanagCór, the National Association of Choirs, was established on the initiative of Cork Choral Festival and about seventy choirs have affiliated. An example of the sort of work the association hopes to undertake is the instituting of a central sorting point for choral scores which will be available on loan to member choirs.

The idea of bringing groups with a similar purpose together was also behind a meeting to link together music promoters from all over the West of Ireland. The meeting decided to set itself up as a regional branch of the MAI. The assistance of the Regional Arts Officer proved invaluable in bringing this about and demonstrated the importance of a structure for the arts in the regions.

It was also in the Galway/Mayo area, with the initiating and co-ordinating work of the Regional Arts Officer, that the tour of the Master Musicians of Jajouka took place.

In its Report for 1979 the Council referred to the inadequacy of orchestral provision in Ireland. 1980 was the first year that. the New Irish Chamber Orchestra operated on its much increased grant from the Arts Council. As well as its self-promoted chamber concerts in Dublin the orchestra travelled to Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, England and China. Performing abroad in this way has done a great deal of good for the orchestra which has been able to test its repertoire with a wide variety of different audiences and compare its standards with those of performers in many countries. International performing of this kind is something the Council is anxious to encourage.

The other important development for orchestral provision referred to in the 1979 Report was the new Concert Hall at Earlsfort Terrace. Building work continued on schedule but the Council was concerned to note that the appointment of a board and a manager had not taken place by the end of the year. Early appointments are essential if the kind of advance planning that is necessary for the Concert Hall is to be possible.

1980 saw the first Dublin International Organ Festival. The festival, which was the idea of the organist Gerard Gillen, was administered by the organiser of the Music Association of Ireland. The festival, which might have seemed to be of minority appeal, in fact attracted capacity audiences and fully justified itself financially.

Westport Arts Week was assisted by the Council for the first time in 1980. Although the festival included many of the other arts it tended to emphasise music and included such varied performers as the Douglas Gunn Ensemble and the Master Musicians of Jajouka.

The extensive and active music scene should be creating opportunities for composers. That this has not yet occurred with any regularity is due to the usual shortage of money. As part of an attempt to redress this deficiency the Council has launched a scheme to allow promoters of musical events to commission works from Irish composers. The scheme has proved popular and, during 1980 nine compositions were commissioned, one of which had its first performance at the Cork Choral Festival.

Composers were also assisted with a grant to their Association. This was designed to help them employ secretarial staff and to purchase equipment for the copying of scores.

There were two awards for composers from the Council in 1980. Raymond Deane won the Macaulay Fellowship and Gerard Victory was awarded the Hamilton Harty Centenary Busary in Music Composition which was awarded in conjunction with the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

The principal thrust of the Council's grant-aiding of individuals in music remains, however, that of scholarships to young singers and musicians. Nineteen students ranging in age from thirteen to twenty-six, received awards to study saxophone, clarinet, violin, trench horn, piano, trombone, oboe, concert harp and voice in colleges and with teachers in the United States, Great Britain, Federal Republic of Germany, Italy and Belgium. They include four violinists — Susan Briscoe, Paul O'Hanlon, Sean Bradley and Helen Briscoe - and three pianists — Hugh Tinney, Brenda Hurley and Anthony Byrne. Hugh Tinney first received a grant from the Council in 1979. The grant awarded this year will allow him to continue his studies with Louis Kentner in London. Anthony Byrne was assisted with his expenses in entering the International Piano Competition in Vercelli, Italy. Three singers — Anna Caleb, Marie Claire O'Reirdan and Nicola Sharkey attended a course, especially devised for them, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. One of the few award winners particularly interested in contemporary music and in jazz is Leo Barnes. He learnt his instrument with the Army Number One Band and was awarded £2,000 to study in the United States. The Council was particularly pleased to be able to renew its commitment to Daire Fitzgerald, the 'cellist. The Council first assisted Daire in 1977 when she was nine years old and it will continue to do so for a further three years.

GRANTS Orchestras/Ensembles £ New Irish Chamber Orchestra 29,000 Henry Purcell Consort 1,000 Douglas Gunn Ensemble 750 Ulster Orchestra 29,757 Concert Promotion Music Association of Ireland 19,000 Limerick Music Association 3,200 Cork Orchestral Society 1,600 Galway Music Association 1,727 Waterford Music Club 1,128 Carrick-on-Suir Musical Society 120 Cork School of Music, Recitals 211 Drogheda Arts Group 755 Kilkenny Chamber Music 250 Irish Georgian Society 500 Master Musicians of Jajouka: - Cork, Galway and Ballina 700 Portlaoise Music Club 200 Zonta International 160 Clonakilty Music Society 500 Choral Groups Cumann Náisiúnta na gCór 4,750 Culwick Choral Society 1,250 Mullingar Choral Society 200 Pro Musica, Cork 386 St. James's Gate Musical Society 900 Tallaght Choral Society 650 Wicklow Choral Society 500 East Cork Musical Society 700 Festivals Festival in Great Irish Houses 4,250 Killamey Bach Festival 4,233 Westport Arts Week 650 Dublin International Organ Week 1,900 Carlow Music Club 700 Cork International Choral and Folk Dance Festival 16,000 Other Association of Irish Composers 500 Royal Irish Academy of Music: Coulson Fund 4,500 Cork Jazz Company 200 Dublin Philharmonic Society_ 350 £133,177 Less: previous year's grant not required (2,053) £131,124

COMPOSERS COMMISSION FUND GRANTS £2,720 Composer Commissioner Work Jolyon Brettingham-Smith Ensemble for voice and five instruments Concorde Jerome de Bromhead Choral work for soloists and orchestra Culwick Choral Society John Buckley Duo for flute and oboe Concorde Aloys Fleischmann Cantata for choir and orchestra UCC Chamber Choir and Orchestra Philip Martin For piano and orchestra New Irish Chamber Orchestra James Wilson Concerto for harpsichord and orchestra New Irish Chamber Orchestra

BURSARIES Scholarships for Instrumentalists & Singers Leo Bames (saxophone) 2,000 Derek Hannigan (clarinet) 1,500 Susan Briscoe (violin) 2,600 Paul O'Hanlon (violin) 2,600 Mark Beddy (french horn) 1,200 Hugh Tinney (piano) 2,400 Daire Fitzgerald ('cello) 1,200 Brenda Hurley (piano) 1,200 Anna Caleb (voice) 800 Marie Claire O'Reirdan (voice) 800 Nicola Sharkey (voice) 800 Donal Bannister (trombone) 200 David Agnew (oboe) 200 Nicholas O'Halloran (piano) 500 Sean Bradley (violin) 600 Helen Briscoe (violin) 200 Denise Kelly (concert harp) 500 Anthony Byme (piano) 400 Rosalind Maguire (piano) 1,500 Hamilton Harty Centenary Bursary in Composition. Gerard Victory 5,000 Macaulay Fellowship Raymond Deane 2,500 Music Projects Bursary Donal O'Callaghan 1,200 Scholarship for Instrument-Making James O'Halloran 500 Kevin O'Callaghan 700 Raymond Barron 500 Martin Faherty 100 Michael O'Connell 100 Kieran Fahy 100 Bursaries for Professional Musicians Derek Moore (flute) 330 John Gibson (piano) 800 Garry Cronin (guitar) 190 David Daly (double bass)800 Una Russell (organ) 400 Ethne Tinney (piano) l80

DIRECTLY PROMOTED ACTIVITIES Find your Music in Ireland £ Expenditure 794 Income (1,125) (331) Sundries ——— 510 £179

Drama

The percentage of the Council's total funds expended on drama has stabilised after a deliberate reduction policy noted in last year's Annual Report (from 48% in 1979 to 49% in 1980). The major institutions are essential to the development of the arts in Ireland but their maintenance will not necessarily increase creativity.

When funds are limited, commitment to the retention of the major institutions may absorb money meant for creative development.

Some critics of the Council's approach think that this is already happening. Comparisons between the small grants made to some community arts groups or to individual artists and the large grants made to the major theatres can appear to support that view. It is true that, once committed to an organisation on the scale of a modern theatre, it is difficult for the Council to do anything other than keep the annual increases as manageable as possible.

A simple - or perhaps simplistic answer to the relevant problem of inflation is to increase funding from the state. It is clear that the task of having to choose between the maintenance of the institutions where creative work can be performed or developing the conditions for the creation of art is an invidious one which would be resolved by adequate funding. In the current economic climate however such aspirations for increases are unlikely to be met.

It is at that stage that the question of more economic use of available money becomes important. A difficulty with this in drama, as compared to other arts areas, is the comparative slowness of effecting change in the theatre. High overheads, the maintenance of existing institutions and the safeguarding of employment, although essential, combine to slow down change. The Council has a responsibility in funding drama to strike a balance between the maintenance of what exists and the encouragement of more flexible and efficient approaches to the problem.

A highly successful experiment, introduced by the Council in August 1979 and intended to assist in addressing the problem described above, was the Independent Theatre Managements' Scheme. The scheme aims at offering a flexible system of funding to encourage Independent Theatre Managements. It offers a combination of grants and guarantees against loss in a number of areas. Managements may apply for assistance to advance royalties to a playwright when commissioning a new play, grants towards preproduction expenses and guarantees in running expenses on productions of new Irish plays, guarantees for revivals of plays by living Irish playwrights, assistance with touring, loans for preproduction costs and loans for purchase of equipment. Some of the most successful productions of 1980 were assisted by the Council under the terms of this scheme.

For example Translations, Brian Friel's play for his new company Field Day, was immensely successful in Derry where it opened before touring to Galway, Tralee and Cork and being performed at the Dublin Theatre Festival.

Longford Productions, which put on Chekov's Three Sisters at the Gate for a six-week run, also received some Council backing under the Independent Managements' Scheme. It is worth pointing out that any company which makes use of the Gate automatically benefits from Council funds to the value of £3,500 per week.

Gemini Productions and the Cork Opera House co-operated on a production of The Chastitute, John B. Keane's play which was seen in both Dublin and Cork. The Council assisted the Cork production.

Other productions assisted under the Independent Theatre Management Scheme include two productions by Stage One, the Resort Theatre in Wexford and Noel Pearson's production of Tennesse William's A Streetcar Named Desire, in Cork.

The success of the Independent Theatre Managements' Scheme will inevitably have its effects on other areas of the threatre. The Council is encouraging Independent Managements to tour — touring means bigger audiences, bigger audiences mean a better financial return for each production - but clearly such touring implies a network of adequately equipped theatres. It is to be hoped that the simple fact of encouraging artistically successful productions to tour

will make its own contribution - both financial and artistic - to theatres outside Dublin.

In 1980 the Council committed itself to capital expenditure of £85,000 in a joint venture with Bord Failte and Sligo Corporation for the building of a theatre, the Hawkswell, as part of a larger development in Sligo town. The Council was also involved in funding the establishment of the Belltable Arts Centre in Limerick.

For the first time the Council assisted Cork Opera House with its administrative costs. The theatre has always been able to benefit from Arts Council subsidation of particular productions or events and between these two sources the Opera House received £12,800 in 1980.

Druid in Galway have settled into their new premises. The theatre succeeds in achieving a very high seat occupancy and may have reached the limit of its capacity to earn.

The National Theatre presented seven productions of new Irish plays. Thomas Murphy's The Blue Macushla was not as successful as either of the other two first productions in the Abbey, Brian Friel's Faith Healer and Bernard Farrell's Canaries. The Peacock had first productions of J. Graham Reid's The Closed Door, Neil Donnelly's Upstarts and Breándan Ó hEithir and Macdara Ó Fathartha's Lig Sinn i gCathú. Eamon Morrissey's one-man show Joycemen also had its first production.

1980 was the centenary of Sean O'Casey and the Abbey presented productions of Juno and the Pay-cock, Red Roses for Me, and The Shadow of a Gunman during the year.

The Irish Theatre Company visited twenty-one venues in Ireland and three in Great Britain during 1980 and gave a total of one hundred and sixty-one performances. The plays performed were Thornton Wilder's Our Town, Henrik Ibsen's An Enemy of the People, George Bernard Shaw's John Bull's Other Island and a new Irish play Affluence by Wesley Burrowes. The ITC also gave school lectures and readings and public readings of new plays in many of the centres they visited and organised a workshop in Ballinrobe on stage and costume design.

During 1980 an extensive review of the salaries of actors in the Abbey and the Peacock was carried out by an independent arbitrator — Senator T. K. Whitaker. This resulted in a substantial improvement in the levels of salary - a decision which clearly had financial implications for the Council, which agreed to provide the necessary finance.

Complacht an Darner is the Irish language company which is jointly funded by the Council and Bord na Gaeilge. The company was set up on a three year trial basis in 1979 but the programme at the Darner was seriously affected when major redevelopment of the site adjoining the theatre forced it to close to the public. As a result only three productions were presented, two at the Darner — Cinder Eile a pantomime and Clann Thomais a musical with a script by Eoghan Ó Tuairisc - and one at the Peacock, a fine adaptation by Sean McCarthy of Dan Pheaidí Aindí by John B. Keane.

The Council's grants to individuals in the drama field are fairly limited especially if seen in the context of the general scale of grants in drama. Certainly in 1980 the Council was able to have a major impact on the area of mime by awarding scholarships to three students to complete their studies at the Ecole Inter-nationale de Mimodrame Marcel Marceau in Paris. The students are Conal Keamey, Vincent O'Neill and Jonathan Lambert. The three supplemented their scholarship while in Dublin in October by presenting a late night show, Silent Conflicts in the Peacock Theatre.

The Council also awarded, under its scheme of bursaries in the visual arts, an award to Inez Nordell to study set design.

The Council's scheme of bursaries for ApprenticeTheatre Producers has now been in existence for a number of years and has been particularly successful. Peter Gowan was the successful applicant in 1980. Initially he is spending some months working with the Irish Theatre Company. He is a graduate of Trinity College where he was actively involved with Dublin University Players.

GRANTS Annual Grants £ Abbey and Peacock Theatres 842,000 Irish Theatre Company 223,541 Gate Theatre, Dublin 178,900 Dublin Theatre Festival 68,309 Siamsa Tire, Tralee 16,500 Amharclann an Darner 63,163 Druid Lane Theatre, Galway 24,750 Focus Theatre, Dublin 12,450 Everyman Theatre, Cork 28,600 Independent Theatre Managements' Scheme Gemini Productions 6,250 World Theatre Productions 6,900 Field Day Productions, Derry 10,000 Cork Opera House 10,000 Dublin Stage One 5,220 Longford Productions 6,800 Oscar Theatre 1,500 Noel Pearson Management 1,500 1,506,383 Less: previous year's grant not required: (268) £1,506,115

GRANTS TO INDIVIDUALS Bursaries for Professional Actors Conal Kearney 2,000 Vincent O'Neill 2,000 Jonathan Lambert 2,000 Scholarships for Apprentice Theatre Producers Peter Gowen 3,000

INTEREST FREE LOANS Longford Productions 9,000 Olympia Theatre 9,000 £18,000

Dublin City Ballet - Craig Phillips and Robin James in "The Dream."

Dance

An unfortunate occurrence in 1980 was the destruction by fire of the Irish Ballet Company's new premises in Cork. The purchase of the premises had been assisted by the Council with a grant of £60,000. In Dublin the most notable event was the emergence of the Dublin City Ballet. This company was formed only in 1979 and its achievements to date have been substantial. Its ambitions for the future are well-defined and the Council is anxious to ensure that it can continue to support the company at its present rate of growth while remaining certain that the extremely rapid development of the company will not have an adverse effect on standards. Perhaps the high point of the company's work in 1980 was the performance of Giselle. The production was extremely popular and played for a number of weeks in the Olympia.

The Irish Ballet Company continued its pattern of extensive touring, visiting twenty-two centres during the year (see map on page 00). The company, as well as performing in Dublin, has established the practice of providing the dancers for the Dublin Grand Opera Society's performances.

Of the smaller companies Barefoot Dance is assisted through the Council's grant to Wexford Arts Centre.

Dublin Contemporary Dance has now been in existence for a number of years and is firmly established both in internal organisation and in public image. The company now has two full-time teachers of contemporary dance in its studio. In 1980 the company first invited a choreographer from abroad - Roysten Maldoom worked on a number of pieces with the company.

An interesting new development, which the Council would like to see expanded in the future, is the composing of new music for dance. Dublin City Ballet performed Arachne which was choreographed by Terez Nelson to a specially commissioned piece by Jim Wilson.

For the Pearse Commemoration the Government commissioned a number of artistic works among which was a ballet to be performed by the Irish Ballet Company; it's music was composed by John Buckley, it's choreography by Joan Denise Moriarty.

The increased audience interest in dance in recent years does seem to be having some effect on the general perception of ballet as a career. Perhaps it is merely fortuitous but for the first time since bursaries in dance were awarded by the Council they were won in 1980 by male dancers only. In addition the Council found that the general level of the applicants was so high that it was necessary to increase the number of awards from two to three. The successful dancers were Daire Ó Dúnlaing and Kilian O'Callaghan - who are both studying at the Royal Ballet School in London — and Christopher Montague, who is at the Houston Ballet Academy in Texas.

GRANTS £ Irish Ballet Company 192,000 Dublin City Ballet 22,000 Dublin Contemporary Dance Theatre 2,200 Mid-West Ballet 443 Cork Ballet Company 2,000 218,443 Less: previous year's grants required: (1,734) £216,709 BURSARIES Dance Scholarships: Daire Ó Dúnlaing 2,000 Kilian O'Callaghan 2,000 Christopher Montague 1,500

Shooting a scene for Neville Presho's Desecration.

Film

A very rapid expansion of enthusiasm and activity typified those organisations in film funded by the Arts Council in 1981. The opening of IFT Limerick, the doubling of the membership of the Federation of Irish Film Societies, the re- vitalisation of the National Film Institute and the establishment of the Joint Committee on Film Exhibition and Education were all significant events. They were paralleled on the production side by the establishment of the Association of Independent Producers and the introduction into Dail Eireann of the long-awaited Film Board Bill.

The Council's Film Script Award was won by Neville Presho for a script which, under the title Desecration, looks at the challenges faced by traditional ways of life threatened by progress, as a survey team discovers viable mineral deposits on a bleak island off the west coast.

The need for the Council to look again at both the number and value of awards for film production is complicated by the introduction of the Film Board Bill in 1980, by the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Tourism.

The Bill, which by the end of the year had passed all stages in the Oireachtas, proposes to establish a seven-member board, appointed by the Minister, with a four-year fund of £4.1 million. The Board is to undertake the funding of film- making, by implication calling into question the continuing relevance of the Council's grants in this area. The Bill received a very mixed reception from those involved in film, and the Council was among those who were critical of a bill which, from the phrasing of its terms, its structures and the comments of the Minister, seems primarily intended to resolve the problems of the National Film Studios and to continue the policy of funding major foreign productions.

The Council's view, which is widely shared, is that such a policy will act to the detriment of indigenous Irish film- making and may in the longterm be self-defeating.

The general expansion of interest in film, referred to at the beginning of this section, is well illustrated by the regionalisation of the Irish Film Theatre. The IFT, which was set up by the Council in 1977, shows films which though of high quality, are not distributed by the major distributors. The IFT is totally funded by its members and does not receive any financial assistance from the Council. In June 1980 the board of the IFT opened a second cinema, located in Limerick. The board is also planning the opening of a second screen in Dublin, devoted to more specialised programmes and, in the longer term, the opening of cinemas in Cork and Galway.

There are substantial audiences for films in smaller towns throughout the country and these are served by film societies. At the end of 1980, there were forty-two film societies in Ireland affiliated to the Federation of Irish Film Societies. The Federation, which receives an annual grant from the Council, had only seven member societies when it was established in 1977.

The National Film Institute has also been under-going a substantial revitalisation in recent years. The Institute has been providing a valuable service to schools by the provision of educational films for many years but consistent under- funding and the introduction of video equipment into many schools threatened the loss of this service. With financial assistance from the Council the Institute has appointed an Education Officer as a first step in making the Institute's services more relevant to present day requirements.

The need for a National Film Institute should be self-evident and the Council is anxious to assist the Institute with its development programme in the coming years.

The Council acts as joint publisher with the Arts Council of Northern Ireland of the film magazine Film Directions. During the year the publishers sought the views of a wide variety of interested organisations about the magazine and the Council agreed to appoint an editorial board and to make the magazine an independent entity as an attempt to redress these problems. Regrettably the board of the IFT decided it would no longer distribute the magazine.

GRANTS £ Film Production Joe Comerford (Film Script Award 1979 - balance) 8,150 Neville Presho (Film Script Award 1980) 25,000 Film Script Development Awards Cathal Black 250 Helen Quinn 250 Robert Wynne-Simmons 250 Organisations Cork Film Festival 42,500 Federation of Irish Film Societies 7,000 National Film Institute 7,400 Travel Grant Neville Presho 200 91,000 Less: previous year's grant not required: (500) £90,500

DIRECTLY PROMOTED ACTIVITIES Film Directions Expenditure 8,512 Income (3,718) ———— 4,794 — Sundries 161 £4,955

Arts Centres and Festivals

In the report for 1979 emphasis was placed on the importance for arts centres of adequate premises. Progress in this aspect of the work of arts centres can be recorded for 1980.

Grapevine Arts Centre's new premises provide the most dramatic proof of the effect of adequate premises on the work of an arts centre. Arts centres tend to act as facilitators rather than as innovators of creative work. The provision of a facility - space - attracts, and provides the basis for growth, of existing arts activity. The contact between various disciplines and individuals leads to the evolution of an artistic policy which in turn lends each centre its particular character.

The Grapevine's character has tended to emphasise the role of the local community and the encouragement of new audiences for the arts. In 1980 the centre concentrated on workshops and touring its theatre company. The company, which had established a separate identity for itself by the end of the year, toured throughout Ireland — particularly to festivals. Workshops for both adults and children, in theatre, clay, dance and so on took place. An example of the kind of constructive links with other arts activity encouraged by Grapevine is the provision of facilities for fringe theatrical activity such as the Reckless Theatre Company or the particularly close links with Raven Arts of Finglas.

It might seem at first glance that this is not an area of the arts with much ability to earn its own income. It is worth pointing out that the Grapevine managed to earn approximately twice the amount of its Arts Council grant, an achievement which many more established centres would envy.

The Grapevine approach is of a qualitatively different kind to that of Project Arts Centre which is the longest established of the arts centres. The Project's particular success in recent years in the area of theatre has waned and the centre is undergoing a reassessment of its role. Its decision to close for a period in 1980 was complicated by a fire later in the year which forced a second closure.

Nonetheless a good deal of interesting arts activity took place. The most notable events in theatre involved those companies "imported" from abroad, in particular the London company Shared Experience and the well known Footsbarn Theatre Company. Project productions included Bats or Booze or Both, and Hancocks Last Half Hour — and some productions by other companies such as Stage One Theatre's controversial Stallerhof.

In visual arts the Project tended to concentrate on performance art and in music, from May through to November, on rock music, including some well-known bands such as The Atrix and U2. A particularly interesting programme was New Music in Ireland which featured performances of work and discussions with contemporary composers.

Early in the year Project, in a reorganisation of its administrative and policy-making structures, appointed an Artistic Director to complement the existing post of Administrator and, in November, it announced the appointment of a new board.

Triskel Arts Centre in Cork moved premises during the year but not, regrettably, to larger premises. The search for premises of a suitable size continues. Their artistic programme during the year consisted of a large number of poetry readings, by Gerald Dawe for example, and music performances, for example by the Douglas Gunn Ensemble. The centre also provides a gallery space which was in constant use throughout the year. The Cork Review is a magazine produced by the centre. Despite some initial difficulties the magazine seems likely to continue.

Two significant new developments, though on a different scale from one another, were the Belltable Arts Centre in Limerick and Tuam Theatre and Arts Centre.

The Belltable, which will open in 1981, results from an initiative of the RDO's Arts Committee. Major alterations are being made to Amharclann na Féile which will result in a theatre of three hundred and twenty seats, exhibition space, and coffee bar. The whole venture is a testament to local initiative with financial contributions being made by Shannon- side Tourism, SFADCO and Limerick Corporation as

The Belltable Arts Centre

well as the Arts Council. Local businesses are also contributing and the architects have waived their fee. An Administrator — Bríd Dukes — was appointed in September.

The Tuam Theatre Guild, an amateur theatre company, were responsible for the only new arts centre actually to open in 1980. The Council contributed to the cost of renovations and alterations to an existing small theatre, as did Galway County Council and the Theatre Guild itself. The centre opened in July with a week-long festival. It is worth pointing out that Tuam is the first arts centre to open in Connacht.

The Council provided financial assistance to five festivals combining different art forms during 1980. Gorey Arts Festival attracted considerable attention for its music classes, with teachers such as Veronica Dunne and John O'Conor, and is planning to expand to year round activity as soon as possible, perhaps in 1982; the idea of a new purpose-built arts centre is also being discussed.

Galway Arts Group's festival was as extensive as usual and included visual arts, drama (in Irish and English), dance, music (classical, jazz, rock and traditional), puppetry, poetry readings, and film. Galway Arts Group also aspires to year-round activity and a permanent centre — an aspiration prevented primarily by the difficulties in locating suitable premises.

Kilkenny Arts Week, one of the longest established of the festivals, was particularly noticeable for the success and extent of its fringe activities which complemented the more formal elements such as the Charles Harper and Pat Scott exhibitions in Kilkenny Castle and the major classical music programme which included the Academica String Quartet in St. Canice's Cathedral.

GRANTS Arts Centres £ Belltable Arts Centre, Limerick 1,500 Grapevine Arts Centre, Dublin 11,500 Triskel Arts Centre, Cork 7,000 Tuam Theatre Guild and Arts Centre 575 Project Arts Centre, Dublin 93,000 Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig 11,715 Wexford Arts Centre 28,600 153,890

Arts Festivals Cavan Arts Society 205 Dublin Arts Festival 1,000 Galway Arts Week 2,000 Gorey Arts Festival 6,600 Kilkenny Arts Week 8,735 £18,540

Part of the mural painted by the pupils of Presentation Convent Primary School, Athenry, with the help of artists Helen O'Donoghue and Dervil Jordan.

Education

The Department of Education published its White Paper on Educational Development in December. The White Paper contained — for the first time in any Education White Paper — a separate chapter on the arts. Regrettably, this chapter (which was possibly meant as a response to the Benson Report which was published in 1979) contains only one proposal. This modest, though welcome, suggestion is for the establishment of a Departmental Committee to examine the extent to which artistic and creative activities are being catered for in second-level schools. The structure, powers or time-scale for this committee are not mentioned.

In general, the Council feels that, although the personal contacts which have been developed with the Department staff are excellent, the Department as an institution seems to be surprisingly reluctant to give sustained or serious consideration to the state of the arts in our education system.

The Department seems to have decided that it should approach the problem by explaining why the proposals of the Benson Report are unimplementable within the present structure. The Council had hoped that the usefulness or otherwise of Benson's proposals might first be considered and the appropriatness of the Department's structures examined in the light of that discussion.

The White Paper's emphasis on the lack of popular support for the arts in Irish schools can only be interpreted as an attempt to shirk the real issue. It is clearly the case that as the arts have never been adequately taught in our schools, they are hardly likely to command the wide attention of parents.

In the context of the Benson Report's 117 recommendations, this response from the Department remains incomplete. The Council is convinced that the question of the arts and education is the single most important problem facing it. The Council hopes that the epartment can give the situation more sustained attention in the coming year.

While the role of the Department of Education is obviously crucial there are of course many other institutions capable of effecting change for the better in our system of arts education. The Council would like to be counted among those and therefore, as well as offering funds to organisations and institutions interested in improving the state of arts education, the Council has been involving itself in an increasing number of relevant schemes.

Research and publication in methods of art teaching is obviously a most important part of any development of the arts in Education. The Council assisted Wolfhound Press with a grant and a loan to publish Diarmuid Larkin's book Art Learning and Teaching.

A particular aspect of the Benson Report which has been of concern to the Council during the past year has been that of music teaching in the West. In the Benson Report (section 4.23 and 6.3) reference is made to the pressing need for UCG and the region's Vocational Education Committees to cooperate in the establishment of a School of Music. According to the Benson Report, "... the people of the west are musically disadvantaged compared to the rest of the country". In the whole of Connacht there is no institution where a student can acquire advanced qualifications in music or study for a career in teaching it.

1980 was the first year that the Council made awards to individuals in the area of education. Patricia Glynn, a physical education teacher, was awarded a scholarship to allow her to pursue a one-year course of study at the Laban Dance Centre, University of London. She is a graduate of Thomond College of Education and taught for five years in St. Louis' Co-educational School in Bundoran where she specialised in dance.

The Council also offered a scholarship for a student to pursue postgraduate studies after successfully completing the Bachelor of Education degree. Bernadette Moore was awarded a scholarship under this scheme to study for a postgraduate diploma in Drama-in-Education. She hopes to work with Dorothy Heathcote at Newcastle University.

Tina Nolan, from Tallaght, who is in her first year studying architecture at UCD, and Maureen O'Sullivan

from Tralee, who is studying for a B.Mus. at UCC, were recipients of the Council's scholarships based on Leaving Certificate results in art and music.

The Prints-in-Schools scheme was introduced on a pilot basis in County Clare in October 1980 and will be introduced throughout the country. The scheme is based on County Libraries. A set of prints by contemporary Irish artists is lodged with a county librarian and may be borrowed by local schools for periods of three weeks.

A scheme which is similar in its intention to make school children familiar with the visual arts, is the Murals-in- Schools scheme. This was introduced in the Galway/Mayo Regional Development Organisation area and was co- ordinated by the Regional Arts Officer. Two artists, Helen O'Donoghue and Dervil Jordan, who already had experience of mural painting, travelled to schools in the area to help the children paint large-scale murals on the walls of their school. The scheme has been highly successful and it is planned to extend it nationally in 1981.

The Department of Education established a committee during 1980 to examine the question of inservice training for teachers. This is an area of considerable interest to the Council insofar as it affects the teaching of the arts and the Council made submissions to the committee.

In the interim the Council feels that it must itself assist where there is obvious need for inservice courses and during 1980, the Council organised or assisted the funding of courses in dance and creative movement, drama, visual arts and the visual environment. The Council also contributed to a course in youth leadership in the arts organised by the National Youth Council and to a seminar on the arts in education organised by the Art/Drama Centre in Cork.

The Council continued its policy of developing a core of skilled arts administrators through the organisation of a six day arts administration course run for the Council by the Irish Management Institute.

GRANTS Courses £ An Foras Forbartha 200 Association of Irish Musical Societies 300 Coláiste Chonnacht 280 Dublin Boy Choristers Summer School 150 Irish Dance Education Association 500 National Youth Council 500 Peoples' College, Dublin 1,000 Teachers' Centre, Drumcondra 178 Music Ceol Chumann na nÓg 5,400 Cork Youth Orchestra 500 Dublin Chamber Music Group 337 Wexford School of Music 500 Mayo County Council: Music Students 475 Dundalk Urban District Council: Music Students 1,200 Drama Dublin Youth Theatre 1,500 Visual Arts Galway-Mayo Regional Development Organisation Murals-in-Schools 3,440 £16,460

DIRECTLY PROMOTED ACTIVITIES The Place of the Arts in Irish Education Expenditure 2,631 Income (201) 2,424 Courses 4,563 Prints-in-Schools 1,502 Murals-in-Schools 235 Purchase of Film 480 Sundries 1,274 £10,478 GRANTS TO INDIVIDUALS Bursary for a teacher with an Arts Specialism Patricia Glynn 9,000 Bernadette Moore 5,800 Martina Nolan 500 Travel Grant Mary Conroy 500

Moving Theatre, on a drive in the country, from a sketch in Revue. Community Arts

A concern with community response to the arts is important, to a greater or lesser degree, in all arts activity. It is where the concern with the community is all-important for an arts organisation that the Council deals with it under the heading of Community Arts. In 1978 the Council's Annual Report referred to "... activities loosely designated as Community Arts." This loose designation has, in practice, worked very well. In 1976 the Council made grants to ten organisations under the heading of Community Arts. The number of such grants in 1980 was twenty-four. This very expansion has put the Council under pressure to be more precise in its definition. Questions of standards, relevance and innovativeness, which may be constant and to some degree measureable, and therefore comparable, in other disciplines, are totally variable in Community Arts. For example the artistic standards achieved by the Pintsize Puppet Theatre are essential to any judgement of its worthiness for grant aid but would be totally inappropriate to the children's art page of Ballymun News. This difficulty of assessment becomes critical when shortage of finance forces the Council to choose between applicants for aid. In general the Council has operated two distinct categories of judgement in Community Arts. Firstly it has sought to assist those professional groups who have chosen to work outside the usual forums and to concentrate their activities on, and in, the community. This commitment usually means substantial innovation not only in the content of the work performed but also in its form. Examples of this are TEAM Educational Theatre Company which has now been in existence for a number of years and the recently formed Moving Theatre. Assessing applications from amateur organisations poses many problems. As the objective is to promote community participation in the arts questions of artistic standard may be of secondary importance or may not be at all relevant. However, where possible the Council seeks to assist the development of skills by amateurs which may in turn lead to improved standards of execution. Within the second category — amateur arts — the kind of organisation assisted can vary considerably. Dublin Orchestral Players, for example, were first assisted by the Council in 1954 (with a grant of £5) and have been regularly assisted since then with their concerts. Ballymun News is a locally produced newspaper which includes drawings and paintings by local children. The Council assists the costs of reproducing these pages. Carlow Amateur Moviemakers received a grant to assist with their annual festival of amateur films. GRANTS Professional Groups £ Moving Theatre 2,660 Pintsize Puppet Theatre 1,250 TEAM Educational Theatre 24,500 Multi-Media An Tóstal, Drumshanbo 600 Ballymun Arts Workshop 250 City Views/Living City Group 150 Clifden Arts Workshop 100 Dundalk Maytime Festival 7,250 Liberties Festival, Dublin 300 North City Centre Community Action Report 300 Raven Arts 500 Tallaght Arts Council 50 Waterford Arts-for-AU 250 Visual Arts Ballymun News 250 Photographic Society of Ireland 151 Film Carlow Amateur Movie Makers 125 Dublin Cine Club 100 Music Arklow Silver Band 1,200 Dublin Baroque Players 1,950 Feis Ceoil, Dublin 1,500 Feis Maitiú, Corcaigh 500 Dance Cork Dance Company 330 Dublin Ballet Club 492 £44,758

Regional Arts Committees

Donegal Arts Committee Director: Liam Kelly Arts Committee: Peter Gallagher, Chairman Clement Mac Suibhne Patrick Harte T.D. Tom O'Reilly David Mackey Pat Bolger Donal O'Shea Vincent Murphy Eddie O'Kane Very Revd. Canon Cathal O'Callaghan P.P. Derek Hill Denis Doyle Àine Bean Uí Ghallchóbhair Sean Breslin Annie Arnold Rita Kerrigan Patrick O'Kelly De Conejera Éamonn Ó Canainn Patrick MacGarvey An tAthair Seán Ó hÈigeartaigh Arts Officer: Michael McMullin, Regional Arts Committee, County Buildings, Lifford, Co. Donegal.

Cork/Kerry Regional Arts Committee Director: John Quish Arts Committee: Michael Broderick Clr. Kit Aherne Michael O'Connell John Fitzpatrick Ignatius Buckley Clr. Pat Dawson Clr. Dennis Lyons Nora Relihan Tadgh Curtis Michael Donegan D.J.O'Sullivan Cornelius Murphy Arts Officer: John O'Mahony Regional Arts Committee, 30 Princes Street, Cork.

Mid West Arts Association Director: P. J. Barry Arts Committee: Clr. Frank Prendergast Clr. Tony Bromell Clr. Michael Barry Clr. John Griffin Clr. Frank Dawn Clr. Binkie Hanafin Frank Custy Clr. Madeleine Taylor Dr. Paddy Doran Michael Hartnett Babs Millar Dick Tobin J. McGinley Bill Fogarty Noel Crowley Arts Officer: Marian Fitzgibbon Regional Arts Committee, 104 Henry Street, Limerick.

South-East Regional Arts Committee Director: Liam Murphy Arts Committee: Clr. Joe Manning Michael Warren Michael Coady George Vaughan Larry Fanning John Ennis John McQueen Clr. Liam Curhan Clr. Brendan Corish Clr John McNally Denis Denny William Walsh Clr. Hilda M. Kavanagh Clr. Patrick Coffey Arts Officer: Martin Quigley Regional Arts Committee, Industrial Estate, Waterford.

Galway/Mayo Regional Arts Committee Director: Tony Smyth Arts Committee: Clr. Michael D. Higgins, Chairman Clr. Ulick Burke Clr. Mary Byrne Brian Flynn Hugh McCormick Clr. Micheál Ó Mórain Clr. Martin Finn Clr. Micheal Raftery Gerry Lee Patrick Goff Tom Kenny Brendan Flynn Mary Ruane Máire Ní Dhuibhir Arts Officer: Helen Bygrove, Regional Arts Committee, Woodquay Court, Woodquay, Galway.

REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT Grants £ Donegal Regional Development Organisation 4,958 Galway/Mayo Regional Development Organisation 6,500 Mid-West Regional Development Organisation 2,225 South-East Regional Development Organisation 2,982 Cork/Kerry Regional Development Organisation 3,515 £20,180

The Arts Council is represented by its Finance Officer, David McConnell, on these committees.

Capital

Grants Theatres £ Abbey Theatre 9,481 Gaiety Theatre 25,000 Irish Theatre Company 16,236 Arts Centres Belltable Arts Centre 25,000 Tuam Theatre Guild and Arts Centre 7,000 Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig 120,000 Visual Arts Cork Arts Society 3,400 Traditional Music Na Píobairí Uileann 10,000 £216,117

An Chomhairle Ealaíon

ACCOUNTS for the year ended 31st December 1980

Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General

I have examined the following Accounts and Balance Sheet which, as required by the Arts Act 1951, are in the form approved by the Minister for Finance. I have obtained all the information and explanations which I considered necessary for the purpose of my audit.

In my opinion:- (a) proper books of account have been kept by An Chomhairle and the following Account and Balance Sheet are in agreement with them; (b) the Account and Balance Sheet together with notes 1 to 9 give, respectively, a true and fair view of the transactions of An Chomhairle for the year ended 31st December 1980 and of the state of its affairs on that date.

Seán MacGearailt Comptroller and Auditor General 7th September 1981.

INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT Year ended 31st December 1980 1979 £ Notes £ £ Income 2,340,000 Oireachtas Grant-in-Aid (1) 3,000,000 Special Border Areas __ Programme Fund (2) 100,000 69,640 Other Grants (3) 72,501 21,902 Sundry Income 20,973 3,193,474 2,431,542 Expenditure 2,253,213 General expenditure on the arts (4) 2,946,928 10,843 Transfer to Capital Account (5) 16,326 136,796 Administration (6) 250,654 3,213,908 2,400,852

30,690 Excess (Deficit) of Income over (20,434) Expenditure for the year (3,619) Surplus (Deficit) brought forward 27,071 £ 27,071 Surplus at 31st December 1980 £ 6,637 Notes 1 to 9 form part of these accounts.

James White Chairman

Colm Ó Briain Director

3rd September 1981

BALANCE SHEET AT 31st DECEMBER 1980 31/12/79 £ Notes £ 48,615 Fixed Assets (5) 64,941 70,231 Nett Assets of Trust Funds (7) 70,269 29,140 Interest-Free Loans (8) 118,109 505 Prize Bonds 505

Current Assets 56,194 Debtors 60,202 154,300 Grants Paid in Advance 62,495 __ Cash at Bank and in Hand 6,280 208,494 128,977 Current Liabilities 30,792 Creditors 57,257 176,370 Grants and Guarantees Outstanding 183,697 3,906 Cash at Bank and in Hand __ 211,068 240,954 (2,574) Nett Current Liabilities (111,977) £145,917 £141,847 Represented by: 48,615 Capital Account (5) 64,941 70,231 Trust Funds (7) 70,269 27,071 Income and Expenditure Account: 6,637 Surplus £145,917 £141,847 Notes 1 to 9 form part of these accounts. James White Chairman Colm Ó Briain Director 3rd September 1981

NOTES TO THE ACCOUNTS

Note 1: Accounting Policies (i) Oireachtas Grant Income shown as Oireachtas Grant-in-Aid is the actual cash received from the Vote for An Chomhairle Ealaion.

(ii) Fixed Assets Fixed Assets are shown in the Capital Account at cost, less sales and items written off. Fixed assets are not depreciated.

(iii) Expenditure on office furniture, fittings and equipment is written off in the year of purchase.

Note 2: Special Border Areas Programme Fund A grant of £100,000 was received from this fund and was paid to the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakemg, Co. Monaghan, as part of the Council's scheme of grant-in-aid for capital purposes (see Note 4). The fund was established as part of the E.E.C. Regional Development Programme.

Note 3: Other Grants Received £ Arts Council of Nothern Ireland (Bursaries) 2,176 Bord na Gaeilge (Amharclann an Darner) 40,000 Bryan Guinness Trust (Bursary) 500 Dublin Corporation (Royal Irish Academy of Music) 4,500 Dundalk Urban District Council (Music Scholarships) 1,700 Galway County Council (Tuam Theatre Guild) 2,500 Mayo County Council (Music Scholarships) 475 Radio Telefís Éireann (Film Script Awards) 20,650 £72,501

Note 4: General Expenditure on the Arts

1979 Grants Other Activities 1980 Total 43,987 Literature 51,918 6,464 58,382 81,881 Visual Arts 130,521 8,185 138,706 5,409 *Purchase of Works of Art 8,918 — 8,918 21,642 Exhibitions — 25,492 25,492 1,164,665 Drama 1,506,115 — 1,506,115 180,700 Dance 216,709 — 216,709 1,500 Traditional Music 48,400 — 48,400 95,543 Music 131,124 2,899 134,023 125,100 Opera 122,555 — 122,555

19,593 Film 90,500 4,955 95,455 120,044 Arts Centres 153,890 — 153,890 8,200 Arts Festivals 18,540 — 18,540 22,548 Community Arts 44,758 — 44,758 10,747 Arts in Education 16,460 10,478 26,938 9,912 Arts Development in the Regions 20,180 — 20,180 61,969 Bursaries 103,170 — 103,170 272,927 Capital 216,117 — 216,117 6,846 Research and Information — 8,580 8,580

2,253,213 Totals 2,879,875 67,053 2,946,928

*Grants towards the purchase of works of art represent the Council's contribution to the cost of works of art acquired by approved bodies under the Council's Joint Purchase Scheme. The works of art may not be resold without the prior agreement of the Council and, in the event of such agreement, they shall not be resold for less than their original price, and half the sum realised shall be refunded to the Council.

Note 5: Capital Account. Works of Art Motor Vehicle Total Balance 31st December 1979 48,615 — 48,615 Acquisitions 12,538 5,066 17,604 Disposals (1,278)— (1,278) 16,326 Balance 31st December 1980 £59,875 £5,066 £64,941

Note 6: Administration. 1979 1980 Salaries, Superannuation, PRSI 89,520 143,207 Council and Staff Expenses 18,137 39,012 Consultants' Fees and Expenses 3,487 2,995 Office Furniture, Fittings and Equipment 5,939 9,192 Improvements to premises — 12,377 Rent, Light, Heat, Insurance, Cleaning, Repairs and other House 6,323 23,838 Expenses Printing and Stationery 3,484 5,338 Postage, Telephone and Sundry Expenses 9,906 14,695 £136,796 £250,654

Note 7: Trust Funds Assets at 31st December 1980 £ £ President Douglas Hyde Award £830.90 6% Excheque Stock, 1980-85 840 (Market Value of Securities £645) Cash at Bank 254 1,094 W.J.B. Macaulay Foundation £26,400.00 9% Conversion Stock, 1980-82 20,546 (Market Value of Securities £25,361) Cash at Bank 5,373 Creditor (2,500) 23,419 New York Irish Institute Fund £1,728.74 6% Exchequer Stock, 1980-85 1,770 (Market Value of Securities £1,343) Cash at Bank — 1,770 Denis Devlin Foundation £2,600.00 9% Conversion Stock, 1980-82 2,032 (Market Value of Securities £2,498) Cash at Bank 768 2,800 Ciste Cholmcille £1,200.00 7% National Loan, 1987-92 1,030 £8,147.65 8%% Conversion Stock 1986-88 8,099 £2,050.00 9¾% National Loan, 1984-89 2,004 £1,020.00 9% National Development Loan, 1992-97 1,005 £2,000.00 11% National Loan, 1993-98 1,840 (Market Value of Securities £ 10,679) 13,978 Cash at Bank 4,076 Creditor (3,000) 15,054 Marten Toonder Foundation £4,100.00 9% Conversion Stock, 1980-82 4,021 £6,000.00 11% National Loan, 1993-98 5,583 £6,600.00 12% Conversion Stock, 1995 6,711 5,602 Allied Irish Banks Limited, 25p Shares 5,189 £1,150.00 Bank of Ireland Stock 3,560 (Market Value of Securities £25,911)

Cash at Bank 670 Debtor 398 26,132 £70,269

Note: Securities are shown at cost and are held in trust by An Chomhairle Ealaíon.

Brian Bourke - Two Heads of Don Quixote

Movement of Trust Funds Brought Income Expenditure Carried forward forward President Douglas Hyde l,017 77 __ 1,094 Award W.J.B. Macaulay 23,018 2,901 2,500 23,419 Foundation New York Irish Institute 1,770 104 104 1,770 Fund Denis Devlin Foundation 3,008 392 600 2,800 Ciste Cholmcille 15,618 2,436* 3,000 15,054 Marten Toonder 25,800 2,832 2,500 26,132 Foundation £70,231 £8,742 £8,704 £70,269 "'Income to Ciste Cholmcille includes subscriptions received amounting to £726.

Note 8: Interest-Free Loans During 1980 sixteen additional interest-free loans were made: Balance outstanding at 31st December 1979 29,140 Additional loans 130,950 Repayments (41,981) Balance outstanding at 31st December 1980 £118,109

Note 9: At 31st December 1980 the Council had approved grants and guarantees against loss on various activities due to take place after that date. The amount involved £1,066,995 is not reflected in these accounts.

Photo Credits JohnKellet/ 12, 18,42,59 Fergus Bourke / 34 Rod Tuach / 6 Green Studio Ltd. / 24 Neville Presho / 36 Regional Arts Officer Galway/Mayo Regional Arts Committee / 26 Noel Gavin / 40 Moving Theatre / 46