The Youth Lab

WEEKS WHERE DECADES HAPPEN…

What’s driving this Irish Cultural Renaissance? Endurance, investment and cultural pride.

Professor Michael Patrick Gillespie from Florida International University says:“There’s a tremendous creative vitality in Ireland, and that fosters a wide range of artistic projects. It also builds up a callus and a stamina because there’s just not a lot of money. There’s never money in the film industry. There’s not a lot to support Irish films. And so to make it, to be successful, you really have to endure.”
Elsewhere, Alan Moloney, Producer of “Small Things Like These,” believes Ireland’s success in the cultural realm, while seemingly overnight, has been a long time coming:“It’s a bit like the overnight success that takes 30 years to come. I think what you’re seeing is the result of 25 to 30 years of investment in the industry.”
Long-term investment over years seems to be the major driver of Ireland’s presence on the world film stage today. This funding, while a massive driver, is limited, and those in pursuit of careers in the film industry have to show extreme grit and determination to see their creative aspirations unfold, meaning that those that persevere are grizzled veterans by the time their projects come to light. Screen Ireland, formerly the Irish Film Board, counts 40 streams of funding for a total fund value of 42 million USD, the highest it’s ever been. Pilot programmes like the new Basic Income for the Arts (BIA) scheme also aim to support the arts and creative practice by giving a payment of €325 a week to artists and creative arts workers.

Meanwhile, other drivers include a resurgence in cultural pride, but for the right reasons. Ian Lynch of Lankum describes this sense of pride as:

​​“Not a jingoistic, blinkered sense of pride. Not like some right-wing, ‘oh, we’re the best,’ but actually a sense of pride for good reasons.”

Of course, things aren’t always a straight line despite these growing sources of inspiration there are some cultural barriers to entry that can run deep in Irish society.

“I think what can be quite harmful for young creative Irish people is the idea of 'having notions'. What is generally used as a term to slag a local head turns into a self-imposed internal policing that stops people from doing things that might be considered weird or different.”

Luke, Designer and Artist based in Dublin, Aged 24 (The Love Network)

RIDING THE WAVE

With Irish people being involved and celebrated at the highest levels of culture on the world stage, what does this mean for youth today? For those with aspirations in creative fields, they can see that big dreams aren’t unattainable. There’s a fresh momentum now inspiring the next generation of actors, directors, musicians, artists and designers. The celebration of Ireland’s current global representatives in the cultural sector provides young people with the inspiration and the receipts to have confidence in their artistic pursuits. If some young person in Ireland today sees CMAT front and centre of the BRIT awards or Cillian Murphy winning a BAFTA, all while staying fully grounded in their own, albeit vastly different personalities, it shows the would-be pop star or actor that being born in Ireland is, in fact, a positive force behind their aspirations.

There’s a lot more we could write about ‘Ireland being so hot right now’ beyond what we’ve covered here: from sport (the NY Times covered Bohemians Football Club last week) to business, and tech.