Creative Ireland
Creative Ireland is the Government’s Legacy Programme for Ireland 2016 – a five-year initiative, from 2017 to 2022, which places creativity at the centre of public policy. It is a high-level, high-ambition, all-ofgovernment initiative to mainstream creativity in the life of the nation so that individually and collectively, in our personal lives and in our institutions, we can realise our full creative potential.
Creative Ireland is a culture-based programme designed to promote individual, community and national wellbeing. The core proposition is that participation in cultural activity drives personal and collective creativity, with significant implications for individual and societal wellbeing and achievement. Creative Ireland is the main implementation vehicle for the priorities identified in Culture 2025/Éire Ildánach, the draft cultural policy published by the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs in July 2016, which sees a vibrant cultural ecosystem as essential to society. Culture 2025/Éire Ildánach states that arts and culture are intrinsic to the Irish State, acknowledges the need to increase access to, and participation in, the arts, boost our creative industries, and preserve our heritage with a particular focus on language, landscape and the environment.
Creative Ireland is the main implementation vehicle for the priorities identified in Culture 2025, which seek to:
• Put culture at the heart of our lives
• Foster creativity
• Celebrate our cultural heritage and traditions
• Recognise the importance of culture to a vibrant society
• See collaboration as the new norm
• Emphasise the international dimension
• Respond to the digital age.
Creative Ireland is underpinned by the key values identified in Culture 2025/Éire Ildánach. They are:
• The intrinsic value of culture
• The value of culture to our lives and our communities
• The right of everyone to participate in the cultural life of the nation
• The importance of the Irish language, our cultural heritage, folklore, games, music and the uniqueness of our Gaeltacht areas
• The value of cultural diversity, informed by the many traditions and social backgrounds now in Ireland
• The value of culture as a means of fostering a more sustainable future for Ireland, including through economic and social policy
• The value of culture in presenting Ireland to the world.
Its main feature is the collective mobilisation of Irish institutions and citizens to create an Irish cultural legacy.
The following ten initiatives will be completed and in place by the end of 2017:
1. A national plan to enable every child in Ireland to access tuition in music, drama, art and coding
2. A Culture and Creativity plan in every county
3. A Culture Team, Director-led, configured to local needs, in every county
4. Cruinniú na Cásca programme
5. The Departments of Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs and Social Protection will work together to devise a mechanism to assist self-employed artists who have applied for Jobseekers Allowance. This would be a pilot scheme.
6. A plan for the development of each National Cultural Institution to 2022
7. A five year capital investment programme for the culture and heritage sector
8. An industry-wide, long-term plan, for Ireland as a global hub for the production of Film, TV Drama, and Animation
9. A unified international identity and communications programme for Ireland
10. A new Creative Ireland Forum conference to showcase the best national and international thinking will have taken place.
The five pillars of the Programme will operate through to 2022, with a wide variety of outputs.
Irish Government budgetary spending, as well as the use of existing resources.