Martina Devlin: City of Literature title is an asset we can bank on
Thursday July 29 2010
LITERATURE is a lengthy conversation which has preoccupied us here in Ireland since ancient times - since the days of the seanchai, the druids and the Celtic warriors whose exploits fuse history and mythology. It's our weapon of mass distraction.
But literature also helps to define us. It characterises us to ourselves and to others, building a bridge to the international community. Through our literature, we shape how the outside world views us.
This is important because we need others to do business within export markets, and to bring their spending power here as tourists. We cannot extricate ourselves from this financial crisis alone.
Fortunately the European Commission has been supportive, while the European Central Bank is lending money to our banks. And US multinationals continue to keep a swathe of our workforce in employment. We may be an island but we cannot operate as an island: we are not a standalone entity.
During a week in which the Government adopted a scorched earth policy to public spending on schools and hospitals, lacerating capital expenditure plans by almost 50pc, some good news emerged.
Dublin was named a UNESCO City of Literature, a permanent title. It doesn't mean our ship has come in but it is recognition of a cultural profile. There have been some gripes in the rest of the country about Dublin hogging all the attention, but let's be grateful for any compliments directed our way without quibbling about specific locations.
What does this designation signify? Primarily it acts as a branding tool. It demonstrates that writing is cherished in Ireland. There will be a cultural impact and there may also be an economic one if properly harnessed. Put it this way: it can't hurt.
The designation focuses attention on the role of the artist in the community. Society needs both moneymakers and artists, of course, because wealth-creators allow people to earn the money to buy an artist's work.
But those we thought were wealth-creators are busy being NAMA'ed just now, whereas writers are still pursuing their business, as we saw with Emma Donoghue and Paul Murray's inclusion on the Booker long list on Tuesday. Though to my mind, any 2010 Booker line-up without Joseph O'Connor's poignant masterpiece 'Ghost Light' is a flawed one. Nominated or not, however, he remains a cornerstone of the bridge with which we reach out to others.
I'd certainly prefer to be assessed internationally on our cultural exports rather than on our property developers, financiers, regulators and politicians, who sleepwalked us into debt so crippling that it will be an uphill struggle to avoid defaulting on it.
Literature connects us to the seanchai tradition whereby itinerant storytellers wandered the country offering their skills in exchange for food and shelter. We worry about losing our Irishness in a homogenised world but our writers are today's seanchai, a direct link with ancient Ireland. The implements may be different -- laptops and fingertips instead of memory and tongue -- but the role still hinges on weaving words to create images.
THIS City of Literature appellation highlights something which is crucial to recovery. It acts as a reminder that having faith and taking the long view can work.
The application to UNESCO was made by a steering and management group led by Dublin City Council's library service. People who believe in the worth of books beyond any monetary value beavered away on this for three years in the belief it could benefit Ireland. That's real patriotism in action, not the nonsense we've heard spouted by Brian Cowen.
Now that we have this asset, let's not allow it to ebb away. It's up to the tourism authorities to leverage off the branding. If tourists visit on a literary trip they'll want to meet writers, and I suggest asking writers to do some pro bono work in return for the progressive tax-exempt status regime (up to €125,000 a year) offered here.
If that means lending writers to Failte Ireland or to other organisations, so be it. Send writers into schools, communities, libraries, museums and prisons. Anywhere they can be useful. Many do this already, but make it mandatory and administer it as payback for the exemption. The literary community can't set itself apart as the nation struggles.
Creativity is as difficult to quantify as Contracts for Difference. Journeys into the imagination are unpredictable, their outcomes far from certain. They may result in a book, or they may not. Even if they lead to a book, it may or may not be published, it may or may not attract an audience.
But Irish writers continue to make that journey, and let's be glad of it. Just because this country is bust -- the current generation proving inept at the business of sustainable wealth creation -- doesn't mean we can do nothing well.
Perhaps our writers will help us to come to terms with the collapse and how to move forward from it. Works of fiction take time to wend their way through the publishing system, and a genre of bust literature is probably bubbling away. We've had a rash of non-fiction books which explain what happened but don't offer any route maps out. Literary works allow us to reflect on who we are and -- more importantly -- who we can be.
I'm not sure I believe in politics any more, but I still believe in literature.
mdevlin@independent.ie
- Martina Devlin
Irish Independent
