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English Historic, Cultural and Heritage Environment

September 23rd, 2012 | Comments Off on English Historic, Cultural and Heritage Environment

England’s history, heritage, culture and natural environment contribute to the economy and national pride, but would an English assembly make more of it?

English people often talk about England and the United Kingdom as if they are the same entity. Of course, they’re not, as most people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would affirm.

England’s historic past is not only another country, but also a rich and unique vein of wealth to explore and exploit. Shakespeare had it in the ‘once more unto the breach, dear friends’ speech in Henry V: ‘Cry, God for Harry, England, and Saint George!’

Linked closely, are England’s natural landscape and cultural heritage. All together they contribute to the

tourist industry (and transport, hospitality, food/drink industries). While Wales and Northern Ireland have Assemblies and Scotland has a Parliament to look after their cultural pasts, shouldn’t England, with all her history, heritage and culture, be afforded the same?

The Landscape

English Heritage, the government’s statutory adviser on the historic environment, state that England’s rural landscape is one of the ‘jewels of our national heritage’. They say if people concentrate on individual buildings or archaeological monuments, historic dimension can be missed if landscape is admired only as beautiful scenery.

They run Historic Landscape Characterisation (HLC) programme in partnership with local authorities, which provides a framework for understanding and informing decisions affecting tomorrow’s landscapes. They use interactive GIS-based descriptions of the historic dimension – the ‘time-depth’.

Agricultural settlements to city dwellers, industries to the maritime environment, all are important in deciding what to keep/preserve and what is worth developing for education and/or commerce. The very diversity of landscapes has inspired artists, writers and poets as part and parcel of English heritage.

Historic Environment

Natural England defines historic environment as particular contribution to character and value of all English landscapes. How people used and travelled over land and seas, for instance, shows a ‘strong, traditional and locally distinctive character’. Human activity (past and surviving) of interacting with places is the interest.

How previous society was organised is useful in current and future planning. How people defended themselves, harnessed natural resources and adapted to ongoing climatic, economic and technological changes, have lessons for today. Natural England point out that the past is a non-renewable resource; ‘once lost, it cannot be recreated’, although it can be simulated and re-imagined.

Cultural Landscapes

Cultural landscapes concern historic events, people and groups at home, work and play, individually and collectively. They are man-made such as estates, houses, farms, gardens, parks, cemeteries, highways, harbours, mines and industrial sites. They are also works of art and texts, narratives of peoples and regional identity.

The study of the past to inform the present is well accepted. Natural England’s statutory purposes include ‘nature conservation’ and ‘conserving and enhancing English landscape’. It is, as they admit, a ‘distinctive yet complementary relationship’ with English Heritage.

They administer Scheduled Monuments (SMs), Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) and Natural Nature Reserves (NNRs), listed buildings, habitat, common land, soils and landscape management, visioning and planning policies/guidance activities with people and communities. Change through time is the key factor in their studies.

They help implement the main planning document in force currently in England, Planning Policy Statement 5: Planning for the Historic Environment (2005). They work with the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) and contribute to ongoing debate about how far ‘land of outstanding scenic, historic and scientific interest’ is worth maintaining and preserving for the benefit of future generations in terms of the tax regime.

Tourism’s Contribution

If the National Trust and a host of local amenity societies are included, it would appear that all the necessary and needed organisation is in place to preserve and utilise England’s historic fabric. When tourism is added to the discussion, there are more. VisitEngland is the body working with the industry to grow tourism value, year on year.

They believe tourism generates £97 billion to the English economy, employing over two million and supporting thousands of businesses directly and indirectly. There’s an interdependent relationship with transport, farming, retailing, sports and the arts. 100 million domestic overnight trips are made annually (spending £17b in 2009).

England receives 25 million international visitors to enjoy 21 UNESCO World Heritage Sites and cities. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported (James Hall, Daily Telegraph, 16 September 2011) that an emerging Chinese middle class was swelling numbers with their favourite destinations London, Oxford (Blenheim Palace, Bicester Village), Manchester and Cambridge.

Scotland was on the list too (for Edinburgh Castle, St Andrews for golf and Loch Ness). In London they like Buckingham Palace, open-top buses, Harrods, John Lewis and Selfridges. Alnwick Castle, Northumberland doubled as Hogwarts in the Harry Potter movies and is a big draw.

Stonehenge, Bath, Canterbury, Durham, York and Stratford-upon-Avon are on VisitEngland‘s ‘popular with overseas visitors’ lists. 600 miles of English coastline of beaches, rocky cliffs, salt marshes and the World Heritage Jurassic Coast pull in more. England boats ten National Parks, wildlife, geological and scientifically interesting places and a shopping experience that is rich and varied.

World-class museums, Alton Towers, Eden Project, festivals like Glastonbury, Royal Ascot and Henley Regatta are big draws. The 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, Rugby League and Cricket World Cups in 2013 and Rugby Union World Cup in 2015 will bring in yet more. England can accommodate over two million guests nightly, with more bed spaces planned.

The Future

Tourism growth scope is enormous. Landscape, geography and weather are extremely varied in such a small country, and visitors come to share it. English men and women who’ve contributed literature, theatre, visual arts, music, dance, political and social change, medical advances, engineering and technological innovation are woven into English culture, history and heritage that tourists want to experience.

The exploitation/development versus the preservation/access debate, of course, continues. Many UK visitors come not to Wales, Scotland or Ulster separately, but to see more. However, if there were an English assembly/Parliament, it would deal with these exclusive assets, so they earn the revenue, yet are treasured into the future.

First published on Suite 101, 21 September 2011

Image: Stratford-On-Avon: Quintessentially English – snowmanradio

 

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Northern Ireland’s Historic, Cultural and Heritage Environment

September 20th, 2012 | Add a Comment

Giant's Causeway: Major Tourist Attraction - Chmee2

Ulster’s history, heritage, culture, natural environment contribute to its economy and national pride as part of both the UK and the island of Ireland.

While sharing the same geographical island, Ulster’s and Eire’s history, culture and heritage have developed individual and separate yet frequently connected environments and characteristics. In the past, the island has shared common heritage in every way.

The exploitation/development versus the preservation/access debate is as vital and urgent here as elsewhere. If the management balance is right, precious assets earn much needed revenue. If it’s not, assets are wasted if not damaged.

The Landscape

The University of Ulster maintains a website devoted to cultural heritage and museum sites. These include under ‘Cultural Heritage’: Archives of Heritage (forum for academic and industry researchers); Association for Heritage Interpretation (heritage interpretation of sites and artifacts); Council of Europe, Directorate of Culture, Cultural and Natural Heritage (promotion and preservation of EU sites, policy and action); UNESCO (culture and collaboration globally); the Cultural Heritage Preservation and Conservation Database (in English and Italian); and Cultural Policies and Trends in Europe (a compendium of basic facts and trends).

There is also the Cultural Policy and Management Information Service; EMonument and World Monuments Fund; English Heritage; European Heritage Network; International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM); National Preservation Office, established 1984 by the British Library; UK’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport; and the Heritage Council based in Eire.

Under ‘Cultural Landscape’ there is the Institute for Cultural Landscape Studies, Protecting Cultural Landscapes, Cultural Landscape Foundation and in the University of Exeter, the Historical and Cultural Geography Group. While these are not specific to the particular landscapes of Northern Ireland, their international importance is acknowledged.

Northern Ireland Environment Link published Northern Ireland’s Historic Environment (2008). They are a body associated with NI Archaeology Forum (set up by Tony Robinson and TV programme, Time Team), aiming to push the past up the political agenda to ‘ensure we learn from the past about how to live today in harmony with our environment and respecting our heritage’.

Historical Legacies

In June 2011, a new £30m Public Record Office of Northern Ireland was opened in Belfast. Described by First Minister Peter Robinson as ‘iconic’ and a ‘fitting addition to the cultural landscape of Belfast’, its archives one of ‘our greatest cultural and historical assets’.

All parties were excited that people can get in touch with their own family pasts and the communities they lived in, plus the sense of national and personal identity such archives gave. Many of the saved documents were irreplaceable and priceless. That public investment in the past can be made in a time of austerity, shows its importance to the future.

There are castles, monuments and monastic sites, graveyards, round towers and Celtic crosses. For instance, much of Derry City dates from Norman times, and as Discover Northern Ireland said, ‘centuries of war, siege and expansion have left a well-preserved legacy to be explored’. Beaches, coastlines, gardens, estates and museums are the tourist package; history/heritage, 20th century’s wars and troubles, a big attraction.

Tourism’s Contribution

In August 2010, Northern Ireland Tourist Board published a report by Deloitte and Oxford Economics stating the visitor economy produced £0.5 billion (almost 5% of GDP) and supported 40,000 jobs, with potential to double by 2020, exceeding transport, retailing and manufacturing.

It identified future investment and policy considerations as crucial to expand revenue streams. It focussed on employment benefits, new facilities for towns and cities, opportunities in rural areas and that the industry was a source of pride. It’s the desire to show visitors a country at its best which produces successful tourism.

History, heritage and culture are integral to that urge. They noted that while the economic situation throughout the UK affected the industry, as did taxation and inflation, there was some insulation for tourism even in a recession. The income from many industries may be exported; tourism-spend stays in Northern Ireland.

VisitBritain Chief Executive Sandie Dawe, added that the 2012 London Olympics and nomination of Derry-Londonderry as UK City of Culture 2013 were enormous promotional opportunities for Northern Ireland.

The Cultural Dimension

As traditional business models diminish, new, innovative thinking is needed. The arts provide fresh, dynamic approaches to business people, students and officialdom, offering advantage in uncertain, turbulent times.

But there’s a catalogue of older Irish customs and traditions, language, music, art, literature, folklore, cuisine and sport to provide earning opportunities across the entire island. There is rich diversity in divides between rural and urban populations, between faiths and between nationalists and loyalists.

The Committee for Culture, Arts and Leisure of the Northern Ireland Assembly, produced a report into the Impact and Value of Museums in Northern Ireland (March 2011). They concluded that economics and values must consider more than museum ‘income, expenditure and employment’ and take into account wider social impacts.

Sport and arts sectors have no clear customer-base, while museums do. They wanted more research into measuring methodologies, but it was clear that the cost-benefit analysis of happiness, well-being and social worth are not easy. Yet there are tangible benefits in museums as centres of pride, records and education.

Traditional music, dancing, poetry and visual arts also add value, financial and social. This is no different from Eire and to some extent, Scotland and Wales in looking at the economic benefits of arts, culture and history. That Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom yet linked increasingly across a thin border with the Republic of Eire, ought to be a great strength in marketing yesterday, today and tomorrow.

First published on Suite 101, 20 September 2011

Image: Giant’s Causeway: Major Tourist Attraction – Chmee2

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Irish Historic, Cultural and Heritage Environment

September 18th, 2012 | 1 Comment

Obama Is Not First Black American With Irish Roots - Pete Souza


Balancing history, heritage, culture, natural environment contributes to the Irish economy and national pride, but also informs today’s economic policies.

In September 2011, The School of Histories and Humanities at Trinity College Dublin began a new Masters programme: Public History and Cultural Heritage. It should give a ‘thorough grounding in public history, providing students with unique preparation for the management of cultural heritage’.

This reflects the increasing importance of history, heritage and culture to the Irish economy as a whole. The course considers cultural memory (its construction, reception and loss), public status of history in modern society and examines political issues surrounding public commemoration and ‘sites of memory’ (museums, archives, galleries and the media) as public perceptions of the past are shaped.

It’ll also study conservation, presentation and communication of physical past heritage, especially where interpretation and meaning ‘are contested’. To those opposed to such academic yet practical subjects, it will seem pointless. How can the past help the present and future in any meaningful economic way?

Historical Legacies

The Irish Environmental History Network is a collection of individuals from Irish and other institutions interested or engaged in related research. A research focus point, it reflects the importance of Irish environmental history. They acknowledge all research methodologies (scientific, archaeological, historic, literary) investigating how past mankind has ‘studied, perceived, managed and influenced the natural environment and been influenced by it’.

One paper was Where are the big fish? (August 2010), by Professor Poul Holm from his wider History of Marine Animal Populations project. He said while we can’t see beneath the oceans’ surface, we see environmental land change clearly. Using fishing logbooks, the facts that monster -sized cod were caught 150 years ago, added to what we know from today’s catches.

Environmental studies, economics and history combine to underpin employment, travel, development and social policies. There are two historic aspects which also have bear on contemporary policies and attitudes. The Irish diaspora and ‘the invasions of 800 years ago’.

Evidence for continuing influence of the first was the May 2011 meeting at the Irish Literary and Historical Society, San Francisco, entitled: The Irish Diaspora: Irish Visitors, Irish Emigres and Irish-Americans, by William Chace, Professor Emeritus, Stanford University.

Understanding how massive Irish migration and demographic realities shaped the USA, it asked why have so few Irish returned? Why more Irish women than men? Why many Irish writers chose to live outside Ireland? What is the fate of the Irish language? Exile doesn’t make people less Irish, and contribution to Irish culture is still high, but it must have an effect on those left behind by choice/circumstance.

The British invasion still colours folk memory. Scribd published part of Ireland: History, Culture and Environment, which said ‘eight hundred years has been the rallying cry of Irish nationalists’, as matching the period ‘dear old Britannia ruled the Irish roost’.

It said Ireland’s fractious relationship with its sister island across the Irish sea, ‘casts an overwhelming shadow on Ireland’s history of conquest and domination’. History leaves its mark on landscapes, buildings, cultural tradition and memory. It has enriched the Irish-Celtic soil of creativity.

Cultural Dimension

Culture/history and business are inseparable. Trinity Business Alumni organise dinners on economics. May 2011’s was The Business Value of Irish Culture. There’s a market catering for visitors in search of their ancestral roots. Irish people dispersed all over the world, interbreeding with other races, other cultures.

US President Obama was hardly the first American to look up celtic relatives and connect with Irish forebears (May 2011). According to Irish ancestry company Eneclann, black Americans now constitute 20% of their American clientele.

The economic value of Irish culture is hard to quantify. It encompasses arts, music and dancing, poetry ancient and modern, contributions from great Irish writers, playwrights and thinkers, Guinness, historical famines, the Troubles… it’s marketing all that there was into all that there is.

Tourism’s Contribution

Failte Ireland provides strategic and practical support to develop and sustain Ireland as a quality, competitive tourist destination. With the tourist industry they offer business support, enterprise development, training/education, research and marketing to reflect the economic importance of tourism.

In December 2010, they ran a food and drink campaign on the basis that everybody eats and drinks on holiday. Indeed, many actively seek ‘a food experience’. They reckoned two out of every five euros spent by tourists in Ireland was for food and drink. That amounted (2009) to around €2 billion, 60% of which came from overseas visitors.

Tourism Ireland 2009‘s campaign to grow tourism from abroad targeted almost 8 million visitors to the island of Ireland in a ‘massive global marketing drive’, with investment concentrated in Britain and Germany. Growth potential, revenue and jobs drive new tourism campaigns every year.

Chief Executive of Tourism Ireland, Niall Gibbons, said at the launch they’d be highlighting the uniqueness of a holiday on the island of Ireland, ‘the diversity of our culture and heritage and the friendliness of our people’. That would secure ‘stand out’ and differentiate themselves in a very crowded marketplace.

A Warning

While Eire, like elsewhere, struggles between asset exploitation and preservation, Frank McDonald, Environment Editor of the Irish Times warned Britain in The Daily Telegraph (Sept 2011), not to copy Ireland by relaxing planning laws to allow widespread countryside development (to ease housing shortages and stimulate building industry).

He said what Ireland did as a result of the ‘dotty vision of the countryside bright with cosy homesteads’, meant it’s now littered with them. The liberal policies codified in Sustainable Rural Housing Guidelines (2005) had been ‘ruinous’.

McDonald said that one-offs were more than half the housing stock in Kerry alone, houses ‘strewn around the landscape of a county heavily dependent on tourism and the most scenic in Ireland’. People visit Ireland for quality of landscape and unspoilt scenery, not urban sprawl spread into countryside or nearly 3000 ghost estates of unfinished/unwanted houses when the housing bubble burst in 2008.

The four and a half million people of Ireland have to think carefully as they rebuild their economy after recession. Make the most of the natural, historic, cultural heritage, without killing it.

First published on Suite 101, 17 September 2011

Image: Obama Is Not First Black American With Irish Roots – Pete Souza

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Scottish Historic, Cultural and Heritage Environment

September 15th, 2012 | Add a Comment

Scotland's Isles, Seas and Hills Are Real Assets - NASA

History, heritage, culture and natural environment contribute hugely to the Scottish economy and national pride. Do they need so much bureaucracy to thrive?

A view about the over-governance of Scotland was expressed by Andrew Gilmour on The Courier (Sept 2010): Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) do not have enough Parliamentary business. He claimed that Scotland was ‘one of the most expensively over-governed countries in the world’.

He asked why it took two MSPs and one MP in Scotland to deal with the same workload as one MP south of the border. He demanded a hard look at the ‘massive bureaucratic set-up in Edinburgh’, without advocating abolition of the actual Scottish Parliament. The mechanism was unnecessarily heavy.

Considering just one aspect of what the bureaucratic machine deals with, how the vast Scottish natural, historical and cultural legacy is administered, is a case study. People may wonder if it would all do very well without being ‘looked after’.

The Natural Environment

Scotland is rich in what Scottish Natural Heritage calls ‘the natural environment … making a major contribution to economic growth and quality of life’. Their mission is simply: ‘All of nature for all of Scotland’.

This organisation is funded by the Scottish government to promote, care for and improve the wildlife, habitats, scenery/landscapes, natural beauty which ‘makes Scotland special’. They aim to help people enjoy it responsibly, enable greater understanding and awareness and promote its sustainability now and for future generations.

Their studies show 11% of Scotland’s total economic output depends on sustained use of the environment, since it earned about £17.2 billion a year and supported 1 in 7 of all full time Scottish jobs a decade ago. Would that still happen without the organisation?

Earning Tourism

Linked to natural environment is the amount of sustainable tourism the country can take. Visitors seek out the natural environment, of course. They also come for historical/heritage reasons and cultural fulfillment, too. These in turn link with rural enterprise, planning, infrastructure and transport, health/education/social services provision to make discussion of the Scottish fabric a political and economic question.

VisitScotland statistics for 2009, for instance, showed that Scottish tourism brought in over £4 billion, around 15 million overnight trips were taken, UK tourists accounted for 83% of tourism spend and 39% of trips were by Scottish residents. The effects of the downturn/recession, the state of the European tourist market and other competitors have to be taken into account. Given all that, tourism is a major revenue stream.

Landscapes are recognised in their own right by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) as ‘a shared resource for everyone’ irrespective of ownership, ability or background. They provide a ‘living history of Scotland’s past and inspiration for Scotland’s culture’. Besides underpinning the economy, there are social and health benefits, too.

SNH highlight the attractive and accessible landscapes including green spaces in urban environments, which promote well-being, physical health, restoration and easing mental stress. So, once everything is catalogued, the natural and open environment of Scotland is a big asset: but does it need bureaucracy?

The Sea

Historic Scotland produced a discussion paper (2009) in association with the marine taskforce of the Built Environment Forum of Scotland (BEFS), called Towards a Strategy for Scotland’s Marine Historic Environment. The introduction stated that Scotland’s unique position on a nodal sea route made its seabed of international importance.

But locally, too, it’s a real asset. The paper said the seabed/coast is affected by all periods from prehistory to the present and includes the wrecks of ‘boats, ships, aircraft and submarines of indigenous and international origins, besides harbours, lighthouses, crannogs, fish-traps and drowned terrestrial sites’.

Because the sea frequently preserved, this ‘heritage has the potential’ to reveal wide-ranging information about society. The sea also provided food, energy and defence.The paper had resonance in 2009, The Scottish Year of Homecoming, which sought to encourage people with Scottish ancestry to reconnect with their roots.

Maritime heritage also ‘contributes positively to the economic fabric’ of the country. They cited the 3000 plus visitors a year who dived on the remaining wrecks of the German war fleet scuppered in Scapa Flow and 310,000 who saw coastal and maritime sites. Would they come without this administrative system?

Cultural Dimension

To take just one category of historical assets: houses, Historic Scotland say historic buildings ‘enrich Scotland’s landscape’. They are visible and accessible doorways into the social and economic past. Listing such buildings gives protection, which has an impact on planning, development and investment.

Landscape extends to monuments, gardens, wreck sites, world heritage, castles and grand houses.

While people accept need for vigilance and statutory protection, across all varied Scottish heritage, does it need organisations in numbers?

None of Scotland’s bureaucracy, bodies/organisations charged with protection and marketing is unique. Every locality, region and country has a burgeoning industry of such machinery, so to question Scotland’s arrangements is perhaps unfair.

It’s just that with a possible referendum on separation, every aspect of management and direction of the economy, macro and micro, are up for discussion. Even the contribution of the Edinburgh Festivals has to be taken into account. Would one tourism/heritage/cultural/historical organisation suffice? The books on both sides of the border will be thoroughly examined, probably by a committee/council/body/quango.

First published on Suite 101, 15 September 2011

Image: Scotland’s Isles, Seas and Hills Are Real Assets – NASA

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Welsh Historic, Cultural and Heritage Environment

September 12th, 2012 | 1 Comment

 

History, heritage and culture add value to the Welsh economy and pride to the Welsh nation. Can they do more without making Wales a heritage theme park?

In 2009, the Welsh Assembly published a report, The Welsh Historic Environment: A Celebration. It pointed out that the whole of the Welsh environment contained historic elements, whether in towns and cities, land or offshore. However fast modern change moves, the marks of past generations remained in the present.

They’re in buildings great and small, churches, landscapes and commons, fields and ways of doing and seeing things. There is a national perspective and outlook. Literature, music, crafts, arts, beliefs and language are ‘expressions of what it means to be in Wales’, but are also great social assets linking people and giving Wales a distinctive identity.

The size and shape of the historic resource is reflected in the fact that Wales has 3 World Heritage Sites; 34,000 scheduled or listed historical assets; 428 registered historic landscapes, parks and gardens; 127 sites in the care of Cadw, the historic environment service of Welsh government; over 4300 maritime heritage assets and 519 conservation areas.

The Benefits

The report acknowledged the difficulty of quantifying the benefits of social cohesion, well-being and national pride, but they’d done studies that found 90% of international visitors staying in Wales visited a cultural site, there were 2m annual visits to Cadw-staffed and aided sites, 5 million annual visits to National Trust Welsh properties and countryside, 3 million visits to museums and heritage sites, while 91% of Welsh people surveyed thought it important that historic environments should be cared for.

The Great Britain Tourism Survey 2010 found that over 7% of the 120 million trips taken in the UK were in Wales, with a 3% increase in the average stay to 3.78 nights and average expenditure per trip up by 6% in a year, to about £8 million per day. So, £3 billion a year comes into the economy from visitors who help employ around 100,000 people.

The Threats

While visitor numbers to Welsh heritage were high, the report also found a minority who experienced barriers to access, ‘physically, logistically, intellectually or attitudinally’. Clearly, not everybody valued their heritage to the same degree, but that should be expected.

The Minister for Heritage, Alun Ffred Jones, who signed the report, said that both prosperity and decline threatened the historic environment equally, but he was committed to making ‘an evidence-based case for the economic contribution of the historic environment and the value of heritage in regeneration’.

He said Wales had a ‘sound planning regime’ but about 10% of historic buildings were still at risk. Climate change, rising sea levels, general deterioration of fabric were among the worries he identified that were expressed by conservationists.

In April 2001 a conference was held on the effects of tourism on Wales itself. Part of a wider project on The Social History of the Welsh Language, it considered the impact of visitors by asking: ‘what price do we pay for giving visitors such a warm welcome?’ The resulting report found close links between tourism and in-migration and therefore there was Welsh language decline.

It warned that tourism was a ‘catalyst in the Anglicization of many communities throughout the Welsh-speaking heartland’. Since the historical/heritage environment is such a fundamental part of tourism (and more so since 2001), clearly those concerned about loss of Welsh heartland identity, remain so.

It’s a case of being afraid of the hand that feeds. Tourism sustains the Welsh economy; yet it could destroy it, which is the perennial debate about the biggest job creator in the world. Tourism brings jobs and investment, while it erodes linguistic profiles and cultural heritage.

It leads to holiday homes and to retirees attracted by rural peace, natural environments and historical riches moving in with a resulting strain on some social/health services in due course. This creates a snowball effect. Families of incomers want to come too. Of course, they bring money, and it happens everywhere across the globe where people perceive a better lifestyle from the one they left behind.

The Solutions?

That report argued for promoting national identity based on the native tongue with its unique culture, so that tourism would ‘benefit the language’. They wanted more widespread use of Welsh, which to a large extent they have seen in the past decade. But new arrivals from all corners of the world and the gradual multi-culturalisation of Wales is as inevitable as in other areas.

In the meantime, though, the issue of preserving an accessible, proportionate/representative and affordable heritage remains high on the politico-economic agenda. The National Trust is very active, and owns 133 miles of rugged, spectacular Welsh coastline as well as Powis and Penrhyn Castles, Anglesey’s Plas Newydd and the gardens of Bodnant.

Cadw doesn’t own properties it cares for, it advises, maintains at taxpayers’ expense and makes them available to the public. Among sites it oversees are castles at Caernarfon, Beaumaris, Caerphilly, Conwy, Denbigh, Flint, Harlech, Monmouth, Montgomery, Oxwich, Newport, Raglan, Swansea, Tretower and Weobley; Tintern Abbey, Blaenavon Ironworks, Bryntail (lead mine buildings), along with walls, burial chambers, chapels, priories, abbeys, pillars, forts, standing stones and Llanishen Reservoir.

This is but a taster of what Wales has among its historic heirlooms. Put with music and poetry which already earns a great deal, and with investing and diversifying an economy into less obvious niche areas ignored by other places, then Wales is sitting on historic, usable assets worth more than its 3 million population many times over.

As long as Wales doesn’t make itself into a giant heritage theme park, though there is a view that says that would, with proper marketing, make the most of all assets!

First published on Suite 101, 12 September 2011

Image: Natural Environment Is Big Welsh Selling Point – Dave Price

 

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Conference Season Is Fun-and-Games Politics With Serious Purpose

September 9th, 2012 | Comments Off on Conference Season Is Fun-and-Games Politics With Serious Purpose

 

Autumn party conferences are the only show in town for devotees, managers and media. But do they do any real political good, make any lasting impression?

All British political parties, great and small, hold gatherings of their party faithful at some point during the year. Attenders are treated to a succession of debates in conference on substantial issues, the party’s great and good in the flesh, fringe meetings, cabals, sideshows and personalities and opportunists (media and political) working the rooms.

It’s a somewhat rarefied atmosphere, cocooned within a ring of high-level security. The rest of the country (starting with locals inconvenienced by security) matter only when they and their opinions are suddenly remembered.

Such events allow leaders and would-be leaders to grandstand, network and feel involved. They can make or break careers and sometimes, if they’re lucky, give the media a feeding frenzy of scandal, gossip and power-play.

Highlights and Low Points

Political reporters have a love-hate relationship with conferences, affecting a weary seen-it-all cynicism and exhaustion as they swap the Westminster village for conference centres around Britain. In reality, among the press corp, the slightly old-fashioned conference models are legendary. Late night plots and shows of unity are food and drink (quite literally) to the hacks.

Leaving aside the minority, Welsh, Scottish, Irish parties and the TUC, previous main party highlights have included Premier Margaret Thatcher addressing the Conservative Conference at Brighton in 1984 hours after an IRA bomb wrecked the Grand Hotel and killed five. 16 year old William Hague addressed the Party in 1977 and made quite an impression.

Labour memories include leader, Neil Kinnock’s 1985 ‘thumper’ speech attacking Militant Tendency within his party, and falling over on the beach at Brighton; Tony Blair’s 2001 after 9/11, when he said, dramatically, ‘the kaleidoscope has been shaken’ and most of John Prescott’s interventions.

In the early heady days of the Social Democrat Party (out of which today’s Lib-Dems grew), David Steel famously told his 1981 conference to ‘go back to your constituencies and prepare for government’, which later became a stick to beat them with.

Liberal Democrats

Normally the Lib-Dems kick off the season. They ‘exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community’. This year it’s ICC Birmingham, 18-21 September; their second conference since they went into Coalition Government in May 2010.

What amazed many conference attenders in 2010 was that they were listening to ministers of their own colour; Liberals have not been in government through winning an election since 1910.

They did have some small say in the Lib-Lab Pact, 1977-78. They were accused by opponents as propping up a dying Labour government. In 2010 they entered a partnership in exchange for government jobs. Still, not all members are happy, as tensions over policies surface.

8,000 delegates expect to see Deputy PM NIck Clegg on show, with stars of the party firmament, Danny Alexander at the front of Coalition austerity/taxing/spending as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and Business Secretary Vince Cable who has made controversy an art. That he’s still in office amazes friends and foes alike.

It’s been a tough year for Clegg, with questions over his leadership, a poor sixth place in the Oldham and Saddleworth by-election in January, heavy defeat in both May’s council elections/Alternative Vote referendum and Energy Secretary Chris Huhne’s personal problems over alleged speeding offences.

Their handling of a popular wave of opposition to health reforms and apparently no involvement in the News International phone hacking scandal, mean they may have turned a corner. Members want reassurance about coalition that they win arguments within government over economic direction.

The Labour Party

Labour are at the ACC in Liverpool, for the first time, 25-28 September and expect 11,000 delegates plus the Shadow Cabinet. They describe it as an opportunity for ‘delegates from Constituency Labour Parties, affiliated trade unions and socialist societies to take part in debates to shape Labour’s vision for Britain’.

Since his election as party leader a year ago, this is Ed Miliband’s first chance to show his party (in the hall and at home) and the chattering media, how far he’s made the job his own. Many felt he failed to make the most of unpopular Government policies (spending, health, education) or drive a wedge between the Coalition partners.

Labour did badly in the English council and Scottish Parliamentary elections. Miliband had some success over the phone hacking scandal, though former Labour leaders’ involvement could come back to haunt him. His conference headline speech will need to show the party machine was right to choose him over his brother, David.

Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls will be looking to entrench his leader-in-waiting mantle, while a selection of young guns will be doing the rounds, the fringe stalls, the meetings, the media chats. The inevitable years of political wilderness after a defeat are just starting, but if the Coalition fails, they will all greet an unrepeatable opportunity.

The Conservatives

More than 13,500 representatives (not delegates, as votes are not taken on binding policy) will meet at Manchester Central, 2-5 October, described as ‘a great Conference – your chance to hear how Conservative Ministers are helping to build a better future and how we are delivering in government’.

On this occasion there are advantages to going last. The other leaders’ speeches will have been judged, opinion polls will have revealed voters’ perceptions. Prime Minister David Cameron’s faced difficulties yet to run their course (phone hacking, News International and wisdom in appointing advisers) in the past year, while austerity measures, Europe, military involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, health and education reforms could go either way in terms of his ratings.

He’ll use natural authority, growing experience of office and that Conservatives plan to win the next election outright. To help that, Chancellor George Osborne will strike a difficult balance between deficit reduction and kick-starting economic investment/growth. London Mayor Boris Johnson plays to the gallery on these occasions, is camera-friendly and will be a popular pundit, especially if he’s at all critical.

How all that goes down in the world beyond conference, together with how long strains within the Coalition can be contained, will determine whether the next General Election is in 2015, or earlier.

First published on Suite 101, 8 September 2011, and republished now ahead of another year of party conferences, but making no changes in terms of people in particular roles which have changed over the past year.

Image: Cameron Will Give Authoritative Tory Address – World Economic Forum

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University Challenges of Cash, Costs, Worth and Perceptions

September 8th, 2012 | Add a Comment

Is a Degree Worth It All? - Mike Knell

As UK universities start another academic year, the horizon is still smoking from the rows about debt and financing. But those aren’t the only issues.

Just ahead of the November 2010 disturbances/demonstrations, Education Editor of The Daily Telegraph, Graeme Paton wrote that the cost of a degree had ‘tripled in 20 years’. That was before the increase to £9000 a year that the demonstrators were protesting about.

Paton’s figures were average £6360 a year tuition and accommodation, compared with £1545 in the late 1980s, which was higher than the rise in family incomes over the same period, taking into account parental contributions and grants/loans. The debate centred, and still does, on ‘pricing students out of university education’.

Always Complications

Figures of potential future graduate debt fluctuated wildly, depending on the side of the ideological fence the commentator was sitting. £30,000 was a modest estimate, but the British Medical Association (BMA) argued that medical graduates would be even more harshly affected, clocking up average debts of around £70,000.

UK International Business Times’ Thomas Costello reported (September 2011) that Edinburgh University was set to charge English, Welsh and Ulster students £36,000 a year, thus stoking further the row about Scottish institutions targetting students wanting to flee high fees south of the border.

High-chargers point to their bursaries for financially-challenged and especially gifted, reductions they face in government funding, and that many universities in Scotland (St Andrews, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Strathclyde) are rising up the university league tables. Tuition fees entered the political circus rather than educational debate, when the Scottish Nationalists won control of the Scottish Parliament in May 2011 and made the fee decision.

The situation is made worse by the fact that Scottish students in England, Wales or Ulster will not have to pay even the proposed £9000 maximum through an EU loophole, but the legality of that is subject to court rulings, triggered by some English students.

The Pricing of Degrees

In April 2011, Neil O’Brien, director of think tank, Policy Exchange, wrote in The Daily Telegraph that ‘the market should decide the price of a degree’. He didn’t think most universities would charge the maximum £9000, because students from less affluent backgrounds would be spared the full amount and many institutions who’d like to charge the most, wouldn’t attract enough students.

He called this a ‘brave new world’ for universities as they set real prices for the first time. After initial teething problems, he thought they’d settle down. Discounted last-minute courses were not desirable to fill spaces, because those who had paid full whack would complain. Credibility mattered to university management.

The new arrangements mean nothing is paid upfront; the state loans money to buy tuition. The whole cost will never be paid back; the bottom-earning third will pay less than now, despite higher fees. Those who go into paid employment will repay on incomes above £21,000. Uncleared debt 30 years after graduation will be cancelled.

Lord Browne, who proposed the original student financing reforms, argued money should follow students so best courses expand, weaker ones wither. He suggested a ‘big bang’, all-at-once approach, but that was not favoured, transition was to be smoother. Time was needed for mergers, departments to be wound down.

O’Brien felt Browne’s free market ideas should still be worked towards, and was struck that larger universities such as London Metropolitan (more students than either Oxford or Cambridge) plan to charge £6-7000, with less on some courses. ‘If students want to pay more, that’s up to them’. He said that if universities believed their teaching was worth it, then they should try to attract students, many with parents angered at a mere hour or two teaching/seminar/tutorial per week.

Ferdinand von Prondzynski wrote on A Univerity Blog (Sept 2011) that whatever is the government upper limit, that will be what universities charge. Universities were caught in the trap of having to charge more to justify their reputations, so ‘pricing a university is now seen as brand marketing, rather than determining a genuine cost structure’.

He was opposed to institutions pricing products on market expectations, as they are ‘neither public service bureaucracies nor not-for-profit commercial entities’. He did, though, concede that universities needed to be more transparent about costs and quality.

Is It Worth It?

In January 2011, BBC News reported Office for National Statistics (ONS) data that showed graduate unemployment had doubled during the recession, graduate jobs were up but more were competing for them (83 per job, it was guessed), and 20% of graduates entering the jobs market in 2010 failed to find one.

The figures painted a grim picture for people who had worked through a degree course and incurred debt (in most cases) to achieve it. After all the pride and optimism of the graduation ceremony, they were less likely to secure work than non-graduates. The National Union of Students (NUS) quoted graduate applicants facing ‘a hostile market’.

Despite that, Resolution Foundation, another think tank, published a September 2011 social mobility report, that warned employees without a degree are more likely to move down the pay scales, compared with a decade ago. GCSEs and A levels were worth less in social mobility than higher academic training.

While debate about degree worth continues, stay-home undergraduate numbers rise and the future of universities as brick and glass structures in a cyber-economy is uncertain, a thought about Brits who made it without degrees: Sir Winston Churchill, Sir Michael Caine, Sir John Major, David Beckham, Richard Branson, Simon Cowell, Lord Alan Sugar and Mary ‘Queen of Shops’ Portas!

Of course, none of them was without ability, skills, talent and good senses of timing.

First published on Suite 101, 7 September 2011

Image: Is a Degree Worth It All? – Mike Knell

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‘Good Books Make Bad Movies and Vice Versa’: Discuss

September 7th, 2012 | Add a Comment

A perennial Media Studies question: do good books make bad films or do bad books make good films? However, perhaps the bigger question is: does it matter?

Filmmakers take most material from adaptations, recycling and re-envisioning. They’re rarely bothered about whether it’s a ‘good’ book they’re using, as long as the movie makes money. Books (good and bad) make films (good and bad), that’s the bottom line. Critical and artistic acclaim are bonuses.

Tim Robey, Sunday Telegraph’s Film Editor mused (21 Aug 2011) that autumn 2011 would bring a ‘slew of high-profile literary adaptations’ to the screen. Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, We Need to Talk About Kevin and The Help to discuss good/bad books.

He said that One Day had enjoyed box office success retelling the big seller book by David Nicholls (2009), with screenplay by the novelist himself. Robey called D-I-Y adapting a ‘famously brutal process’, but other authors have to let the writing of others rebuild their books.

He wondered if the Harry Potter films (most viewers having read the novels first) work as films pure and simple? He thought about half did. Hollywood plunders literary sources ‘not just to secure a built-in audience, but for an aura of weight and pedigree’.

Producer David O Selznich employed revolving writing teams to rework books into movies, and about Gone With the Wind (1939) and Rebecca (1940) was at pains to say no expense was spared to keep faithful to the originals. In fact, ‘crafty liberties’ were taken to make them work as movies, according to Robey.

No Golden Rules

He felt that there’re no hard and fast rules about why one book makes a great movie, another doesn’t. Nor why the same book in different hands doesn’t work. Hitchcock’s directing achieved success with Rebecca, but Jamaica Inn (1939) was a ‘loss making shambles’.

Robey singled from Dickens’ catalogue only David Lean’s Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948), which worked with slashed dialogue and plot. He said that great films don’t merely reproduce the originals, but must ‘lift them into another dimension’. On that definition, Joe Wright’s Pride and Prejudice (2005) felt modernish, while his Atonement (2007) took text more ‘reverentially’. For Tim Robey, the process is ‘alchemy not fidelity’.

Good Books Make Bad Films

Gut Dammann wrote on the Guardian Film Blog (Nov 2007): ‘the better the novel, the worse its screen version’. However, he excepted Joseph Conrad novels. Lord Jim (novel 1899-1900; film 1965) inspired him as a youngster, pages of description/character matching the screen.

Conrad-inspired cinema included Hitchcock’s Sabotage (1936) from The Secret Agent and Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979) after Heart of Darkness. Orson Welles was a Conrad fan: ‘every Conrad story is a movie’, until he failed to turn his own scripts from Conrad into film.

Also in November 2007, Donna Bowman and others compiled for A.V.Club, twenty not-so-good movies from good books, under the heading Lost in Translation. They started with Slapstick (1982) from the novel that Kurt Vonnegut considered his best, because the cast (including Jerry Lewis, Madeline Kahn and Marty Feldman) reduced it to ‘poor slapstick’.

Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) was an ‘unfilmable book’, even with Bruce Willis. Asimov’s novella, Bicentennial Man (1999), ‘subtly examined what it means to be human’. But the authors reckoned Hollywood doesn’t do subtle, especially with Chris Columbus directing and Robin Williams starring.

They slammed the gap between what works in a comic book and what Hollywood puts in a movie in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003). The ‘grizzled, tortured figures’ disappeared, replaced by generic punchers and shooters. The Scarlet Letter (1995) was ‘freely adapted’ with a happy ending from a book without one; in short, a ‘recipe for disaster’.

Actors Can’t Save Bad Movies

Signs were promising for All the King’s Men (2006) – Sean Penn, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Mark Ruffalo, James Gandolfini and director-writer Steven Zaillian (Schindler’s List). Bowman said the film was a leaden adaptation, ‘like a dead fish’. The Human Stain (2003) was a ‘perversely miscast’ adaptation of Philip Roth’s fiery novel about identity politics and The Hours (2002) ‘pounded the novel’s care to powder’.

The team panned yawning chasms between books and movies: Stardust (2007) as ‘flabby and plodding’; Dr Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) as ‘garish nightmare’; Portnoy’s Complaint (1972) for ‘crudity but little wit’ from the original; Tropic of Cancer (1970) as ‘self-indulgent and rambling’, and Bee Season (2005) as film draining life out of a book.

Stuart Little (1999) was belittled as standard computer-animated, celebrity-voiced; Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993) ditched the tale that made the book interesting; The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (2005) was bad because Douglas Adams’ book needed narrative diversions into past, present and future, and The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising (2007) was a ‘loud, clumsy insult’ to the author.

The Black Cauldron (1985) ‘Disneyfied’ characters; Breakfast At Tiffany’s (1961) butchered the ending and The Shining (1997), despite ‘scariest film of all time’, King never liked Jack Nicholson’s early madness, proving for Donna Bowman and co, that movies aren’t marriages.

Bad Books Make Good Films

Anna Mardoll (April 2011) comprehensively analysed Twilight book and film (2008). For her, editing and rewriting source material was crucial as ‘one of the ways a good movie outshines the novel’, as the heart of the tale is boiled into a two hour viewing experience.

She quoted Mark Twain’s 13th Rule of Writing: ‘use the right word, not its second cousin’ as she unpacked text to show how the movie builds, honed with short lines and character traits revealed on screen, describing one improvement as ‘pure poetry’, which the novel was not.

It’s a matter of taste whether $1 billion grossing movies from Philip K Dick masterpieces, were better than their originals. So far: Blade Runner (1982) based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?; Screamers (1995) based on Second Variety; Total Recall (1990) based on We Can Remember It For You Wholesale; Confessions d’un Barjo (1992) based on Confessions of a Crap Artist; Imposter (2001); Minority Report (2002); Paycheck (2003); A Scanner Darkly (2006); Next (2007), based on The Golden Man and The Adjustment Bureau (2011) based on The Adjustment Team with King of the Elves coming in 2012.

Some quality movies from excellent stories. But the point is, surely, the definition of both good book and good film is entirely subjective. In the right hands, good and/or bad books make good and/or bad films.

First published on Suite 101, 6 September 2011

Image: Harry Potter: Good Books and Good Movies? – Heathyr

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The Happening Was the Progenitor of Performance Art

September 6th, 2012 | Comments Off on The Happening Was the Progenitor of Performance Art

Performance Art Grew From 'Happenings' - Rolf Broberg

 
Installations, Events, Happenings, Environments were favoured by 1950/60s art and drama students: just kids having a laugh, or claim to a serious artform?

The term ‘happening’, as in ‘what’s happening, man?’ was a very 1960s one. In fact, it described a particular form of performance theatre arising from and fusing with visual arts. It’s not fully understood in contemporary performance circles, but The Happening was instrumental in paving the way for performance art to be an artform in its own right.

It was an ‘event’ or ‘situation’ sometimes billed as ‘art in random places’ (empty shops, old houses, warehouses, streets), with little linear narrative, but reliance on mixed art forms with the audience frequently involved, willingly or not. Scope for improvisation (much as Commedia dell’Arte actors did in the 16th Century) lay within their structures.

They blurred boundaries between visual art and performance, and between performers and watchers, destroying the ‘fourth wall’. Gradually during the 60s ‘happenings’ were any loose hippie collection, where two or more were gathered in the name of ‘staying cool’.

Some Theory

British director Peter Brook described a Happening as a ‘powerful invention’, destroying at one blow many deadly forms, like the ‘dreariness of theatre buildings’ and what he loathed, ‘the charmless trappings of curtain, programme and bar’. By contrast, they could be anywhere, any time, of any duration.

For the man who wrote The Open Space which called any space a performance area, this mattered. Happenings could be formal or spontaneous: anarchic, generating intoxicating energy. Nothing was required, nothing was taboo. Behind a Happening, for Brook, was the shout ‘wake up’, jolting the spectator into new sight. He enthused about the concept, but warned ‘the sadness of a bad Happening must be seen to be believed’.

The seminal work Happenings was published in 1965 by Michael Kirby in which he accounted for their influence and outlined scripts or plans of some 14 performance pieces. There were others that came after the mid-60s (the idea was adopted by hippies, drama students and street performers), but the essence was already established.

Kirby refuted the mythology that there was no script, no control, no rehearsal and things just happened. These events were frequently attended by a handful of people, no exact repeats, many of whom saw them as entertainment or in the spirit of the times, rather than serious works beyond the superficial.

He asked in his book that if Happenings were not improvisations by a group ‘exhibiting themselves’ at a party, if they were not ‘sophisticated buffoonery designed to give a deceitful impression of profundity’ nor ‘controlled audience participation, what are they?’ Each event had different outcomes, depending on audience response, so definitions were always fragmented.

Professor of Art History, Allan Kaprow, said that Happenings were less new style, more a moral act, an ultimate existential commitment. For him, once artists were recognised and paid, they ‘surrender to the tastes of the patrons’. He told Kirby that he had a ‘multi-leveled’ attitude to painting. His abstracts were ‘toy soldiers at war, my girlfriend in a corner, musical structures or literary stories. Anything under the sun!’

Some History

Kaprow seems to have come up with the term ‘happening’ in 1957 at an art picnic to account for the scene around him. Later, Jack Kerouac called him ‘The Happenings Man’ and when media, artists, writers and others took off with the term, it quite quickly came to mean almost anything.

Chance played a big part in determining inputs and outcomes. Early devotees were attracted to the Dadaists’ Methodical use of Chance. Audiences were frequently unsure what they’d seen. If something had gone ‘wrong’ nobody knew, as there was no ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. The event was whatever it was.

Kaprow’s 18 Happenings in 6 Parts (1959), with a detailed script of how to employ screens, poles, lights and tin cans is often cited as the first Happening, though an earlier work by musician John Cage, Theater Piece No. 1, with readings from ladders, Rauschenberg showing paintings, wax cylinders of Edith Piaf playing and Merce Cunningham dancing, preceded it.

Some Examples

Event titles often revealed clues about the location or intention, like Kaprow’s A Spring Happening and The Courtyard; while Coca Cola, Shirley Cannonball? didn’t. Robert Whitman’s The American Moon, Mouth, Flower, and Water pieces started from pencil sketches, watercolours, captions and verbal notations, in much the same way drama is devised and improvised today.

‘Red’ Grooms, a multimedia artist renowned for pop-art constructions of frantic urban life, said his Burning Building (1959) was inspired by love of travelling shows and circus. He told Kirby interest in fire was ignited by wooden buildings. ‘Firemen and their apparatus offered a good vehicle for my medieval melodrama’. He built sets, got into 3D making of an environment, film, painting, woodpile, canvas and glue.

American pop artist Jim Dine’s work was sometimes called ‘funny’, but Car Crash wasn’t, though some audiences tittered in embarrassment. It was a short dialogue while a car circled, honking, followed by crash sounds. The outline was published by Kirby.

Claus Oldenburg was a Swedish sculptor famous for his public art installations of large replicas or soft sculpture versions of everyday objects. He called his troupe Ray Gun Theater and they produced Injun, World’s Fair II, The Store, Store Days II, The Home, Bedroom Ensemble, Blackouts, Fotodeath, Gayety and Autobodys among others.

He told Kirby they were to do with objects: ‘typewriters, ping-pong tables, clothing, ice cream, hamburgers, cakes….’ The Happening ‘used objects in motion including people’. So, anything to hand, anything that struck a chord, an emotion, a prayer, a fear, a laugh; all the starting ingredients, in short, of any work of art down the ages.

Fusing art forms, seriously or as ironic humour, harnessing old ideas like commedia dell’arte and performing absolutely anywhere didn’t start with hippie Happenings. But continuing interest in all things 1960s should rekindle interest. The fact is that they were a small but significant part of performance art history and deserve study in their own right for what they tell us about breaking old boundaries, challenging mindsets.

First published on Suite 101, 5 September 2011

Image: Performance Art Grew From ‘Happenings’ – Rolf Broberg

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Irish Eyes Are Not Smiling: Where Is the Irish Economy Going?

September 5th, 2012 | Add a Comment

 

Little to sing, dance or smile about as world and home-grown economic problems continue to impact Eire, but all is not lost. There’s some optimism around.

Harsh economic realities of post-Celtic Tiger years batter Ireland as much as but in different ways from other parts of Europe. The nostalgic, romanticised, When Irish Eyes Are Smiling (1912), is about Irish character surviving tribulation: ‘When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, sure ’tis like a morn in spring/In the lilt of Irish laughter you can hear the angels sing/When Irish hearts are happy all the world seems bright and gay/And When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, sure, they steal your heart away’.

The recession/slowdown of 2008-2009 was felt across the land. Finger-pointing and blame for collapse of housing market and banking, overheating, taxes, unemployment, the public sector and whether the Euro should have been joined, led to the 2010 EU bail-out.

3rd September 2011, the BBC reported the International Monetary Fund was releasing €1.5bn to the Republic as part of the rescue package, since Ireland had maintained ‘resolute implementation’ of its austerity programme of tax rises, spending cuts and economic restructuring. The economy showed ‘signs of stabilisation’.

Too Big to Cope?

While economies faltered and Eurozone crises continued, there was concern that Ireland could have to extend the €85bn bail-out or ask for another. In July 2011, interest was cut from about 6% to 3.5% – 4% with payback deferment doubled to fifteen years, as part of realignment/rescues of Greece and Portugal. In Ireland, up to 700m euros a year will not have to found.

An interesting perspective on how serious the bailout was, came from Americans. CNN reported (November 2010), Peter Morici of the University of Maryland: ‘it’ll keep the banks going, but not change objective conditions for average Irish people’.

They also quoted Allan Timmermann, Endowed Chair of Finance at University of California San Diego, who said that without the bailout, ‘cutbacks would have been more drastic’. Cutbacks are a hot political issue. Most commentators felt that a nation’s economy cannot be allowed to fail.

Runs on banks point to emergency help down the line, so better to do it in an orderly fashion. The problem was exacerbated and pushed into uncharted waters when the amounts were so large and countries needing help multiplied.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reported in the Daily Telegraph (August 2011), Germany’s Bundesbank had criticised EU bail-out policies, as the EU drifted towards a debt union without ‘democratic legitimacy’. Debt union without political union? That was another contentious issue.

Countries help each other from loans to buying debt. Even China accumulated €700bn of European debt as it sought less dependence on the US dollar. So, this is not a parochial matter for Eire alone.

More Doom and Gloom

Writing on Irish Central (May 2011), staff writer Cathal Dervan said that Irish financial woes were deteriorating, with €5bn likely to be needed by December rather than €3.5 billion, but premier Enda Kenny had ‘vowed not to cut public sector pay at any cost’.

Chief Economist with Friends First Life Assurance Company, Jim Power, had stated that growth forecast downgrades meant ‘an Irish default’ was likely. He demanded ‘realistic’ EU rescue because ‘the numbers are now too big for the economy to cope with, we’re running out of road’.

The dilemmas: how to implement cutbacks while investment and tax revenues decreased? How to reduce public sector staffing without tipping the jobless/benefits balance too far? How to carry people on reforms with the threat of more/deeper reductions?

The Government is striving to fulfill the Croke Park agreement to protect public pay and other measures, whilst achieving savings of around €3.6bn on a budget deficit of €12bn. Power maintained the economy cannot sustain further cuts (as high as €5bn), so default is inevitable. It’s what follows default which few are speculating aloud.

Reasons to Be Cheerful

Ronan Lyons, Irish economist, researcher, analyst across academic, public and private sectors based at Oxford University, felt as 2011 began that the Irish economy was more than government, banks and builders. There was a ‘social product’ encompassing community and voluntary sectors in the 2011 European Year of Volunteering.

He came up with 11 reasons to conclude the economy was not lost. The Irish Exchequer was in debt, but based on balance of payments, the non-governmental part of the economy was not. People were paying down personal debt, as in the UK.

Irish farmers had ‘a bumper 2010’, with EU figures showing income up almost 40%, from tillage (cereals and potatoes especially) to dairy. He felt that while Irish tourism had been hit badly in 2007-10, the 2011 UK Census, new Irish-North Carolina flights and excellent publicity in German and French travel publications would increase tourism income.

Optimistic Irish exporters defied ‘the greatest collapse in trade in recent history’ with figures rising through 2010. He took issue with economists like Jim Power who wanted an Ireland ‘that made things’, since usefulness of things to people is intangible. People pay for services as much as things, and services provided 46% of exports already.

Ireland had regained cost-competitiveness through falling office costs, surplus office space and downward pressure on wages. IDA Ireland (Industrial Development Agency) created over 11,000 jobs in 2010. Global ICT giants used Ireland as a base for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and there were significant home-grown companies at the cutting edge of technological innovation.

Lyons also cited new jobs in life sciences (pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and medical devices) that generated local support jobs. He pointed to Irish education exports, worth €4 billion a year in students arriving to study and licensing education services overseas or delivering online.

Optimistic Realism?

He felt that Ireland’s entrepreneurs and their culture would attract foreign investment besides creating a hub where local business could emerge. There was criticism for not preparing for eurozone life, but ‘the Celtic Tiger was not a mirage’.

Finally, back to Irish eyes smiling and humour that brightens a bad day. Skibbereen in West Cork held the world’s first cloud festival, according to the Daily Telegraph (3 Sept 2011). To benefit their souls, delegates were urged to fight ‘blue sky thinking’ with ‘their heads in the clouds’.

Staged by The Cloud Appreciation Society with 27,000 members in 84 countries, it opened with ‘cloud spotting sessions’. Apparently only one was visible, a giant that dropped rain all day!

First published on Suite 101, 4 September 2011

Image: How Big Should A Euro Bail-Out Be? – Luis Javier Modino Martinez

 

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