REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE TILESTYLE BUSINESS2ARTS SPONSOR OF THE YEAR AWARDS
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE TILESTYLE BUSINESS2ARTS SPONSOR OF THE YEAR AWARDS, THE PAVILLION, LEOPARDSTOWN
Tá lúcháir mhór orm go bhfuil mé ábalta bheith anseo libh inniú, agus ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a chur in iúl daoibh as an chuireadh, agus as fáilte a bhí caoin, cneasta, agus croiúil.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am very pleased to be with you to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Arts Sponsor of the Year Award, an award which recognises and rewards best practice in arts sponsorship.
We live in a world that likes to measure things, to justify inputs by measurable outcomes, to see results on graphs where the line curves upwards. Business people know this world well. It is their lifeblood, the way in which they can test the health of their organisation, its viability, its strength, its effectiveness.
Investment in the arts undoubtedly brings many benefits which are touchable and measurable, which are intrinsically good in themselves and indeed which make sound business sense but there is an altogether other side to the arts which is immeasurable but which richens and strengthens the civic fabric of society in ways which we experience in joy, in pride, in insight, in pity, in hope, in determination, in the many things which no yardstick can define but which build us all up humanly. To quote George Bernard Shaw “…without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable!”.
The arts clothe life. They exist, not on the periphery as some exercise of vanity or some thing you get around to when other important things take precedence or some thing which is unrelated to life’s more mundane complexities. That is why Business2Arts is so important. Because it says out loud that this relationship between business and the arts is an important dynamic in today’s Ireland and one which is worth investing in.
As you celebrate ten years of ambassadorship for a culture of business support for the arts it must be very gratifying to see that not only is business sponsorship of the arts growing all the time but that with your help, valuable training in business skills is available to arts organisations.
Ireland has not a lot in the way of natural resources but we have discovered that the greatest natural resource we do have is the brainpower of our own people. Our knowledge equity depends on harnessing that brainpower, accessing and nurturing its creativity. In today’s highly competitive environment, people are required to combine business acumen with imagination, creativity and innovation. The last thing we need is a culture where impenetrable walls separate out the world of business from the world of the arts. The easier, the more fluent those relationships the more reassured we can be as a community that we are involved in a kind of meithil to harvest the best of our talent and to put it to work.
There are many winners in this collaboration, from the individual working in a company who is challenged to think with greater flair, to the struggling artist who is encouraged to greater self-belief but the biggest winners are the local community and, by extension, the nation. Sponsorship helps things to happen which would otherwise be absent from our lives. It helps arts organisations around the country to bring music and dance, theatre and literature to a wider audience. It helps to raise standards to develop and hone our critical appreciation of the arts. It generates additional funds, delivers value to the sponsors, and adds enrichment to the lives of all the people involved. Without those opportunities our lives would be considerably duller, more impoverished at so many different levels and our children would be missing the stimulation which a culture of artistic celebration brings spontaneously to life.
The arts are among the principal nurturers of the imagination. Empowering the imaginations of our people is the best way to economic success and cultural vibrancy. It is our shared belief in that which gathers us tonight in celebration and gratitude, celebration of the rich world of imagination we enjoy in Ireland and gratitude to those who have helped it to blossom.
Mo bhuíochas libh arís. Guím gach rath agus séan ar bhur gcuid oibre san am atá le teacht.