I think it's important to remember that when you have that freedom in the summertime, embrace it. Embrace the idea that there is a way to have moments in your life that are free from all the other pressures in terms of the future. I have a daughter, and I really hope that between all of what we've been able to give young people, they can hold a sense of social justice as we move forward into a very complicated world. They need to remember that we're all just people and that we all just need each other, whether that's creatively or within the landscape or within the economics.
In the first five years of Creative Ireland, which, as I said, came out in 2016, there were five pillars. But basically, it was the Creative Communities and the Creative Youth initiatives that were powering forward and putting a structure in place. Now we're in the next five years, from 2023 to 2027, so the five pillars we have now are Creative Youth, Creative Communities, Creative Health and Well-being, Creative Industries, and Creative Climate Action and Sustainability.
I left the local environment to pursue Creative Ireland because I really believe in this broader approach. Let's try not to silo things. Let’s try and get people working collaboratively for the benefit of everybody, not just one program over the other.
Today, we talk about creativity—not as a luxury, but as a national strategy. Sheila Deegan is one of Ireland’s leading cultural architects. Over three decades, she’s shaped the artistic life of Limerick and helped reimagine the role of creativity in civic life. She now serves in the Creative Ireland Programme, a bold cross-government initiative that sees culture as a force for personal and national wellbeing. From children’s creative freedom to climate action, from local festivals to cross-border partnerships, Creative Ireland asks a radical question: what happens when a country places imagination at the heart of public policy? Sheila Deegan joins me now to talk about that question—about culture, community, the role of art in a divided world, and what it means to build something lasting through the machinery of government.
