“[A Taoiseach] should regard a comprehensive programme for artistic and cultural matters as an essential part of the programme of his Government...” – Charles Haughey, from a Dáil Éireann speech on arts funding, 1973

Art has been described as a bloody crossroads where culture and politics meet. Taoisigh and the Arts looks afresh at major political figures in post-1922 Ireland through the work of writers, poets and visual artists including Kate O’Brien, Brendan Kennelly, Marina Carr, Robert Ballagh and Edward McGuire, and their fraught, often tumultuous interactions with Ireland’s leaders.

Professor Kevin Rafter examines one part of the legacy of national leaders including W.T. Cosgrave, Éamon de Valera, Sean Lemass, Jack Lynch, Garret FitzGerald and Charles Haughey, and considers the priority these politicians placed – or, as was more often the case, did not place – on the arts during their time in office.

From censorship to poverty to paltry public investment in the arts, the relationships of these artistic and political characters has been defined by neglect. But it is a story where, perhaps, cultural and artistic matters will no longer have to wait.

‘To me this history is shocking, scalding, and enraging – but in the telling of these truths, of course, as always (if only politicians would understand this) redeeming.’ – Sebastian Barry

‘This is a page-turner, a riveting read full of personal and historical detail that wears its knowledge lightly, anecdotal and forensic by turns.’ – Marina Carr

‘Kevin Rafter shows with a bracingly scornful irony that in Ireland the roads of art and politics have too often traced tediously non-intersecting lines. A fine book, which shows most politicians running scared of the artists in their very midst.’ – Declan Kiberd

Kevin Rafter is the author of more than a dozen books on Irish media and politics. He is Professor of Political Communication at DCU having previously worked as a senior political journalist. His contribution to Irish public life includes chairing national bodies and taskforces on civil service reform and broadcast regulation, and facilitating government formation negotiations as an independent rapporteur. He was appointed Chair of the Arts Council in 2019.