The Bookseller
Like the country’s geography, Ireland’s cluster of creative industries forms a small island bordered by the overbearing masses of two much larger, English-speaking neighbours. It does mean that we get to enjoy the products of their creative industries without translation and can more easily sell ours to them, but it also means we are competing with them in our own market, one so small that it is next to impossible for artists to make any kind of living in it. As an author, for instance, I could make the bestseller lists every year and never make minimum wage for my work.
At the same time, Ireland does have a cultural reach that belies its size – the oft-repeated phrase is “we punch above our weight”. Some of this is down to the fact that we’re an English-speaking nation, some is because of support from organisations such as the Arts Council and local authority arts offices.
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