“ In this sense, individual works of art seldom promote the country in any literal way. The effect they may have is broad and indirect. Is a Marina Carr play with dark convolutions of incest, madness and violence likely to make the chief executive of an American corporation think, Hey, that Ireland looks a great place to invest in! Do films as bleak as Lenny Abrahamson’s Adam and Paul and Garage present the required image of a dynamic, high-tech, well-educated, globalised workforce? Of course not. What happens instead is that a cumulative exposure to a range of works and performances gets across the idea of Ireland as a place that’s interesting, distinctive and imaginative. That in turn may seep out into a larger and deeper awareness of the country as something more than an egregious economic screw-up.
irish
