An Outburst of Frankness: Community Arts in Ireland

This publication is the first serious attempt to gather together a wide range of views dealing with te history, theory and practice of community arts in Ireland. Not an academic book, it contains twelve essays as well as the edited transcripts of two fora, that range from a general arts-history perspective to the particular experiences of artists working with and in communities.

The book argues that arts and culture should be at the centre of all political, social, educational, individual and communal activity, particularly in this time of unprecedented and sometimes dangerous change, for Ireland and the world at large. This vision is underpinned by the belief in the right of people to contribute to and participate fully in culture. These values, the authors go on to assert as they share their varied experiences, are as relevant today as they were forty or four hundred years ago.


Paperback 250 pages (November 2004)

Publisher: New Island Books