Mr. Eugene Downes:

Go raibh maith agat a Chathaoirligh. I thank the committee for the invitation to appear before it. We are delighted to be here today with our colleagues from around the country. I would like first to inform the committee of some news which I heard only a couple of hours ago, namely, that my colleague, Ms Olga Barry, who is currently the festival producer, will be my successor as festival director as of September.

We are looking forward to sharing our particular experience in Kilkenny in the course of the session. To begin, we will consider the idea of a festival and its essence.

When the idea of a festival was first born on the slopes of the Acropolis in Athens 2,500 years ago, its artistic and civic dimensions were joined. It was a festival of the Dionysia, in honour of the god Dionysos, premiering new theatrical works, some of the greatest tragedies and comedies ever written. It was an occasion for thousands of Athenian citizens to gather, not just to experience and vote on these new plays but also to debate the great political, military and social issues of their time, an artistic and civic experience. In the 2,500 years since the challenge and opportunity for festivals all over the world and in this country are how to make these special times moments of intense artistic creation and civic experience locally and as citizens of the world, from near and far, who sometimes gather in very remote places on this island. The intensely emotional, deep, tough stuff in the great tragedies that those citizens experienced 2,500 years ago at the festival of the Dionysia was among the most extreme of human experiences. Festivals are places where we can experience something extreme that we do not experience in normal life. At the same time they saw the great comedies of Aristophanes which lampooned and satirised the politicians of the day. The light, celebratory and intense, deep, tough stuff coexisted in that festival space. That is another challenge for festivals today.

The final point to make about the DNA of festivals concerns the sheer improbability that a group of citizens, an artist or group of artists in a place, whether it be a rural area, a town or a city, can envision something that is not there and be determined to make it happen. The first modern festival in Europe took place in the 1870s in a small town in Bavaria where a single artist, Richard Wagner, who was not even from Bayreuth decided it was the place where he would reinvent theatre and music and create the greatest opera house in the world and bring people to it from all over the world. He made it happen in a place where there was nothing. In 1951 in a small seaside town on the south-east coast of Ireland, Wexford, a local doctor decided that he would create one of the world's great opera festivals and, with intense communal effort, that is what it became. In 1974 in Ireland's mediaeval city a group of classical musicians, artists and poets decided to make a festival. From the beginning they wanted to have an international festival, a place people from all over the world and artists could share and so it became, with Seamus Heaney as the first poetry curator.

With that in mind, we are looking forward to discussing the ecology of festivals in Ireland in 2018 and its resilience but also its frailties, the delicacies and challenges. I will ask my colleague Ms Olga Barry to make a brief initial comment on it.