Kingleys Aikins, Professor Joe Cleary, Mark O’Rowe, Mary Raftery chaired by Professor Ciarán Benson 

 Time: 16:45 – 17:30
Location: DeVere Hall 

 EUR125,000 will run one, very badly needed, public hospital bed for three months, or a production in the Project for four weeks. When the State coffers are no longer over-flowing, how do you balance this equation? Is theatre really vital to our wellbeing as a society? Specifically, are the forms of theatre currently being created adequate to the increasing complexity of our lived experience? Who cares? Who should care? 

A variety of challengers and champions offer different perspectives on the value of theatre in this session. There are a great many needs out there, and there are an equally great number of activities, experiences and interventions other than theatre on offer to address those needs. Where is current theatre practice in Ireland positioned in this complex picture? 

Chaired by Professor Ciaran Benson, contributors include Kingley Aikens (CEO The Ireland Funds), journalist and documentary maker Mary Raftery, Professor Joe Cleary, critic and lecturer in English N.U.I. Maynooth, and playwright Mark O’Rowe. 

 Biographies 

 Kingsley Aikins
Dublin-born and raised, Kingsley Aikins is the president and CEO of The Worldwide Ireland Funds. He was educated at the High School before attending Trinity College where he earned an honours degree in economics and politics. He has a post-graduate diploma in international marketing and has studied and worked extensively in the UK, France, Spain, Australia and the US. 

The Ireland Funds are a unique global philanthropic network of Irish people, people of Irish descent and friends of Ireland around the world supporting cultural, educational and community projects throughout the island of Ireland. There are now Funds in operation in 11 countries including Ireland. Through them, over $300m has been raised and more than 1,500 organisations have
benefited in Ireland. Over the last ten years through conferences, publications and presentations The Ireland Funds have been working to develop a greater culture of philanthropy within Ireland. 

Aikins acted as the representative in Australia of the Irish Trade Board (CTT) and the Industrial Development Authority (IDA) for five years. He went on to run his own marketing consultancy company before helping to establish The Australian Ireland Fund. For two years, he served as the Executive Director with responsibility for growing the fund in Australia. He has also helped establish The Ireland Funds of New Zealand and Japan. 

In January of 1993, Aikins moved to Boston to take over as Executive Director of The American Ireland Fund and was appointed President and CEO of The Worldwide Ireland Funds in June of 2000. He was also responsible for the successful five-year Hope and History Campaign to raise $100m. 

He is a member of the Institutes of Marketing Export and Linguistics. He represented Trinity College, the Irish Universities and Leinster at rugby. In 2008 he was awarded a CBE for his contribution to British-Irish relations. Aikins now lives in Dublin with his wife, Claire McDonough, and their three children. 

 Professor Joe Cleary
Joe Cleary is a Professor in English at NUI Maynooth. He was educated in NUI Maynooth and in Columbia University, New York, where he studied with Edward W. Said. He is the author of Literature, Partition and the Nation-State: Culture and Conflict in Ireland, Israel and Palestine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) and Outrageous Fortune: Capital and Culture in Modern Ireland (Dublin: Field Day Publications, 2007). 

He has also co-edited (with Claire Connolly) The Cambridge Companion to Modern Irish Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), and (with Michael de Nie) a special issue of Éire-Ireland on ‘Empire Studies’ (Summer 2007). His articles on modern Irish writing and literary history have appeared in a variety of American British and Irish journals including South Atlantic Quarterly, Boundary 2, Textual Practice, The Irish Review and The Field Day Review. 

He was a Visiting Professor at Notre Dame University in 2002, and he is currently the Director of the Notre Dame Irish Seminar in O’Connell House, Merrion Square, Dublin. He has lectured in many US and European universities, including Yale, Columbia, NYU, Cambridge, University of California
at Berkeley, University of Pittsburgh, Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, and in Bigli University, Istanbul. 

 He was the winner of a Government of Ireland Senior Research Fellowship in 2004-2005. 

 Mark O'Rowe
Mark O’Rowe’s previous plays include From Both Hips (Fishamble, 1997), Anna’s Ankle (Bedrock, 1997), Howie the Rookie (Bush, 1999), Made in China
(Abbey Theatre, 2001), Crestfall (Gate Theatre, 2003) and Terminus (Abbey Theatre, 2007), which he also directed. 

 Screenplays include Intermission (Company of Wolves, 2004) and Boy A (Channel 4, 2007) based on the novel by Jonathan Trigell. 

 Mary Raftery
Mary Raftery is a journalist and television producer. An opinion columnist with The Irish Times from 2003 to 2007, she has also lectured at Dublin City University, and continues to make programmes for RTE’s Prime Time. 

A number of her documentaries have won national and international awards, including States of Fear, which led to the Government apology to victims of child abuse, and Cardinal Secrets, which resulted in the establishment of the Tribunal of Inquiry into the Archdiocese of Dublin. 

 She is also the co-author of Suffer the Little Children - the Inside Story of Ireland’s Industrial Schools. 

 Professor Ciarán Benson 
Ciarán Benson is Professor of Psychology in UCD and former Chairman of An Chomhairle Ealaíon/The Arts Council (1993-1998).