Audiences for the arts in Northern Ireland are wider than ever before, according to the Chief Executive of Northern Ireland’s Arts Council, Roisín McDonough. Speaking at the Annual General Meeting of Down Community Arts earlier this week, McDonough praised an audit by the organisation of community arts practice in the region. The audit surveyed venues available for arts activities, community groups’ interest in arts activities and general public interest in arts activities. McDonough commented that the arts could no longer be considered the preserve of the ‘privileged few’. ‘While it is true that that there are still barriers to attending arts events [and] obstacles to participating as an audience at what we might call 'conventional' arts events - some of them economic, some social, some to do with perceptions - it is equally true that personal engagement with creativity itself is now more widespread than ever,’ McDonough commented. ‘Professional artists have increasingly found their audience and even their medium among and within communities,’ she continued. ‘The arts so-called “ordinary” people make have come to be recognised and valued as never before, as real art, as significant and expressive and articulate. They have, to paraphrase Wordsworth, created the taste by which they are enjoyed.’ The Arts Council of Northern Ireland awarded £35,000 from Lottery funds to Down Community Arts in September 2002, which has helped implement 21 arts projects in the region and funded a full-time staff member. For further information on the Arts Council of Northern Ireland CLICK HERE.