Sunday 11th August 2024
Location: St Canice’s Cathedral
Hosted by Olivia O’Leary
It used to be possible to imagine that art is always a civilising force, generating what Jonathan Swift called ‘sweetness and light’. But those illusions have been shattered. Reactionary politics are now saturated in artfulness. Demagogues like Donald Trump have taken qualities that once seemed to belong to the cultural sphere – irony, comedy, performativity, even the idea of authenticity – and twisted them into a malign style of anti-democratic politics. In this year’s Hubert Butler Lecture, ‘Culture Wars: Art and Politics in the Age of Trump’, Fintan O’Toole explores this process and asks how artists can respond to it.
Fintan O’Toole is one of Ireland’s foremost cultural and political commentators, exploring the country’s recent political struggles with unflinching honesty. He has received the Orwell Prize for Journalism, the European Press Prize and, earlier this year, the Robert B Silvers Prize for Journalism. His most recent book, We Don’t Know Ourselves, traces the history of Ireland since 1958 through a personal lens.
The Hubert Butler Annual Lecture was established by the Festival in 2007 to honour the Kilkenny writer, historian and broadcaster whose remarkable consistency of vision and clarity of mind made him unique among 20th-century essayists.
Book Tickets
Sun 11 Aug, 5.00p.m. €20 / €18 BOOK NOW
Organisers Website

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