In 1981, Seamus Heaney composed to his American representative, Selma Warner, about the costs she was requiring for readings by him on United States schools. He was mad since they were too expensive.
Heaney was not yet rather as well-known as he would end up being, however his credibility was already extremely significant and he was a mesmerising entertainer of his own work. Warner had actually begun to request $1,000 for a reading – the equivalent of about $3,300 today.
Heaney’s complaint was that this was excessive money: “I do not wish to be a $1,000 speaker. Apart from my moral scruples about whether any speaker or reader is worth anything like that, I do not wish to become a freak among my poet friends, or to press the budgets of departments of literature at a time when the money for education is drying up in the United States.”
He was worried not to “exhaust the budgets [of university departments] in one or two seasons of gluttony. This is something I feel has to be definitely settled: it has been worrying me for some time and involved not only money but principles and my reputation as an artist. Much as I enjoy the rewards of reading, the first basis of the enterprise is artistic and not financial.”
Heaney’s letter draws our attention to 2 things pertinent to the existing troubles of RTÉ.
One is that representatives take guidelines from individuals they represent, and not the other method around. With all the concentrate on Noel Kelly, the representative for Ryan Tubridy and numerous other star broadcasters, it is simple to forget this easy truth.
Like almost all released authors, I have a representative who negotiates my book agreements. (She has absolutely nothing to do with my journalistic work.) She would not imagine doing anything on my behalf to which I had actually not consented.
For example, a deal entered her firm for the Russian rights to a book of mine. It was unthinkable that she would accept this on my behalf without asking me initially – and naturally I declined.
I am not recommending Noel Kelly’s part in the Tubridy story is unimportant. It deserves examining, not least since his business’s synchronised representation of broadcasters, and of business business who may have a stake in what they relay, raises legitimate concerns about possible understandings (nevertheless unintentional) of disputes of interest.
[ Fintan O’Toole: RTÉ abandoned the public interest during Covid and capitulated to Tubridy’s tone-deaf demands ]
[ Fintan O’Toole: Ryan Tubridy chose silence instead of speaking out. An extended silence should follow ]
I’m sure the members of the Public Accounts Committee will wish to ask Kelly about these problems, along with his particular part in both the settlement and concealment of top-up payments to his customer. There is much to be checked out in his virtual monopoly on the representation of well-known broadcasters in Ireland and whether that assists to represent RTÉ’s craven submission to his needs.
But let’s not catch “my agent made me do it” stories. Agents, nevertheless vibrant and assertive, are intermediaries: these deals were done in between RTÉ and Tubridy.
It was Tubridy’s job to have the “moral scruples”. Kelly is not his Father Confesssor – he’s his guard dog. It is constantly as much as the conscience of the customer regarding whether the dog need to be aborted prior to he bites off any specific pound of flesh.
When did it end up being essential for individuals lucky enough to be part of public discourse to determine their self-regard by the size of their bank balances instead of the depth of their engagement?
Secondly, and more notably, Heaney’s guidelines to his United States representative advise us that individuals associated with public life (in the broadest sense) ought not to be in it mostly for the money. It is sensible, as he put it, to “enjoy the rewards” however if they grow too big, they eliminate the point of the workout.
What Heaney was so concerned about were the important things that need to constantly be stabilized in the scales versus simple greed. One was the trust of one’s peers (in his case his fellow poets): he wished to be amongst them as a fellow artist, not as “the talent”.
But another was, in the most informed sense, self-centered. He wished to have a long-lasting relationship with individuals and organizations that were releasing the invites and comprehended that it was much better to accumulate love and regard, instead of draw them dry in “one or two seasons of gluttony”.
When did all of that knowledge ended up being ignorant? When did it end up being essential for individuals lucky enough to be part of public discourse to determine their self-regard by the size of their bank balances instead of the depth of their engagement? When did the loss of etiquette and self-discipline around money make one an apotheosis of market concepts?
Maybe the response, for many people, is never ever. I can consider lots of individuals I understand in Ireland and in other places who are prodigiously gifted – a few of them authentic geniuses – yet who have actually worked all their lives for modest monetary benefits.
I don’t think in the pernicious misconception of the starving artist either – everyone requires enough money to be able to lead a dignified life. But excessive money is as destructive of self-respect as insufficient.
Vast varieties of individuals in Ireland – in the arts, in sport, in voluntary and marketing groups – do dazzling, hard, extensive work since they discover implying in it. The nationwide broadcaster needs to be improved so that it mirrors that significance.
