Causeway: The Arts in Ulster, ed. Michael Longley, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, 1971.
Once upon a time, and a very long time ago it was – to be precise, fifty-four years ago – the Arts Council of Northern Ireland produced a publication, a small quarto entitled Causeway, which surveyed the arts in Ulster in magisterial fashion.
That word ‘Ulster’ indicates the political persuasion of the period… Of note is the fact that the book was published in Dublin in association with Gill & Macmillan, thus giving it a wide currency, unlike, for example, the later Lagan Press books, bankrolled by ACNI, which had no effective distribution, and thus little in the way of currency.
This book is an essential starting point for anyone who wishes to understand what the arts in the North were like before the Troubles redrew the route map. Unlike the much later stepping stones the arts in ulster 1971-2001 (sic) edited by Mark Carruthers and Stephen Douds, Causeway provided a detailed, accurate, and surprisingly non-judgmental overview.
It was excellently edited by the poet Michael Longley, then a Literature Officer at ACNI, in the days before his elitist attitudes coloured his approach to the job, though there are early indications of that elitism. For instance, there is no mention of major science fiction writers like Bob Shaw or James White, or of novelists who wrote for the youth market such as Sam McBratney. Likewise, because of the ‘Ulster’ appellation, writers like Benedict Kiely were left out, not to mention writers who wrote in the Irish language.
(l-r) front cover of Causeway (1971); photo of Michael Longley (2018); front cover of Causeway published in US/Australia
However, in terms of what was presented, the ten main essays were written by experts and are remarkably inclusive. There are two architectural essays, one by the magisterial C.E. B. Brett, author of Buildings of Belfast, 1700-1914, which is on the architectural heritage, and one on contemporary architecture by the architect Robert McKinstrey – he designed the ACNI galleries in Chichester Street and Bedford House. Painting and Sculpture, the longest essay in the book, was written by Kenneth Jamison, then Director of the Arts Council, a much-underrated figure who had previously been the art critic for the Belfast Telegraph for five years. Prose was handled by an academic who was committed to communicating to a general public, John Cronin, who taught me at Queens, theatre by that remarkable writer, editor and critic Sam Hanna Bell – he wrote December Bride -who was one of the first editors to publish me, poetry by Michael Longley in an excellent essay only marred by his attitude to the poet Padraic Fiacc, who is mentioned several times but otherwise ignored.
These essays are followed by Seán O’Baoill’s Irish Traditional Music, one on Jazz by the legendary Solly Lipsitz, classical music by E.W.J. Boucher, then Head of Music at the BBC, Northern Ireland, and one on the Ulster Folk Museum by its director, George Thompson.
Why is this such a useful book? Well, the first point to make would be that there were very few books on the arts in Northern Ireland in those days. In the year following the publication of Causeway, Sam Hanna Bell would produce the first major survey of theatre in the north, The Theatre in Ulster (at the request of ACNI), and in 1977 appeared the first ever surveys of ‘Ulster’ art, Art in Ulster 1 & 2, written respectively by John Hewitt and Mike Catto, but apart from odd articles in magazines, there was little else. Most visual art catalogues, for example, were flimsy four-to-eight page listings of works.
Secondly, because the volume deals with (almost) the full range of the arts, one can see the interconnections between the arts in some detail. So much writing on the arts deals with an individual art in isolation but no art genre exists in splendid isolation. The book, well-illustrated for its time, is rounded off with a bibliography (though oddly enough, nothing on the visual arts) and a discography.
Brian McAvera, September 2025
Copies of Causeway are available in the NI Visual Art Research Library & Archive at the Golden Thread Gallery. NIVARLA items in the rare and special collection will be available to view by appointment. We will share more information on how to access and use NIVARLA soon!
The Northern Ireland Visual Art Research Library & Archive is supported by the Ampersand Foundation, with many books and archive items donated and on loan from the McAvera & Walker Library.
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