By John Considine
There is little art to making a hurley. That is the view of the Minister for Finance. He stated as much in a recent written reply to a Parliamentary Question. The question was posed by Deputy Kevin O'Keeffe. He asked the Minister if he would consider extending the artists' income tax exemption to the making of hurleys. The Minister for Finance was not for turning as his reply makes clear (here).
The exemption applies to sculpture. Is this not what a hurley maker does when they fashion the sporting stick from a piece of wood?
Books, including sports books, can qualify under the income tax exemption (as I wrote about here). As I scrolled down the latest list posted to the website of the Revenue Commissioners, I found a few hurling (auto)biographies, e.g. At All Costs: Davy Fitzgerald, Ken McGrath: Hand on Heart, and The Warrior Code. The subjects of these books performed their art using the instruments fashioned by their favourite hurley maker.
This raises questions about how we define art. Should all books qualify for the exemption? Some of the books on the list seem out of place. For example, The Wisdom of Whores by Elizabeth Pisani is a wonderful non-fictional account of "bureaucrats, brothels, and the business of AIDS". Chapter 8 is titled "Ants in the Sugar-Bowl". Pisani explains how the Washington beltway bandits survive by devouring a large slice of the government money destined for tackling AIDS. Is there some irony here? Is the book any more of an artistic work than a well crafted hurley?
The exemption applies to sculpture. Is this not what a hurley maker does when they fashion the sporting stick from a piece of wood?
Books, including sports books, can qualify under the income tax exemption (as I wrote about here). As I scrolled down the latest list posted to the website of the Revenue Commissioners, I found a few hurling (auto)biographies, e.g. At All Costs: Davy Fitzgerald, Ken McGrath: Hand on Heart, and The Warrior Code. The subjects of these books performed their art using the instruments fashioned by their favourite hurley maker.
This raises questions about how we define art. Should all books qualify for the exemption? Some of the books on the list seem out of place. For example, The Wisdom of Whores by Elizabeth Pisani is a wonderful non-fictional account of "bureaucrats, brothels, and the business of AIDS". Chapter 8 is titled "Ants in the Sugar-Bowl". Pisani explains how the Washington beltway bandits survive by devouring a large slice of the government money destined for tackling AIDS. Is there some irony here? Is the book any more of an artistic work than a well crafted hurley?
This is the latest instalment in a series of efforts to get hurling, and its associated activities, to get favourable treatment by the authorities. Previously, an Irish Member of the European Parliament sought something similar (see previous post). An notable success was achieved last November when hurling was added to UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. This may have raised the hopes of hurley makers that they might get a sympathetic hearing from the Minister of Finance. Those hopes have been dashed.
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