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The Long Internecine Quarrel (2025)
Multimedia installation
The Long Internecine Quarrel (2025) is a series of autofictional bureaucratic encounters Léann Herlihy navigated during a two-year District Court case against Ireland’s Tax Commissioner, Revenue. In a currency of administrative chaos, Herlihy was denied Artist Tax Exemption for a photograph they displayed as a large billboard mounted on the external wall of Project Arts Centre, Dublin in 2022. Revenue’s feedback premised it was an advertisement, a form of self-promotion; deplete of all artistic merit required for the scheme. After several unsuccessful appeals, Herlihy gathered a folder of evidence and initiated court proceedings, winning the case in the latter half of 2024.
Initiated in 1969 by then Minister for Finance, Charles J. Haughey, the Artist Tax Exemption Scheme aims to support and encourage artistic talent in Ireland by providing a tax break for artists and writers. In its infancy, few artists in Ireland made enough money to pay tax, and the scheme was initially given a lukewarm reception by the cultural community. A prominent artist of the time submitted a letter to The Irish Times alluding that the Artist Tax Exemption “will attract the art parasites of Europe to our shores”. The rumours were that Haughey was more interested in attracting late modernist figures such as sculptor Henry Moore to live in Ireland, whose wealth could be untaxed while giving a boost to the international profile of the Irish art scene.
Multimedia installation
The Long Internecine Quarrel (2025) is a series of autofictional bureaucratic encounters Léann Herlihy navigated during a two-year District Court case against Ireland’s Tax Commissioner, Revenue. In a currency of administrative chaos, Herlihy was denied Artist Tax Exemption for a photograph they displayed as a large billboard mounted on the external wall of Project Arts Centre, Dublin in 2022. Revenue’s feedback premised it was an advertisement, a form of self-promotion; deplete of all artistic merit required for the scheme. After several unsuccessful appeals, Herlihy gathered a folder of evidence and initiated court proceedings, winning the case in the latter half of 2024.
Initiated in 1969 by then Minister for Finance, Charles J. Haughey, the Artist Tax Exemption Scheme aims to support and encourage artistic talent in Ireland by providing a tax break for artists and writers. In its infancy, few artists in Ireland made enough money to pay tax, and the scheme was initially given a lukewarm reception by the cultural community. A prominent artist of the time submitted a letter to The Irish Times alluding that the Artist Tax Exemption “will attract the art parasites of Europe to our shores”. The rumours were that Haughey was more interested in attracting late modernist figures such as sculptor Henry Moore to live in Ireland, whose wealth could be untaxed while giving a boost to the international profile of the Irish art scene.
The title of the work, The Long Internecine Quarrel, stems from a transcript
Herlihy located of Haughey’s 1972 speech at Harvard University where he
claimed that “the taxation and financial aspects of the Artist Tax Exemption
were of less importance, than the clear and unambiguous signal it gave
that the long internecine quarrel between the State and its artists had
come to an end.” Herlihy writes: “Through a mirage of bureaucratic forms
and bounce-back emails, The Long Internecine Quarrel attempts to highlight
how these State entities have somehow made real the categories necessary
to sustain themselves.”
This series of encounters was restaged in the Irish Architectural Archive in Dublin utilising office supplies, coffee cups, emboss seals, archival boxes, noughties computer monitors and a pair of boxing shorts worn by the artist during the hearing. Remnants of this scene are presented in Dreamtime Ireland, alongside a large 3D-printed manual stamp.
The Long Internecine Quarrel was commissioned by Sean Lynch for his large scale project Dreamtime Ireland in Visual Carlow.
Cinematography by Michael Holly
Sound Assistance by Scott Brown
Studio Assistance by Jennifer O’ Brien and Nicholas Sidarchuk
Exhibition install documentation by Ros Kavanagh
This series of encounters was restaged in the Irish Architectural Archive in Dublin utilising office supplies, coffee cups, emboss seals, archival boxes, noughties computer monitors and a pair of boxing shorts worn by the artist during the hearing. Remnants of this scene are presented in Dreamtime Ireland, alongside a large 3D-printed manual stamp.
The Long Internecine Quarrel was commissioned by Sean Lynch for his large scale project Dreamtime Ireland in Visual Carlow.
Cinematography by Michael Holly
Sound Assistance by Scott Brown
Studio Assistance by Jennifer O’ Brien and Nicholas Sidarchuk
Exhibition install documentation by Ros Kavanagh