Snow Patrol: Lightbody says Stormont short-sighted on arts funding

Lightbody also said he realised that other “really vital and important services should be above the arts.”

“Education and healthcare and infrastructure, all these things are vitally important,” he continued.

“I totally agree that those are the most important things in a society.

“We have to keep everybody alive, we have to educate and we have to try and house as many people as possible – all these things are vitally important.

“But we also need reasons to live and reasons to have joy in this world and I think art is something that brings people so much joy.

“It’s probably the main thing other than sport.”

He also pointed out that compared to funding for other public services, a small increase in support for the arts “would change an awful lot of lives”.

Lightbody said that things like writing, drama, music, poetry, singing and dancing made people “feel connected”.

“Music has always been the thing for me,” he said.

“Music has always been that voice that has risen above all the other voices in my head!

“It’s always been that life-raft for me and I think it is for so many people.

“We’re very short-sighted as a country, as a community, as a people, as a place if we don’t at least respect the arts to the value that it’s being respected in other places.”