CHARLOTTE O'HEARN is a talented, young actress on the brink of stardom in New York. Her world, however, is thrown upside down by the chance discovery of a letter in a wooden jewellery box.

The father she long thought was dead is apparently still alive in Ireland. This revelation leads Charlotte to embark on a journey across the Atlantic to Ireland. So goes the plot to Finding Fate, a movie that Los Angelesbased producer Shawna McCormack hopes will be her own big break. Patrick Bergin is lined up to play a leading role. Filming is due to start next year in Co Wicklow. "It's very exciting, " McCormack enthuses, although it quickly emerged that not all of the budget is in place.

We have hardly been talking five minutes - I am less than two hours in Los Angeles - when McCormack is enquiring about my availability to write a screenplay based around the War of Independence period. A sort of Wind that Shakes the Barley, the sequel. Los Angeles is that type of town. Everyone is in the entertainment business. Everyone is working on multiple projects. Everyone wants to make 'the deal' that will make them 'big'. Any sense of exclusivity for the fledgling film arrangement with McCormack is, however, later dashed. It emerges that at least two other people at the reception we are attending have also met with her, "Nice to meet you. Let's make a movie together" approach.

Mary McCarthy had a "producer" offer. Away from her day job at the Dublin Docklands Authority, McCarthy came to LA to, literally, sell Ireland. She was joined by Patrick Sutton of the Gaiety School of Acting and composer Miche�l � Sulleabh�in. The trio are board members of Culture Ireland, a relatively new state agency with the brief of selling Irish arts globally.

"We want to showcase the best the country has to offer on an international stage, " Sutton says. With this brief in mind the organisation decided to become one of the main sponsors of an award ceremony - organised by the USIreland Alliance to coincide with the Oscars - to mark Irish writing in the film industry.

"Where to?" the taxi driver asks � Suilleabh�in. "Tipperary, " he responds heartily, "It's a long way to Tipperary.

Have you ever been there?"

The Ukrainian driver can only laugh at his effervescent passenger. � Suilleabh�in is Professor of Music at the University of Limerick but as a teenager in Co Tipperary he played in rock bands, confirmation that the 1960s in Ireland were about more than the showbands. "In the 1960s, if you were a townie or a city boy, traditional was hick, " he once admitted. He was later drawn to classical music while a student at UCC where he came under the influence of composer Se�n � R�ada.

Now a noted musician, � Suilleabh�in's compositions fuse classical and traditional styles. He is a living example that the arts in Ireland do not have to have an exclusive tag nor do they need to be confined to traditional areas of interest. According to legislation passed in 2003, art is defined as "any creative or interpretative expressions (whether traditional of contemporary) in whatever form, and includes, in particular, visual arts, theatre, music, dance, opera, film, circus and architecture."

This broad definition underpins the work of Culture Ireland. The agency has a Euro4.5m budget for 2007. A wide diversity of projects have received funds. Recent grant recipients included Euro100,000 to Druid Theatre to perform Playboy of the Western World in Toyko, Euro25,000 for Fossett's Circus for classical circus in London and Euro790 to composer Gerald Barry for a performance of 'La Plus For�t' at a festival in Paris.

"It's a really marvellous thing that there is funding to take Irish work abroad, " Ray Yeates, artistic director of the Ballymun Arts Centre, says. Yeates and his colleagues recently received Euro13,000 from Culture Ireland.

The money will help to take a new Dermot Bolger play to Belgium in June. The play, Walking the Road, is based on the life of the Co Meath born poet Francis Ledwidge who was killed in Belgium during the first world war. Bolger's work will premiere in Ballymun before transferring to Ypres for two performances.

"We're very good value in terms of marketing and advertising this country. In fact we're probably better value that some of those trade shows, " Yeates argues.

Evaluating this view, however, is difficult given the intangible nature of much of what is 'produced' by cultural events. Undertaking a costbenefit analysis, while not impossible, is problematic. It is also something still resisted by many in the sector who see the mention of money, finance or economic return as soiling the purity of their artistic undertaking.

The challenge for Culture Ireland, and other state agencies which fund artists to perform and exhibit abroad, is to not just enrich Ireland's cultural life but also to bring real benefits back home. The Los Angeles event is a good example. The funding from Culture Ireland allowed a roomful of Irish Americans applaud Van Morrison, film producer Terry George and writer William Monahan. � Suilleabh�in and his colleagues have to judge the lasting benefit won for Ireland - and in this case, the image of the country in the United States - by funding these type of events.

"Where are you all from?"

the taxi driver asks. He laughs when he hears the response.

"Drinking and Riverdance.

That is Ireland, " he shouts.

Throw in U2 and that's the worldwide perception of Ireland. With its brief to "generate awareness, goodwill and influence for Ireland" across the globe, Culture Ireland has to expand that list. Step forward, Charlotte O'Hearn!