The arts in Ireland are built on top of unpaid labour. Everyone in the industry knows this. Sporadically, there is outrage about unreasonable advertisements seeking unpaid internships (recent culprits included TV3 and the Fringe Festival) but the hubbub eventually dies away and little changes. Unpaid labour takes different forms. There are the artists, writers and musicians who often create their work for little or no money and can be exploited for this by an entertainment and arts industry eager for content. There are also volunteers who do admittedly valuable work that comes, if truly a form of volunteerism, with no contractual obligations or real responsibility. Internships, on the other hand, are technically meant to be a form of skills training. In recent years, however, “internship” has become shorthand for “unpaid job” and the means by which Irish arts institutions coped with funding shortfalls.