November is always a very busy month for the Arts Council, as our teams assess the applications from arts organisations in our largest grant schemes, Strategic Funding and Partnership Funding.

The Council will then consider carefully and discuss all of the recommendations in the context of our overall budgets and our investment strategy for 2020.

Indeed the first few weeks of next year already look full of potential and promise, with several deadlines for funding applications – for example the New Touring and Dissemination of Work Scheme, the Bursary Awards, and the Countess Constance de Markievicz Award. As always, I would urge you to keep an eye on the Arts Council website for all funding opportunities.

Also in early 2020 will be our Change Makers conference, which will focus on the transformative power of festivals. The event is being run by the Arts Council in partnership with University of Limerick M.A. Festive Arts, and will take place in the University of Limerick. We will have a lot more detail in future newsletters and on our website, but for the moment, Save the Date: 14 February 2020!

With best wishes,

Orlaith McBride

Director