A report on gender, disability and ethnicity data for individual awards in 2020 has been published.

The Arts Council has partnered with Encountering the Arts Ireland to publish a lecture by Ciarán Benson, reflecting on developments since the 1979 publication by the Arts Council of ‘The Place of the Arts in Irish Education’, known also as ‘The Benson Report’. With an introduction from President Michael D. Higgins and other contributions.

Through its film awards, the Arts Council supports an environment in which film artists have the freedom to make work of an experimental and/or non-narrative nature and are given opportunities to make highly creative artistically authored work for cinema exhibition.

‘Entanglement’ is the 2021 Irish Pavilion exhibition at the 17^th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. 

With three rounds of the Arts Council’s new cross-artform Agility Award offered this year, Head of Literature, Sarah Bannan, recorded an information session with the Irish Writers Centre ahead of the first deadline on 8 April.

In 2018, the Creative Ireland Programme and the Fulbright Commission in Ireland launched The Fulbright Creative Ireland Museum Fellowships.

The participating museums are the Smithsonian Institution (comprising 17 museums and galleries), the Harry Ransom Center in Austin,Texas and the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Since then several candidates studying for their PhDs have undertaken valuable placements in these prestigious American museums.

The Creative Ireland Programme invites you to join the Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Catherine Martin, the Minister for Education, Norma Foley and the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Roderic O’ Gorman at Creativity – the connection to our future, now.

If equality is important to you, this exciting new role at the Arts Council may be just the one for you. We are looking to recruit a new Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) to lead the delivery and development of our Equality Human Rights and Diversity policy . The policy, which was launched in 2019, is a corporate priority for the Arts Council and we are committed to ensuring it is embedded in everything we do.

The purpose of the Next Generation Artists’ Award is to support a group of promising artists across all disciplines at an early but pivotal stage in their career.

The deadline for this award is 5:30 p.m. Thursday 20 May 2021. The window for making an application opens on Tuesday, 20 April 2021.

The application window for the next round of Open Call (Phase1) will open on 30 March. The deadline for this Scheme is 5.30pm on Thursday, 29 April, 2021. Applications will be accepted through the Arts Council’s Online Services Website.

The Arts Council would like to announce the Amateur and Voluntary Practice Scheme. The Arts Council’s strategy recognises the distinctive role of amateur arts practice, its important contribution to the vitality of the arts in Ireland, including music, theatre and musical theatre, and its many personal, social and artistic benefits. This pilot scheme is offered as a once-off, action-research opportunity, and seeks enhanced engagement, mentorship and advocacy between the amateur and professional theatre, music and musical-theatre sectors.

Deadline: Thursday 13 May, 2021

The window for making an application will open on Thursday 13 April.

The Building Capacity Support Scheme is available across all art forms and arts practice areas supported by the Arts Council.

The deadline for the Young Ensembles Scheme is Thursday 15 April 2021 at 5:30pm. The primary purpose of the Young Ensembles Scheme is to support groups of young people between the ages of ten and twenty-four to create or actively engage with ambitious and original work together in any artform.

The deadline for the next round of Theatre Schemes is 8 April.  

The objective of the Opera Projects and Production Award is to support initiatives by professional practitioners in the development and presentation of opera at three distinct stages, encouraging both the development of work of high artistic quality, and also the fully staged professional presentations of opera that engage with the public, providing opportunities for artists in the process.

The Touring and Dissemination of Work Scheme is designed to support touring and dissemination of work across a range of art forms and arts practices.

The closing date for tours starting from January to June 2022 will be Thursday, 6^th May 2021.

Scoileanna Ildánacha/Creative Schools are delighted to announce an exciting opportunity for schools/centres to apply to participate in the initiative. Schools/centres may apply from 6 April and the deadline is 17:30, Thursday 6 May 2021.  

Creative Schools Week will take place from 10-14 May, 2021. It is an opportunity to share, showcase, highlight, and connect all the exciting creative work that is being undertaken across all schools and to encourage our children and young people to show off their creativity.

The Arts Council will be holding online clinics on 23 and 26 April 2021 to provide an overview of the Creative Schools initiative and information about how to apply for Creative Schools 2021, which closes for applications on 6 May 2021.  The clinics are for representatives of Primary and Post Primary Schools, Special Schools and Youthreach Centres who are interested in participating in Creative Schools from September 2021.  

David Keegan steps down from the mental health arts charity after reaching his goal of delivering the 10^th annual First Fortnight mental health arts festival.  First Fortnight is seeking a new CEO to lead the organisation into the next phase.