The Arts Council (Ireland)

It sounds better without the applause.

The largest allocation ever by any minister in the history of Ireland to the Arts Council of Ireland.

And I want to thank Mara for the work that she has done together with the outgoing interim CEO of the Arts Council, Máileann Rine, who navigated a fairly difficult period of time for the Arts Council.

But as I said to Máire and Móiling, a good while back after being appointed, I would reward them at the appropriate time when I believed that all of the issues that are well ventilated at this stage were dealt with.

We always have a part two to our Laureate Awards, where we bring together an expert panel to discuss some of the issues arising out of this.

And the theme for tonight is the future of creativity and really some wonderful suggestions from Frances and some brilliant names.

So will you please welcome Maura McGrath, the chair of the Arts Council of Ireland, Ronan McCabe, who's the chief executive of Animation Ireland, Nisha Nunn, the cultural producer and festival director, involved with things from Kilkenomics to Minefield at Electric Picnic, the wonderful Leviathan series, and Annie Fletcher, the director of the Irish Museum of Modern Art.

Emma, will you please welcome them? And Ronan, I might begin with a question.

Bye-bye.

This podcast series has been brought to you with the support of the Arts Council of Ireland and is available on multiple platforms including Spotify, Apple and Podbean.

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The music is by Jake Cozza.

The Munster Literature Centre is a grateful recipient of funding from the Arts Council of Ireland and the Arts Office of Cork City Council.

[upbeat piano music]

Um, one of the places we're going to next-

The Devil in, The Devil in the Dance Hall, as funded by the Arts Council of Ireland.

Yes.

I, I always say that.

few of those organizations have mainstreamed it to the point where it was so easy to remove their edi policy just like that so how effective that period was i don't know but it was around that time where edi was really picking up people talking about it i was like i want i have something to say about this then i want to make sure that what i have to say isn't just fart in the wind, you know, but it has a lasting impact.

So around that time, I applied for funding to the Arts Council of Ireland to produce this album.

And I did.

And they funded it.