Teanga:

Menu

A 40 year partnership supporting arts and creativity

The Arts Council and Ireland’s 31 local authorities are celebrating forty years of working together to make the arts part of everyday life in every corner of the country.

Dáta

Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport, Patrick O’Donovan was the special guest at a national event in Limerick today to celebrate 40 years of collaboration between the Arts Council and Ireland’s 31 local authorities. Held at the Limerick City Gallery of Art, the event brought together artists, Arts Officers, and local government representatives.

A nationwide network of arts offices

The collaboration began in the mid-1980s, when Clare County Council appointed the State’s first County Arts Officer and opened the first local authority arts office. What started as one local initiative has now become a nationwide network. Today, every local authority in Ireland has its own arts office supporting artists, cultural groups and communities. 

Over the past two decades alone, the Arts Council and local authorities have invested €2.6 billion in arts and culture. That investment has helped communities to develop venues, festivals, youth arts programmes, artist supports and public art projects that have become part of the Ireland’s cultural fabric.

Strengthening cultural life

Local authorities play a central role in shaping cultural life at community level. Working with the Arts Council, they support:

  • Artists, through local bursaries, workspace supports, and opportunities to create and present their work.
  • Children and young people, through arts education and youth arts programmes.
  • Communities, by making sure everyone has the chance to take part in creative activity, wherever they live.
  • Festivals and events, which bring towns and villages to life and attract visitors.
  • Public art and arts infrastructure, including cultural spaces and public commissions.

This work is coordinated locally through strategic arts plans developed by each local authority and aligned with national arts policy. 

Art for everyone

Forty years on, the partnership continues to enable creativity in every community, supported by strong local services and national investment. The impact is felt across cultural life, community wellbeing, and creative opportunities open to all.