Details of Offaly arts grants schemes for 2022

Offaly County Council will shortly be opening its application process for a variety of grants offered to professional artists, communities and festivals for 2022.

Offaly County Council Arts Office offers a number of grant schemes to assist in the development and promotion of the Arts across the county. The grants include the Arts Acts Grants 2022, the Festival Arts Scheme and the Professional Artists Support Award.

The Arts Acts Grants are for Offaly voluntary arts organisations, schools, drama & musical groups, town bands, voluntary community groups (not festivals) intending to host arts events or projects in Offaly in 2022.

The Festival Arts Scheme is designed for festivals taking place in Offaly that are either dedicated arts festivals or have a strong professional arts element to the festival.

The Professional Artist Support Award offers a support scheme for professional artists, including the categories, continuing professional development, creation of new work, audience development and materials assistance.

Many great projects are funded through these scheme every year and even with the problems everyone faced with the restrictions due to the pandemic, many groups and artists developed fantastic projects and events to develop their own work and created inspiring events for their local communities.

Some of the community arts projects included: A music CD by the Tullamore Stage School, a dance programme in St Brendan’s Boys Primary School, a Chamber Music Concert by Tullamore Gramophone Society, an online art project with the Irish Wheelchair Association and the funding of Shoes of Edenderry by Creative Edenderry.

All the funding schemes are competitive and applicants are encouraged to ensure that proposed projects are innovative and ambitious, and for the Arts Acts and Festival grants, provide maximum impact in the community within the objectives.

Application process opens on 9am on Tuesday, November 30. The deadline for the Arts Act Grants and Professional Artist applications is January 20 at 3pm. The deadline for the Festival Arts Scheme is Thursday February 18 at Noon.

Please note that this year all applications will be made online via submit.com

Further information on all of the scheme is available on https://www.offaly.ie/eng/Services/Arts-and-Culture/Grants_Awards/

The Arts Office welcomes queries and reminds potential applicants to read the guidelines carefully before applying. Email arts@offalycoco.ie