The Arts Council has announced the appointment of Shona McCarthy as its new Director.<\/p>\n
Ms McCarthy, who is from Ballycran in County Down, is expected to take up the position in the coming weeks, subject to the consent of Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport Patrick O’Donovan.<\/p>\n
She joins the Arts Council from her roles as Chair of the International Fund for Ireland and a member of the Expert Panel on the UK City of Culture.<\/p>\n
Ms McCarthy was Chief Executive of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society from 2015 until 2025. She has also served as Chair of Walk the Plank in Manchester and the Oh Yeah Music Centre in Belfast.<\/p>\n
She holds honorary doctorates from a number of UK universities, including Queen Margaret University Edinburgh and Edinburgh Napier University.<\/p>\n
The Arts Council said Ms McCarthy brings “a wealth of senior leadership experience” and a strong knowledge of the arts sector in Ireland and internationally.<\/p>\n
State funding for the Arts Council has increased from \u20ac80 million in 2020 to \u20ac134 million in 2024. Staff numbers also more than tripled between 2018 and 2024.<\/p>\n
The council’s former Director, Maureen Kennelly, left the organisation last year after Minister O’Donovan declined to approve her request for a second five-year term.<\/p>\n
Management consultant Moling Ryan had been serving as interim executive director ahead of today’s appointment.<\/p>\n
Arts Council Chair Maura McGrath welcomed Ms McCarthy’s appointment, describing her as “a champion of art in all its forms” with extensive experience in cultural leadership.<\/p>\n
She said Ms McCarthy’s commitment to creating opportunities for artists and improving access and participation for audiences was shared by the Arts Council.<\/p>\n
Ms McGrath said her leadership would bring “a new perspective and a fresh focus” to the organisation as it continues its work to develop the arts in Ireland on behalf of the State.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Arts Council has announced the appointment of Shona McCarthy as its new Director. Ms McCarthy, who is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":599572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60],"class_list":["post-599571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}