{"id":643508,"date":"2026-10-03T10:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T10:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/643508\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T10:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T10:30:10","slug":"more-than-50-people-expressed-interest-in-becoming-new-arts-council-director-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/643508\/","title":{"rendered":"More than 50 people expressed interest in becoming new Arts Council director \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 50 people expressed an interest in becoming director of the Arts Council<\/a> before Shona McCarthy<\/a> secured the role in August.<\/p>\n

Maura McGrath, the council\u2019s chairwoman, said the organisation \u201creceived 53 expressions of interest\u201d in the position, with three candidates progressing to the final stage after a \u201crigorous process of market mapping, screening, shortlisting and interviews\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a letter sent to Minister for Culture Patrick O\u2019Donovan<\/a> on July 24th, McGrath said there was a \u201cclear consensus\u201d that McCarthy was the preferred candidate, though the two other interviewees \u201cwere also considered appointable and of a very high calibre\u201d. <\/p>\n

When asking for O\u2019Donovan\u2019s approval for the appointment, McGrath described McCarthy as \u201can experienced cultural leader with an outstanding track record of leading complex, high-profile organisations\u201d in Ireland and the UK. <\/p>\n

McCarthy was the chairwoman of the International Fund for Ireland and served as chief executive<\/a> of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society from 2016 until last year.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Donovan replied to McGrath on August 20th, giving his consent for the appointment \u201con a five-year fixed term contract basis\u201d. He said officials in his department would engage with the Department of Public Expenditure regarding the contract. <\/p>\n

The correspondence was released following a Freedom of Information request. <\/p>\n

McCarthy\u2019s appointment came after almost 18 months of turmoil<\/a> at the council, which revealed in February 2025 that it had spent \u20ac6.7 million on a defunct IT project. The failure of the project led to a backlash, as well as clashes with O\u2019Donovan, who commissioned an independent review to scrutinise governance and culture within the council.<\/p>\n

The council\u2019s former director Maureen Kennelly left<\/a> last year after O\u2019Donovan refused to sign-off on her request for a second five-year term. Management consultant Moling Ryan stepped in as interim executive director<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 50 people expressed an interest in becoming director of the Arts Council before Shona McCarthy secured…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[22810,14999,204210,93,61,60,6232,273183],"class_list":["post-643508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-arts-council","tag-department-of-public-expenditure-and-reform","tag-edinburgh-festival-fringe","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-patrick-o-donovan","tag-shona-mccarthy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643508","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=643508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}