The Arts Council for Ireland has announced it will implement a 3-year Traditional Arts Initiative, intended to prioritise the traditional arts toward realising its ambition of fully mainstreaming the traditional arts within the Councils activities. For the initiative’s first full year (2006) the Council has allocated €3 million and is committed to on-going significant financial support; a further €500,000 has been received from the Minister for Arts, Sports and Tourism to allow work under the initiative to begin in 2005. The traditional arts are defined as comprising: traditional music, song and dance and oral art forms such as story-telling and agallamh beirte. The initiative is ‘designed to stabilise existing key players and consolidate a basic infrastructure for the traditional arts while allowing scope for new ideas, projects and partnerships to emerge. Its success will depend largely on a pro-active response from the traditional arts community.’ The following funding opportunities already available to the traditional arts sector will be maintained:

Revenue funding (e.g. for resource and service organisations, venues, production companies, and festivals and events)

Small Festivals and Events

Travel and Mobility Additionally, new schemes will be implemented to support the needs of the traditional arts community. The first new scheme to be introduced is Deis. It is open to individuals, groups, bands and organisations who: may not be eligible for funding under any of the existing programmes; may be applying to the Arts Council for funding for the first time; or may have projects in mind that do not fit comfortably within any of the existing funding categories. The Deis scheme is open to any proposals in line with the Arts Councils traditional arts policy. Central to the scheme will be a support network to assist applicants with the proposal process. The scheme will operate on a rolling basis (i.e. no deadlines will apply). Proposals will be accepted from September 1, 2005. For further information, CLICK HERE.