2023 is shaping up to be quite exciting as we are delighted to be able to support three local artists who have been awarded financial support from the Arts Council of Ireland for 2023.

Dara McCluskey, An Táin Arts Centre’s Writer in Residence 2021, has been awarded the Theatre Project Grant from The Arts Council of Ireland and will be working with us for 12 weeks, with dramaturgical support from our Director, Paul Hayes, ending with a rehearsed reading by 4 professional actors.

Dara McCluskey is an award-winning filmmaker based in Cooley. Dara has worked extensively with school and community groups and in many experimental forms involving visual artists, musicians, dancers, disabled and marginalised groups. His work has been exhibited in international festivals in Dublin, Cork, Cardiff, Monte Carlo, Milan and New York.

We are also delighted to announce that we will support ELS + DECLAN. Els Borghart and Declan Kelly work as an independent artistic and curatorial duo since 2009 in a local, national and international context while based in Drogheda, Ireland. They recently were commissioned as part of An Táin Arts Centre’s Louth Culture Quest and have just received an Arts Council bursary award to develop their practice as theatre artists.  ELS + DECLAN will have dedicated time and space in An Táin Arts Centre to experiment with the projection end of set design and liaise with visiting mentors. They have been involved in set design for several An Táin Arts Centre productions to date, including Ig & The Imaginaries, and two of the three The Remembrance Trilogy plays, Women of Independence and Legacies: Stories from the Civil War.

ELS + DECLAN gave us their thoughts on receiving the Bursary Award for Theatre, “There are no words for how incredibly thrilled we are to be recipients of The Arts Council of Ireland’s Bursary Award for Theatre. This award will allow us to spend dedicated time on intensive research and development in set design theory & technology to advance the quality and scope of future productions.We are so incredibly grateful to be given support by the Arts Council of Ireland and to An Táin Arts Centre for partnering with us on this year-long development programme.” 

You can follow their progress across social media by using the hashtag #antainartists