Dublin City Council arts funding

The deadline for applications for arts funding from Dublin City Council is November 4, 2013. The council's arts officers ran a seminar on Tuesday October 15 to help people to apply.

Four things to remember: that deadline is 5pm on Monday. If you get your application in at five minutes past five, it will be refused. There are no days of grace.

If you're applying for funding, this is not given for 'arts practice' - it won't fund you sitting at home and writing your novel or painting your picture, or going to London to research your history in the libraries there. It is given as a community grant, to help the arts in Dublin, so your project must have some outreach into the community.

The council prefers for at least 30 per cent of funding to be provided by other sources - so if you have a project, get a commitment from other sources to pay for a third of it, and you'll have a better chance of your grant succeeding.

And all applications need proof backing their claims: if you say that your community group is going to have a play put on in the Abbey Theatre, you need a letter from the Abbey management saying this. "The more you can give - backup letters of support from organisations you've worked with, the more we can see of your practice," the audience was told."

City Arts Officer Ray Yeates presented a seminar and question-and-answer session on these grants in the Wood Quay conference venue on October 15, with help from arts officers Jim Doyle and Sinead Connolly, administrative officer Victoria Kearney and Jonathan Ekwe of the arts office's administrative team.

There are three types of funding, Ray Yeates said: revenue funding, project funding and neighbourhood funding.

Revenue funds groups that have an ongoing relationship with the council; no more of these are being added, this group has been capped, and the groups being currently funded are being evaluated randomly.

So that leaves project funding and neighbourhood funding, each of which offer grants ranging from €2,000 to €10,000.

The arts staff said that there are much more applications for project funding - so neighbourhood funding might be a good place to target. 

Your supporting material for your grant application - letters from artists and theatres and community groups and so on - should fit into A4 folder

The applications are read by four people - arts officers or qualifiers - with the applications randomly distributed to lessen the chance of people being swayed by knowing applicants.

Dublin is small, so the arts officers probably know nine out of ten of the applicants, but with new applicants, everyone gets interested. "At the team meeting, we start to debate, if there are new things, if there's a change in a grant, differences or exceptions," said Mr Yeates.

At this stage a shortlist is made.

Arts grants are not given by arts office, but by the City Council, they stressed. There are two external examiners - for example, last year's were visual arts curator Cliodhna Shaffrey and a playwright from Cork.

If there is a governance issue - for example, a conflict of interest or a concept that's not filled out, these examiners will look at the application.

Then two councillors come & are given all of the applications. These councillors ask searching questions - "We sometimes have to advocate for a project". 

There's more than 100 years of experience going to debate your application, between the arts officers, the councillors and the external examiners.

This procedure can be sent to you in written form - it's public and transparent. (http://www.dublincity.ie/RECREATIONANDCULTURE/ARTSOFFICE/ARTSFUNDING/Pages/ArtsFunding.aspx)

The core criteria used for judging applications are: 

• Quality of artistic work - innovation, imagination, deeper thinking, work that has reframed an idea into another idea - "Knock us out," said Mr Yeates.
• Audience being served - is there an audience and what is it.
• Feasible project design with realistic financial projections: "If you only give €2,000 and we have to raise €10,000, how can this be realistic? Proof, for example if you've had a funded project and it worked. Common sense - we're looking for if it'll probably work."
• Accessibility for diverse audiences and participants in terms of location, cost, people with special needs.
• Ability to secure other source of funding, including in-kind funding (such as a free theatre, or a fashion designer who has given costumes, etc) (see specific criteria relating to different grants). "We want to see the money going on this project. You can value in-kind funding yourself - for instance, if you get a week in Smock Alley that's worth €2,000."
• Artists' fees in accordance with professional practice. "It is OK for artists to take shares, for example, in the box office, but we prefer them to be paid. We really don't want artists to be working for nothing." The context is very important. "But if we saw most of the money going on marketing, not on the artists, that would break the criteria."
• Public presentation of work in the city - "We represent the public - though action research projects will be considered, for example, workshops, etc in neighbourhoods. We don't fund research." 

Research projects may be covered. "If you're at home researching the impact of 17th-century arts funding on today, we won't fund that; but if you're studying impact on different communities, and going to do an installation, then that's in the public area, involving more people than just you on your own - it's action research. You need to name this community - 'hope to', 'aspire to' don't work, and you need supporting documentation showing that they agree. Verify everything. Don't say 'we're going to play at the Abbey Theatre' - prove it."

Because this funding comes from Dublin City Council, the council is only allowed to fund things that happen in Dublin.

In the case of a non-Irish person applying, "We're entirely blind to where you're from; as long as it's happening in Dublin you're as welcome as flowers in May," said Mr Yeates, to a happy laugh from the audience. "We're doing our best to engage with others who are non-Irish, non-graduates, etc."

The arts office has done an analysis of the residential spaces; 50% have gone to non-Irish applicants - and about 50% of the non-Irish are north American, so non-European. Some of these are employed to live here for a year and work, for example in the Red Stables residential studios. 

The specific criteria for Project Grants:

• A specific thing that you want to do that will start & finish at a particular time. 
• Quality and artistic ambition.
• Track record of the individual or team - "Tell us about it, we'll get help to understand it. If you're new, we have to judge. We have a tiny amount of money for an enormous number of applicants. You may, for instance, form partnerships. Track record is important. If you've no track record, you've never been to college, etc, it's difficult, so show you have help."
• Feasibility of project within known and realisable resources: "We want crazy ideas, but we want them possible. Put the thought into the left brain: time, planning, numbers. Known and realisable, not aspirational."
• Ability to secure at least 30% of your funding from other sources. "We're an investor. We're hoping to give you a stamp of approval."
• Budget to include professional fees 
• Public presentation of work in Dublin City. "We're all for making things happen, and there isn't a hierarchy," said Mr Yeates.
• Project must have a start and finish date - three months, one day, etc; better if it's within one year, but not necessary. 

If you don't use up all of the grant - if the arts office give out 100 grants and 15 come back and have difficulties, the arts office may have trouble keeping this funding. "If you get into trouble with the project, don't suddenly change the project, come back to us. Change of date isn't too bad, but change of core details will have to go into an appeals project. Sometimes it's too much of a change and we can't do it."

Who should apply: "We realise that to make something happen in the public domain you have to apply - but you may need to have a team of people. Or if it's an individual, you have to tell us how it's going to happen.

"We're very used to visual artists applying as individuals; we're not after subsidy of practice, but after a specific project - show how you'll go into a particular venue, etc."

A question from the audience: "The 30% funding requirement from partners - how do you get over the problem of funding being related to possibility of other funding - for instance 'I've got a promise of money if I do the event'?" Mr Yeates said: "You just have to have it on paper. We want the application to help your project work. Think of it as if it were your own money you were putting in: what would you believe. And the 30% needs to be - at least some of it - in cash and not in kind."

Any individual arts organisation can only be funded for a single project per year. 

The response on funding comes in January, and the project can't start before January, because the project is for a particular year. "If we can be flexible we sometimes give an indication - but without the city council voting, sometimes we can't give the grant till February because of date of council meeting - we can't give the grant without the vote."

You can draw the fund down pretty quickly when it's announced; it depends on what time of year your project takes place. "If you get your letter saying you've received funding, just contact us and say when you're starting, etc. We do have a draw-down procedure, with reporting, etc."

Neighbourhood funding criteria:

• To animate & support local arts activity in the city. Not to support community development primarily, though it may do that powerfully.
• To contribute to enhancing/creating a sense of local identity. For example, consider, if you're working in Inchicore and you're doing something with no local relevance 'is it a mushroom or a parachute' - are local people growing up into it.
• Connection and interaction of the arts activity to the neighbourhood.
• Involvement of a professional artist or artists in the project. "This is important because local people can't just think 'let's all be artists' - we want a professional input."
• Reaching specific populations (for example,  young people, old, underserved populations) - like a project that used Muslim women in dance project using the movements they use in prayer.
• Ability to meet cultural diverse interest through inclusion.
• Level of involvement of participating groups, eg input into project design.
• Ability to secure at least 30% funding from other source.

"We're not getting as many applications for neighbourhood funding as we want," said Mr Yeates.

An artist can apply for neighbourhood funding by herself, if the project has relevance to a Dublin neighbourhood.

As many as possible should be met; "otherwise I get into picking which are more important".

Almost the same percentage of the available money goes to neighbourhood and project funding; "even though we get vastly more applications for project".

Applications involving sport, for instance, are acceptable, but the project needs to be something of quality.

'Neighbourhood' refers to a specific geographic area, but a group could be in a neighbourhood. If your group straddles two areas, for instance Dublin city council and SDCC, "it's ok, but we're going to debate it". 

If you apply and fall into wrong section - you apply for neighbourhood funding when you should have applied for project - "I just cannot get over how kind people are; I've seen people say tthey applied for the wrong thing' - so applications can get sent to correct one of neighbourhood or project if the application was wrong in first place."

The arts officers will go to Vimeo or YouTube to view links in applications - "but test your links, and also give an alternative in case one link doesn't work; and don't rely on your link to make the case for you; your case has to be made in writing. Think about us - there are five of us and if you've got an error, we really can't be calling you up to ask for elucidation."

In the neighbourhood category, "we often get excellent ideas but no proof of the quality of the artist you intend to work with, and that really weakens your application".

Also, you need to document the fact that the artist is happy to work with you, happy to work in the community, etc. "Get them to say, in a letter, that they are happy and involved. Evidence, evidence, evidence. Your vision must be based on reality."

Apply here: 
Dublin City Council Arts Office

Dogs on buses

When did it happen that you couldn't bring dogs on Dublin buses? Apparently it's "at the discretion of the driver", but drivers are resolutely-anti-pooch, except for a grudging okay to guide dogs.
It certainly wasn't the case in the 1920s, when my mother and her brother and their dog Bran toured the city on trams - unwillingly in the case of Barbara and Don. Bran was an Irish terrier with a mind of his own, and if he saw the No 19 tram passing by, he would set off, the two small children towed behind him, and get on and go upstairs using the stairs at the back. (Dogs were always allowed, but had to be brought upstairs, the same as cigarettes, in those days.) Upstairs, then, often meant in the open air, and Bran didn't mind if it was raining.
When Bran felt like getting off, off he'd get, the two children gripping the lead behind him as he went down the second set of stairs at the front of the tram.
On the way home, Bran might take a vagary to have a walk in the Green Fields, beautiful drumlins now long lost, which were accessed by way of the Dark Lane, a winding, lovely lane overarched by the branches of the trees that lined it, now subsumed into Sundrive Road.
In the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s there were always dogs upstairs, on their way to their walk in the park. When did this end? Perhaps when conductors were ousted and Dublin's buses became driver-only? Or when cars started to be a thing everyone had?
You can blame the no-dogs rule for a certain amount of climate change; how many car journeys would be saved (and how much income added to the public transport purse) if dogs could take their place on the top deck again?

 Lucille Redmond's ebook, Love, gripping dark and funny stories of love and revolution, is available on Amazon and iTunes

Beautiful things: Rowan's honey jar

Once upon a time, we made beautiful things in Ireland. Al O'Dea made lovely monastic chairs, stern and strict and stark. Waterford Glass's designers made beautifully clean and subtle designs in glass. Sybil Connolly made sexy, irresistible clothes - my mother had a dress I always wanted, silk, with an aquamarine bodice and skirt - but the skirt unlooped itself from the front and fastened on the back, revealing a reverse of deep sea-green. And that reversible skirt was in such light silk that the hem had to be weighted with lead shot, so that if you whirled around it flickered and spun around you with a faint, lovely whistling. Oh, there were lovely things, but my favourite was   very simple, the Rowan's honey jar. Rowan's were seedsmasters, with a gigantic shop in Westmoreland Street, at the centre of Dublin, where you could browse for your needs: calendula, whose peppery orange petals would give savour to your lamb stew; parsley, the secret ingredient that turns every dish to magic; sweet rocket, whose fragrance rises from the garden like an expensive French scent. But Rowan's also made honey - in those days before the horrifying neonicotinides the First World's pet owners put on their dogs' and cats' necks to keep away fleas, and gardeners put on their earth to kill vine weevils... in those days before the neonicotinoids were implicated in colony collapse disorder, which is killing all our beloved bees; in those days, Rowan's honey was everywhere, in every shop. And Rowan's honey was sold in these jars, the shape of a cell in a beehive, the shape of the joy of bees. The honey was delicious - not "a mixture of EC  and non-EC honeys", but pure Wexford and Clare and Galway and Dublin honey, won from the pollen of local plants, with the wherewithal to help your health and set your taste buds on fire with deliciousness and wonder. I still have one of these jars - somehow I managed to throw out the lid, so its lid doesn't close properly - and I decant the pretend-honeys won from acacia or  robinia or anything but native heathers and wildflowers and suburban flowers into its hexagonal glass, and try to pretend that this is the honey of my childhood, that honey I took so happily for granted, that honey that slipped onto my tongue. It's not hard to keep bees, if you're not allergic, and most people aren't; but beekeeping is not yet fashionable. It will be - in 10 years, it will become deeply trendy to have a hive on your back wall - but for now this is an unusual and slightly offside skill to have. (By the way, the Irish Beekeepers' Association runs courses, should you want to be an early adopter.) For now, all I can do is search out the beekeepers who hide in our midst, who keep their swarms in Rathmines and Greystones and Dalkey and Ranelagh, and edge up to their door to buy and take away a comb in secret. And as I take it out of its wooden structure, I'll drain it into the old Rowan's jar, and look at that lost love. 

Sign's on it: the craft still lives

THE LYF so short, the crafte so long to lerne, as Chaucer had it - and so, all over Dublin, tacky vinyl signs are replacing the beautiful hand-lettered shop signs that once beckoned customers in.
But not everywhere. There are a few signmakers still left, like the Painted Signs crew at http://paintedsigns.ie/
You see them working, changing and restoring the lovely old gold leaf signs that were the pride of Dublin, bringing them back to their glory. And in the case of the Welcome sign on McCormack's Celtic Jewellery in Grafton Street, producing a glorious piece of fantasy.
In the multilingual welcomes, there's a curly fada over the 'Fáilte', and a 'kickout' - a dropping decorative serif on the 'N' of 'Benvenuto' that leads the eye into the centre line. The use of English and Irish in a larger face in the centre, and the longer welcoming words on the top and bottom line framing them, gives an impression of many more welcomes than the six there.
There are a few streets the vinyl bandits haven't got to yet, and there are a few shops that are searching out true signpainters who can give their premises signs of timeless beauty and lasting quality.
In a city that has abandoned the beautiful green street names with their white cló Gaelach and English lettering surrounded by a delicate curled line, and replaced them with a slamming industrial blue with misspelled, non-standard names in Irish, it's a real pleasure to see that someone keeps the faith yet.

A Preparation for Death by Greg Baxter

GLOOMY and hilarious, Greg Baxter's mocking novel about a failed novelist (himself, in a wryly-created version of the dank Dublin bedsitter life of the exiled American artist) will have you whooping as you reach for the Luger to end it all.
He lays it all out at first: the arrival in Dublin, crushed by failure, his acquisition of a job teaching creative writing (no! not that!) in the Irish Writers' Centre, his smothering, humiliating memories.
But it's not long before he opens the gun cabinet, with a rib-busting, vicious description of a session of the Sewanee writers' week, carefully calibrated with the use of forgotten, once-famous writers.
"A group of white-haired and weathered figures were standing around looking like Southern writers," he writes, sharpening up his stiletto. "If you've ever seen a group of them together, you'll know what I mean. The closest I can come to describing it accurately is a highbrow and slightly effeminate fishing trip."
It was at this stage that I actually put down the book and laughed out loud.
Baxter has a killing eye for the telling detail, and watching him poking fun at the writing scene is like watching a horrid, intelligent little boy poking hopefully at the corpse of a putrefying lizard with a pointy stick - what can you do but snicker.
His mentor, it soon turns out, will be Barry Hannah - a fabulously typical character: the novelist as liar. Barry is in the middle of chemo, and eats only pink stuff through a straw. But when he drags Baxter off on a search for a burger, mitching from the conference, Baxter - blind as a bat - ends up driving them along the country roads, and is gobsmacked when Barry meets a coven of rednecks, moustachioed and survivalist, inspecting their Stars and Bars and ammo and reliving their defeat; Barry, whose books are awash with moustachioed Deep South villains just like these, agrees vociferously with their hogwash. Aha, so are all his promises of publication for Baxter lies too? Mm? Hm? Mm?
From this villainy Baxter delves further, into the death of his grandfather, a Waffen SS man, and his grandmother's marriages of convenience - material any writer would give his right ear for, of course - and we're back to the flat in Dublin, now shared with an Icelanding playwright for whom everything is part of her stories.
Anyone who's spent any time in the horror subgenre of writers' retreats and hope will love this book, or else find it so terrifying that they run for their life.
Terribly funny; perhaps too sharp for anyone but the brave.

Living with Murder by Yvonne Kinsella

Gill & Macmillan

You’d be afraid to leave the house
You would that - all those druggies shooting each other, it’s like the Wild West.
But at least it’s only each other
Poor souls. But it’s often civilians too. Donna Cleary was “a gorgeous little thing, very chubby and looked like her dad”. Tough guys tried to muscle in on her friend’s 40th party. When they were politely refused they heaved the flowerpots through the window. Donna went out to clear up, and they drove up and shot her.
Was anyone charged for it?
Her suspected killer was a coke-stoked heroin fiend, a violent bank robber, according to Living with Murder. He died of a methadone overdose in a garda station.
And wasn’t there that plumber?
Anthony Campbell’s mam staggered into a friend’s house, white with shock, and said: “I’m after getting a call saying my son’s after being shot.” Anthony had tried out newspapers and stockbroking on work experience, but he plumped for plumbing, loved it. He was in a house fixing radiators, criminal Marlo Hyland sleeping upstairs without Anthony knowing. Hyland’s murders killed Anthony too.
Bloody drugs
Some people aren’t safe in their own home, either. Like the blind man in Monageer who smothered his two daughters, who had the same eye disease as himself, and hanged himself and his wife.
It leaves so many questions...
His mother swears he didn’t do it. He was in debt, terrified of moneylenders. But she’ll never know.
All so sad
A prison officer who sounds like a decent sort, Brian Stack, was executed with a shot to the head that left him quadriplegic and totally dependent for the 18 months he lived. He’d told his wife he was having hassle at work.
Not a happy read, then?
It’s a sad, sad book, especially when you look at the snapshots of people in happy times. But reading it gives you an insight into the stories in the papers.
Publisher's site

Second Chances by Martina Reilly

Sphere €17.39

REVENGE is sweet. Though less so when you're getting your revenge on the wrong person.
In Second Chances, Lizzie Walsh has fled Wexford for Dublin, where she won't be reminded of the murder of her sister, Megan.
Lizzie has made a life she loves. She has a great job raising funds for a charity, a gorgeous wannabe actor boyfriend, and she volunteers for a helpline.
But one day she sees Megan's murderer, Joe Jones, now free as air, strolling along Grafton Street without a care in the world.
Lizzie turns into a stalker.
Joe Jones is universally acknowledged as a nice guy, kind to his elderly neighbours and the oul' fellas at the pigeon racing club where he hangs out. What a sickener.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Lizzie's mother has discovered Megan's diary - and, as astute readers will have guessed, Joe's not the bad guy.
The story is told in parallel, Megan's diary gradually revealing the truth of her death as Lizzie tangles herself fatally in Joe's life, determined to repay the harm done to her family.
Poor gormless Joe is unwittingly spreading his sweetness on the desert air as he loves his neighbour and does good to those who hate him.
Second Chances is cosy, not plotty, a reassuring winter read for lovers of sedate chicklit.
Publisher's site

Artemis Fowl and the Time Paradox by Eoin Colfer

Puffin €14.99
NO ONE can say I didn't warn the government that if they dug up Tara, they'd have no luck: those signing the order would be out of a job, and the economy would go down the tubes.
The goddess Bóinne and the Sidhe don't mess about. Any Artemis Fowl reader could have told Bertie and his pals the same. But did they listen?
Eoin Colfer's latest is the perfect Christmas present for any literate kid.
But as with drum sets, it's a gift that will come back to haunt you. It's full of jokes that are incredibly funny when you're young, and demand to be shared.
Former evil mastermind Artemis Fowl has turned his family. Now the criminal dynasty are out to save the world, investing in green power and peace.
But his past misdeeds have rebounded on him. Ma Fowl has the deadly fairy virus Spelltropy.
The only cure came from the silky sifaka lemur, and Artemis, in a typical piece of Fowl play, sold the world's last one to (gasp) Extinctionists.
He must go into the past and steal the lemur from his younger self.
The result is hilarious. Perhaps the best thing is the haiku Artemis composes on the sight of a dwarf's bottom as it tunnels magically into the lemur's cage. But it's just one treat in a book full of treats. Pure fun.
Author's website: Eoin Colfer

Wishful Thinking by Melissa Hill

Hodder €10.14
A TRAIN crashes at Merrion Gates. Lives are ended, and lives are changed.
Rosie gets that train every week. Today she has plenty to think about. Her daughter Sophie has demanded that she hand over the deeds of her house to guarantee the purchase of a dream home.
But Rosie is recently widowed, and when Sophie - owner of a brand-new sports car, regular champers quaffer and sun holiday aficionado - asked the same favour before, dad Martin had said no.
We did without to get a deposit, he said. You can do the same.
Rosie has always been more soft-hearted with her children than Martin was. Now she's thinking through the decision, tempted to say yes.
Other commuters face challenges too.
Dara (when did this name change sex?) is married. She's made her bed and can lie on it. But it's a thorny bed when she looks back after just six months. And when an old flame comes back into her life, her marriage is tinder, not tender.
Louise faces a tough court case when she seeks compensation from the driver who knocked her down and ruined her life. But now, her life is being mocked and vilified by lawyers who seem to know everything about her.
A family-values pageturner from Melissa Hill, this will thrill her fans.
Author's website: Melissa Hill