The blog is back after a bit of a hiatus last year!

Yesterday we began a new trimester at UCD, and I’ve just begun my new role as Head of the School of Art History and Cultural Policy. After 16 years with the School they’ve finally put me in charge of the place 😉

It’s been a crazy busy last few months as we’ve expanded our staff (with more announcements to come very soon!), and wrapped up the first year of our new MA in Art History: Collections and Curating, as well as another year of the MA in Cultural Policy and Arts Management. I’ll be doing my best to keep this site up to date (thanks to some new admin help) – especially the ever-popular jobs & careers page, which has just been updated with lots of new roles. I’m currently accepting new postings again, so feel free to email them to me.

A few recent developments and upcoming events to highlight:

We were delighted to welcome Dr Annette Clancy as a new Assistant Professor in our School last semester; Annette will be particularly contributing to our MA in Cultural Policy and Arts Management, focusing on teaching arts management and pursuing her own research on organisational structures and behaviour.

This year we’ve a brilliant and international MA cohort in our School: thirty-one new MA Cultural Policy students (the biggest class in a decade), and twelve in the MA Art History. Looking forward to beginning teaching this week, and getting to know all our new folks.

Last Thursday we were honoured to confer an honorary doctorate on founding IMMA Head of Collections and wide-ranging curator and scholar Catherine Marshall. Catherine’s contributions to the discipline of art history are immense, and it was a wonderful occasion celebrating her scholarship and generosity to the arts over many decade.

Dublin Fringe Festival’s now in full swing! Gotta give a shout out to a few current students, colleagues and alumni keeping busy at this year’s Fringe:

• THISISPOPBABY is supporting a whole range of shows & artists (their POPbasers and POPbabies) – not to mention offering up a pretty sweet picks of the Fringe guide
• Current MA student Mollie Molumby is producing Alison Spittle’s new play Starlet – a fiercely talented duo!
• Brokentalkers’ The Examination has returned to Dublin after a run at the Edinburgh Fringe, and it’s been picking up superb notices – it’s a collaboration with our School of History colleague Dr Catherine Cox, drawing on her research into prisons and mental health

Dublin Theatre Festival is headed our way too in late September – we’re especially pleased to be welcoming its Director Willie White as a contributor to one of our core Cultural Policy modules this semester (hat tip also to Richie O’Sullivan, one of our MA grads who recently started a new role as DTF’s Festival Administrator).

Culture Night (Friday 20 September) is also on the horizon: it gets bigger every year, and there’s a nice write-up of it in today’s Irish Times, featuring an interview with its coordinator Aimee von Wylick (another of our MA grads!)

Unfortunately all is not well for Dublin and culture: the bad news landed yesterday evening that beloved artsy pub and cultural innovator The Bernard Shaw is set to close. It’s the latest victim in Dublin’s relentless purge of many of its arts spaces and small creative enterprises in the wake of rising property prices and gentrification (the Dublin Flea is another recent casualty). The Bernard Shaw was an indie beacon of experimentation and optimism during the lows of the recession, and it’s a terrible shame to see it go. It’s clear urgent action is needed by the Council to ensure Dublin’s cultural core isn’t hollowed out, and that creative space (studios and venues especially) aren’t squeezed out of our city centre.

I’m proud to be a board member of Arts & Disability Ireland, and we have a MAJOR event coming to Dublin from 11-14 May 2020, produced in collaboration with the John F Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts / Very Special Arts in Washington DC – From Access to Inclusion 2020: An Arts & Culture Summit. Our call for proposals is now open, with lots of opportunity to get involved. This will be the biggest arts & disability event ever held on the island, and the ADI team is absolutely brilliant. One to pop in the diary!

The first all-island dance conference Co-Motion is taking place from 25-26 October in Belfast, with a great looking programme centred on the artist-as-citizen.

I’m co-organising a special session at the American Conference of Irish Studies in Houston TX in April 2020, focused on the intersection between visual culture and Irish Studies! We especially welcome PhDs and ECRS; see all the details here for how to submit.

The Irish Journal of Arts Management & Cultural Policy is accepting submissions and proposals for its 2019-20 issue. Contributions are welcome from scholars, students, and arts practitioners to feature in its online publication.

Finally – if you’re keen to undertake a PhD with our School in Art History or Arts Management/Cultural Policy: the primary source of funding (the Irish Research Council Postgrad Scholarship Programme) has just opened. Deadline is 31 October, but come speak with us first if you’re interested – we have lots of support for potential applicants here at UCD. I also encourage anyone interested to download my personal guide Thinking of Undertaking a PhD that has loads of helpful info and advice.

Phew! Onwards and upwards, y’all.