New CEO has vibrant and energetic plans for Dunamaise Arts Centre

A NEW spark is lighting up the creative heart of Laois and it’s coming from the Dunamaise Arts Centre as the county’s cultural and creative hub recently welcomed its new chief executive officer - Ciara O’Connell.

The energetic visionary CEO - whose arts career reads like a roadmap of artistic adventure and community transformations - is already making waves, promising to usher in a bold and exciting new chapter for the Dunamaise Arts Centre, for its audiences and for its creators.

Ciara’s journey to the helm of the Dunamaise is anything but conventional and her story begins in the vibrant halls of Dún Laoghaire Art College where she first set out to become a fine artist, majoring in print and ceramics.

While settling into her third week in her new role, Ciara spoke to the Laois Nationalistabout her previous roles and her plans for thrilling community engagement.

Taking up her story, Ciara said: “My art career began by going to Dún Laoghaire Art College a long time ago with the intention of becoming a fine artist. I majored in print and ceramics and did that for a while but realised that if you didn’t have a wealthy benefactor behind you that you probably weren’t going to go too far.

“I then went into social care working in the disability services for almost 15 years while doing artistic endeavours, but I focused on working with people with acquired brain injuries. I was over their personal development plans which involved getting people back into independent living and setting up tailored care plans to help give them their independence back.

“I was missing the arts though and having been doing some freelance work at smaller events and I felt a strong pull back. I took a career break for five years, had a couple of children and went back into independent producing of theatre on small to medium scaled events around Ireland.

“I would create a lot of independent shows with comedians and theatre makers and bring them to the likes of the Dublin Fringe Festival. My work was about empowering artists and creatives and helping them to find their audiences, find the money to help them develop their ideas, and helping them tour their shows. I did this for a number of years.

“An opportunity arose where myself and my partner who is an artist and CEO of Waterford Walls, to open a venue in Waterford about 10 or 12 years ago which we called Central Arts Waterford.

“Because I had come from the caring and arts sector, I was aware of how exclusive the arts can be for people if they’re not from an artistic background. Central Arts Waterford was independent of funding from the Arts Council, so it had to be successful. We managed it and had a real focus on an open-door policy where everyone was welcome. We included burlesque, techno, high-end theatre, opera and much more and we brought all of these creative people together. They all met on a level-playing field and many organic side projects started to happen.

“We became aware of young people wanting to work with us so we started to help with career pathways into the arts by taking them through marketing, poster design, and providing training so they could do it all themselves when they went elsewhere while being independent makers with ownership of their arts and having a business sense.

“As we were doing that an opportunity came up with Waterford Council running a series of outdoor events over the summer weekends. Out of that came Summer in the City, Churchyard Sessions, and the Block Yard Parties. We proposed to the council that we’d look at the city which at the time had four quarters, to see what made them special and create a unique experience for visitors, brand them, create marketing plans and build events around them. That grew from maybe 20 people attending events up to 2000 people attending them. It helped make Waterford cool again and brought a lot of emerging and established musicians together.” Ciara said that when Covid hit and with young children, she was faced with the dilemma of going back into the arts or looking at something different. She said: “I felt like I wanted a change, so we handed over Summer in the City, The Block Yard Parties and the Churchyard Sessions to the people who were working in them and they still carry on today with the publicans and local business owners running them.

“I needed to look for something else, and I ended up working for a company in Manchester called Curated Place as their senior creative producer. One of the first large-scale projects that I worked on with them was the Púca Festival which is run by Fáilte Ireland. My work started to move over to the UK where I got involved in culture and strategic work. We would work with local authorities assessing areas, looking at sites, and recommend the type of cultural creative-based animation that they could implement for different areas. I worked in Essex and Newcastle which was on the back of a huge festival that we used to do in Aberdeen called Spectra which would see more than 100,000 people over one weekend visiting the cultural city.

“The strategic work often led to developing new festivals and new ideas. Again, we did a lot of training with people while working with them in the local authorities so that has been my job for the last five years. I had started to be away from my family for three or four weeks at a time organising big events and I wanted to come home.” When asked about going for the CEO post at the Dunamaise Arts Centre, Ciara said that “in Ireland small towns hold their wonderful charms.” She said: “Towns like Portlaoise have a real authentic Irish feeling about them. Small towns are starting to change because of infrastructure and increased housing and Portlaoise town is growing while still maintaining its authentic Irishness and this was attractive to me. This job just spoke to me, and I was really drawn to it. I came to Portlaoise before the interview process with my partner to look around the town. The warmth of the people is really authentic. Portlaoise has that lovely cosmopolitan feeling but also a really Irish feeling too, so I applied for the job and was really fortunate to get it.” Commenting on her plans for the Dunamaise Arts Centre, Ciara continued said: “At the core of what I want to do is look at what’s already working here. There’s already a great audience and people really feel connected to this wonderful space so that will always remain.

“The questions are - how we grow it, bring more people in, represent the more diverse communities living and working in Portlaoise, how do they come in and feel they have a sense of ownership, and how does the Dunamaise make everyone feel welcome. Over the next six months I want to build on the back of my predecessors.

“The Dunamaise is a well-regarded and recognised art centre throughout Ireland. At the moment I’m meeting with creatives and community leaders, looking at how to invite people in, start making work here for them, and how the centre becomes the hub of creativity not only in Portlaoise but in Laois as a county.

“There are so many opportunities. Part of my role here is to create a strategic plan for over the next five years so I’ll be looking to build it up from five, to ten, to fifteen years so that there’s a legacy of sustainable growth here. I also want to engage with the space and find out what the people want to see while bringing new risks and works to the theatre and make sure that the creatives have the space to come here and take their creative risks in the supported environment of the Dunamaise.

“We also have the Fort Protector which is a brand-new venue which ties back into the outdoor work that I have done so I’m already brimming with ideas about what we can do at different times of year. I want to utilise the spaces where it will encourage bigger audiences and economic growth. We’ll make sure there are opportunities for audiences to engage, pathways to careers for people and make Portlaoise known as absolutely brilliant where there’s 2000 people events at weekends, silent discos for children with the lights flashing, Christmas markets and much more.

Concluding, Ciara said: “Dunamaise has an incredibly experienced team. Martina Lawless has been here since it opened, Nick Anton is here for over 20 years, and Laura Dunne is over 12 years here too. They know the people of Portlaoise, and they live here. I’m a Navan woman who moved to Dublin, lived in Waterford then moved to England and has now come back to Portlaoise so I’m going to listen to the people who live and work here and draw on their wealth of experiences.

“We’ll work as a team going forward putting the plans of action into action. The next six months are about listening, meeting, finding out what people want, and taking time to create a plan that is about Portlaoise which reflects Laois and that reflects the people that live here. The Dunamaise Arts Centre will reflect nationally that we are focused on providing artistic excellence.” For a list of exciting upcoming events and for ticket sales check out the Dunamaise Arts Centre website or phone the Box-Office on 057 8663355.