Award winning Kerry pub one of just 33 venues to receive funding under support scheme
The funding, which was announced on Thursday June 12 by Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport, Patrick O'Donovan, totals €500,000 and this will be used in providing in funding to assist small, established grassroots music venues to showcase the talent of emerging musicians across Ireland.
A total of 33 venues have been offered funding of up to €15,000 from the Night-Time Economy Grassroots Music Venues Support Scheme to support the continued programming of early-career musicians.
Applications were received from a wide range of late-night venues including pubs, nightclubs and theatres. Venues in many rural towns and villages are being supported, with funding awarded to 16 venues outside of our major cities.
Following the announcement of the Scheme in March 2025, there was a high level of interest in this pilot scheme, with nearly 100 applications submitted before the scheme was closed.
Those approved for funding met the scheme's eligibility criteria, which included a requirement to demonstrate evidence of a strong track record of regularly holding ticketed grassroots music events, showcasing emerging artists performing original music, spanning the years 2023-2024.
It's set to be a busy few months once more in the Listowel pub with a number of big name acts set to come to town.
Upcoming performances by Villagers and Kerry's very own Lorraine Nash are completely sold out while The Riptide Movement have just been announced to play there on the night of October 24.
Tralee's Seamus Harty meanwhile will play there on August 7. A full line up of what's on there in the coming months is available over on the bar's website where tickets can also be bought.
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Irish Independent
2 days ago
- Irish Independent
Award winning Kerry pub one of just 33 venues to receive funding under support scheme
The funding, which was announced on Thursday June 12 by Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport, Patrick O'Donovan, totals €500,000 and this will be used in providing in funding to assist small, established grassroots music venues to showcase the talent of emerging musicians across Ireland. A total of 33 venues have been offered funding of up to €15,000 from the Night-Time Economy Grassroots Music Venues Support Scheme to support the continued programming of early-career musicians. Applications were received from a wide range of late-night venues including pubs, nightclubs and theatres. Venues in many rural towns and villages are being supported, with funding awarded to 16 venues outside of our major cities. Following the announcement of the Scheme in March 2025, there was a high level of interest in this pilot scheme, with nearly 100 applications submitted before the scheme was closed. Those approved for funding met the scheme's eligibility criteria, which included a requirement to demonstrate evidence of a strong track record of regularly holding ticketed grassroots music events, showcasing emerging artists performing original music, spanning the years 2023-2024. It's set to be a busy few months once more in the Listowel pub with a number of big name acts set to come to town. Upcoming performances by Villagers and Kerry's very own Lorraine Nash are completely sold out while The Riptide Movement have just been announced to play there on the night of October 24. Tralee's Seamus Harty meanwhile will play there on August 7. A full line up of what's on there in the coming months is available over on the bar's website where tickets can also be bought.
RTÉ News
2 days ago
- RTÉ News
The Summer of CMAT - how Ireland's gobbiest pop star conquered the music world
It's out with the cigs, the Bic lighters, the "strappy white tops with no bra" and all the other garish lime green accoutrements; time to drag out the cowboy hats and boots, tooth jewels and brightly coloured tights from storage. 2024 may have been 'Brat Summer' thanks to Charli XCX, but there's a new pop hero in town: 2025 is shaping up to be the Summer of CMAT. How did a young musician from Ireland become the kind of performer that can play to tens of thousands of fans (as she did last week), encouraging them to do the 'Dunboyne, County Meath two-step" at Primavera Sound? Barcelona has never seen the likes - but if anyone can achieve such a feat, it's Ciara Mary Alice Thompson. The 29-year-old musician's rise has been a slow but steady one over the last five years. Considering she launched herself as a solo artist at the same time as a pandemic - which gave her little to no opportunity to promote her debut single Another Day (KFC) - she's doubly defied the odds. I remember interviewing her around the time that that song (a heartache-addled tune inspired by her debit card failing in KFC after being dumped) began to gain traction. "I feel if you make the song good enough, structurally and sonically, then you can literally do whatever you want with the lyrics," she said. "I also find that if you make a song really funny, you also free up a lot of space to talk about serious issues without coming across as po-faced. I think a lot of people, when they write a song, they put it on a pedestal – and it shouldn't be. Music should not be that serious, it should not be treated as such a high art form – because a lot of the time, it's not." Even in those early days - although she had previous experience in the industry as one-half of indie duo The Bad Sea - CMAT's vision was striking. She was referring to herself as a 'global pop star' long before anyone else did, but she also had the musical chops to go with the self-confidence. It was clear that she was an artist who knew her onions, speaking about influenced by Dory Previn and the McGarrigle sisters as well as Villagers, and writing songs about people like comedian Rodney Dangerfield and actor Peter Bogdanovich - figures that most of her fellow Gen Z brethren would be baffled by. Despite her prowess on record, it's arguably CMAT's dogged touring schedule and her reputation as an outstanding live performer that has been key to spreading her gospel. She was also a journalist's dream: an interviewee eschewing the bland media-trained responses of her young peers and unafraid to speak her mind. It's something that she has continued to do to this day. In a recent interview with The Guardian newspaper - which referred to her as "pop's gobbiest, gaudiest star", she spoke about the fallout from cancelling her set at last year's Latitude festival due to its sponsorship by Barclays. "They ghosted me," she said of a planned endorsement deal with a big brand that fell through. "I lost a lot of money. But who f**king cares? I'm aware of the fact that my career is going to struggle as a result of this stuff, but I also think everyone else in music needs a kick up the hole. Where's all the f**king artists? Where's all the f**king hippies?" Listen: CMAT introduces her favourite songs for RTÉ Radio 1's Mixtape Born in Cedarwood Avenue, a subsequent move to Clonee and then the aforementioned Dunboyne saw her spend her teenage years languishing in suburbia and honing her songcraft. In her early days as a solo artist, following brief spells living in Denmark and Manchester and after the break-up of The Bad Sea, she used an out-of-hours yoga studio on Camden Street as a makeshift rehearsal and recording studio, sharing it with fellow artists Aoife Nessa Frances and Rachael Lavelle as she worked a humdrum day job. Her 2022 debut album If My Wife New I'd Be Dead made her a star in Ireland, thanks to hits like the country-pop-infused I Wanna Be a Cowboy, Baby!, but it was 2023's Crazymad, for Me album that made international audiences sit up and take notice. High profile appearances on the BBC's Later with Jools Holland and The Graham Norton Show, as well as radio hits like the wistful pop rollick of Stay for Something, saw her plant her flag on UK territory. Suddenly, there were BRIT Award nominations (including a red carpet kerfuffle with that fabulous bum-baring dress); Robbie Williams was calling her duet with John Grand 'majestic', and Elton John himself was heaping praise on the album, calling it "All the things I love… bold, eccentric and a touch mad!" Despite her prowess on record, it's arguably CMAT's dogged touring schedule and her reputation as an outstanding live performer that has been key to spreading her gospel. Her 5-star homecoming gigs at Dublin's Olympia Theatre in November 2023 were the real signifier that something special was happening. Here we had not only a woman who could write pop bangers with emotional depth, but who knew, alongside her excellent band, how to entertain an audience. In simple terms, she had star quality - and a forthcoming sold-out 3Arena gig this December to prove it. Fame, of course, has not been without its pitfalls. In true CMAT style, however, she has spun at least one of them into something positive with her new single Take a Sexy Picture of Me - a song written in response to the online trolling she has had in response to her body - and it's even spawned its own TikTok dance. The Apple Dance? That was so last year, babe. On his recent appearance on Louis Theroux's podcast, Ed Sheeran said that you need three things you need to succeed - work ethic, personality and talent - and if you have the first two, the third doesn't quite matter as much. CMAT possesses all three in abundance, so who knows where she might land with her forthcoming third album Euro-Country. She has, by her own admission, been living life on the edge in recent times: "The kind of headspace that good songs come from is one of extreme emotion, extreme depth of feeling," she said, "which has an impact on my life. I do live in that really heightened state of emotion all the time. I'm crazy and I do crazy things, and I have crazy relationships with people." Hopefully she's savvy enough to recognise when it might be time to step back from the madness. For now, at least, we can relish the Summer of CMAT. Giddy up.
Irish Times
3 days ago
- Irish Times
Other potential new names for the Department of Arts: Smacc, Cacs, Scam and – my favourite
The Government has lost the arts down the back of the sofa again. Look, it happens. It's probably nothing to worry about. It knows it's there. It hasn't abandoned the arts as if it were a failed IT project or anything. Not yet. This is about nomenclature. 'Arts' has been dropped from the name of the department in charge of it as part of a string of shake-ups, with the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media losing responsibility for tourism and the Gaeltacht and becoming the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport. [ Arts Council wrote to officials almost 60 times over botched IT project without issue being escalated Opens in new window ] On Wednesday we were treated to an official denial that this penalty was for the crime of starting with a vowel. Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport Patrick O'Donovan , as he's now known, was reportedly wary of a name change to the Department of Sport, Media, Arts, Culture and Communications because he didn't want to be Minister for Smacc. READ MORE Other acronyms were available. We could have had Cacs, which would have conjured up a lovely image every time, or Scam. My personal choice would have been to name it the Department of Sport, Arts and Communications and then dub it DoSac, in homage to the chaotic Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship from Armando Iannucci 's BBC satire The Thick of It. Asked about the Smacc theory at this week's meeting of the relevant Oireachtas committee – which still has arts in its title – the department's secretary general, Feargal Ó Coigligh , said the previous name was 'seen to be a mouthful' and the Minister was anxious that the new one be 'accessible'. Across European ministries, 'culture' was the term usually favoured. 'Culture is the normal word that's used,' he said, seeming relieved to take a break from raking over how the Arts Council spent €6.7 million on a botched, bug-riddled IT project. The upshot of the committee meeting, as summarised by its chairman, Alan Kelly of the Labour Party, was that the department has more questions to answer about its handling of that fandango. With O'Donovan opting not to appoint Maureen Kennelly for a further five-year term as director of the Arts Council , Kelly couldn't help feeling that she had become 'a sacrificial lamb'. There was some eagerness, too, about O'Donovan's scheduled appearance before the committee in early July. He may no longer be minister for the arts, but he is still, after all, the Minister in charge of the Arts Council. He's also the Minister who has backed extending the Basic Income for the Arts scheme beyond its pilot phase, though that doesn't, of course, guarantee the introduction of these financial lifelines for artists. This Coalition, like the one before it, is so good at being non-committal, and so adept at being angered and disappointed by various agencies and semi-States, that it seems a stretch to think it would bother vanishing 'arts' from the department name as part of any distancing exercise. But some believe the ditching bodes ill. Labour's arts spokesman, Rob O'Donoghue, has blasted the rebrand as shameful, saying that it sends a message – some might say an unnecessary one – to artists 'that they don't matter and aren't a priority'. Subsuming arts into 'merely culture' is symbolic of artists' status as 'the poor relation within the department', O'Donoghue suggests. It's a Smacc-down. Naturally, no one cares about 'media' being swallowed up by 'communications'. And few will remember that before the last name change, in 2020, the reconfigured department was first announced as the Department of Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport and the Gaeltacht before someone realised that this was not the correct pecking order and booted 'media' down the back. 'Arts' has, by comparison, enjoyed long spells on departmental stationery. Responsibility for it escaped the Department of the Taoiseach in 1993, when Michael D Higgins became minister for arts, culture and the Gaeltacht. Since then there have been two artsless periods – May 2010-June 2011 and August 2017-September 2020 – with culture reigning supreme both times. [ Up to 90: The best Irish words and phrases Opens in new window ] I haven't always been a fan of the term 'the arts'. I've recoiled from it because of the precious way that a minority invoke it as a kind of extension of their privilege, trumpeting it as a rarefied and narrowly defined practice, replete with gatekeeping and entitlement. 'Culture', by contrast, is a word that seems to reflect the entire sweep of creativity embedded in our lives. Culture is not 'merely culture'. It's inseparable from who we are. But these semantics are only safe to explore in the abstract, divorced from concerns about political expediency – even the slightest hint that it might be convenient for the Government to jettison 'arts' from the department name is enough to render the demotion ominous and, well, artless. It's possibly either too late or too soon for a Save the Arts campaign. Still, prepare your placards. We must start one in support of the establishment of the Department of Smacc right away.
