Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 11 November 2021
194. Deputy Denis Naughten asked the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media her plans to expand the mobility of collections scheme to support loans from the national collections for display in public buildings across the country; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [53580/21]
View answerMy Department is currently operating a Mobility of Collections Scheme to support greater regional and local access to material held in the National Collections. The purpose of this scheme is to facilitate the display of pieces from the National Collections, with specific local and regional interest, direct to those communities, and to facilitate the display of cultural artefacts and relating exhibitions outside urban centres into rural areas. The Scheme provides funding towards the transport, cost of insurance and exhibiting costs.
This Scheme is demand driven and the lending institution must satisfy itself that the criteria of their loan policies are met by the borrowing body to ensure safe display of any objects and artefacts loaned. Once agreement has been reached between the lending institution and the borrowing body, an application to the Scheme can be made. Of course, like many areas, the COVID pandemic has had a significant impact on this demand over the last two years.
Projects previously funded under the Mobility of Collections Scheme include the following:
- In 2019 over €10,000 was allocated under the Scheme to facilitate the display of the Tullydonell Hoard of gold rings in Donegal County Museum and 15 artefacts from the National Museum of Ireland to Galway City Museum for an exhibition entitled “Keepers of the Gael: Gaelic Ireland 1200-1600A1.” - In 2018 a total of €9,122 was allocated to some of Ireland's museums in order to facilitate important exhibitions , including the loan on a 1790 glass chandelier from the National Museum to the Waterford Museum of Treasures, and several works from the Crawford Art Gallery in Cork to the Hunt Museum in Limerick.
A full list of all projects funded under this Scheme are available to view on my Departments website, www.gov.ie/en/publication/6acdc-cultural-projects-funding/
In addition to the Mobility of Collections Scheme, my Department provides funding to the digitisation of national and significant collections to provide an online offering to the public outside location challenges. An initial allocation of €2.339 million was awarded in October 2017 to support a range of digitisation projects in Ireland’s national cultural institutions and organisations with collections of national significance. Of this €2.119 million was awarded to 7 of Ireland's National Cultural Institutions.
The funding was granted to applications that related to some or all of the following funding objectives:
- ensure collections are correctly catalogued and digitally captured;
- develop the software required to provide access on-line to their Digital Collections; - ensure that the on-line data is of the highest quality using international metadata standards;
- allow for the display and discoverability on-line of more of collections;
- enhance the Institutions outreach and education programmes through greater access to the collections held;
- increase the potential for tourists to gain greater knowledge of the collections held in Ireland and in particular the National Cultural Institutions;
- increase the quality and quantity of metadata that Ireland shared on the Europeana platform;
- provide for the re-use of digital material;
- work in partnership with other organisations to support digitisation projects of collections of national significance; &
- leverage philanthropic support.
Nearly all of the projects funded have been completed and the results are available to view on my Department website at:www.gov.ie/en/publication/b1eab-creative-arts-grants-and-funding-previous-schemes/
