£2.7m recovery funding for Northern Irish artists

1,433 artists working in Northern Ireland will share £2.7m in emergency funding.

The final wave of the £5m Creative Individual Recovery Programme (CIRP) has been delivered by Arts Council Northern Ireland (ACNI) on behalf of the Department of Communities.

Successful applicants were awarded up to £2,000 to undertake activity linked to their practice or art form.

The annoucement follows recent calls for further support to the sector, after Covid-19 erased a quarter of the country's creative workforce. 

ACNI Chief Executive Roisin McDonough said the money means artists won't be forced to find alternative work.

“That would take Northern Ireland years to recover from.”