Limerick City and County Council

Mission / Aims

Arts & Health is supported through the following aims of the Limerick Cultural Strategy 2016-2030;
1. To grow Limerick’s cultural capacity by retaining and attracting creative practitioners to live and work in Limerick
2. To grow the physical and human resources, infrastructure and support for staging large scale interventions, performances, festivals and productions
3. To support and grow innovative and creative collectives in Limerick
4. To foster multiple examples of imagination, innovation and integration in Limerick and to use creative approaches to help citizens and visitors re-imagine Limerick
5. To place culture at the heart of the economic growth and regeneration of Limerick
6. To engage citizens through involvement in culture.

Areas of activities

The Arts Office play a key role in brokering as well as interagency working. Three projects which fall into the field of Arts and Health have been diligently invested in with our expertise, resulting in the following partnerships:

University of Limerick (UL), Hospitals Arts Committee; Limerick Arts Office are working in partnership with UL Hospitals Arts Committee on a loans exhibition from our art collection. COVID-19 has delayed this project and we are aiming to have these exhibited in 2022.

Helium Arts are delivering their programme for children and young people with chronic illnesses; ‘Our World in a Window’ national exhibition expressing the experiences of children living with long-term health conditions during lock-down Summer 2021. The Arts Office are members of their Advisory Committee and have supported the Helium Arts Limerick Creative Health Hub through the Limerick City and County Council Strategic Fund.

Arts as an Intervention for Maternal Wellbeing; project at University Maternity Hospital Limerick (UMHL), funded by Healthy Ireland, through Limerick Children and Young People’s Services Committee (CYPSC). Limerick Arts Office are a member of the interagency steering group and are supporting the project thorough the Limerick City and County Council Strategic Fund.

This was the first time this type of initiative was piloted at UMHL which delivered The Creative Music and Art programme to mothers and their families through series of workshops, virtual sessions and individual and group sessions, to improve well-being of mothers and infants as an early intervention to support mothers and contribute to positive infant mental health.

Creativity in Older Age funded by the Creative Ireland Programme had two successful Limerick projects for 2021;
Yard Duet is a project by Dance Limerick bringing four artists associated with Limerick together to develop two new, short dance works for presentation at residential care homes providing a high quality experience of dance and social interaction with artists.
Musicians on Call is a project where professionally trained musicians from Kids Classics work in healthcare settings in, to connect music-making opportunities to residents and healthcare staff in nursing homes and community hospitals.