Draíocht Shortlisted for All Ireland Community and Council LAMA Awards 2025

Now in its 19th year, the All Ireland Community and Council Awards will take place in Cork in 2025. These awards recognise and celebrate community and councils working together. They provide a great opportunity to highlight and celebrate the work done within our communities, to reward our unsung heroes and recognise the phenomenal contribution they’ve made to our lives. This year saw 31 local authorities across Ireland nominate a record 311 projects in the award categories up for grabs. These include initiatives covering Community, Economic Development, Facility/Infrastructure, Collaboration & Leadership, Environmental, and Overall.

14 Fingal projects are in the running for an award at this year's LAMA ceremony, including Draíocht's NEST Project. The 14 Fingal nominations are the culmination of work undertaken by the council in conjunction with community groups and businesses in the county, and show the continued investment being placed into local services and heritage projects.

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Draíocht is one of 5 Nominees Shortlisted in the Category
Best Communications

Draíocht's NEST Project / Nominated by Fingal County Council
Discover Kerry / Nominated by Kerry County Council
International Protection; Fact & Fiction / Nominated by South Dublin County Council
Love Donegal 2024 / Nominated by Donegal County Council
Our City is Changing / Nominated by Cork City Council

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NEST

Since opening in 2001, Draíocht's ongoing commitment to access and inclusion for children and young people remains at the very core of our work. The importance of providing connections both within Draíocht's walls and outside in the community of Dublin 15 was cemented once again with our ground-breaking NEST Project in early 2024, working with young people from Dublin 15 aged 8 weeks old, to 22 years old. In total 6,400, mainly children and young people, engaged with the arts in multiple ways during this Project.

NEST made creative space for the diversity of voices that make up the population of Dublin 15, with its key demographics of the youngest and most culturally diverse populations on the island of Ireland. NEST ensured all were seen, all were heard, all were included. Their peers attended performances by high quality artists about issues that had real resonance for them. Their lives, hopes, dreams and challenges were heard.

A total of 23 bespoke new performance works were commissioned and performed in 23 locations around Dublin 15, as well as on Draíocht's 2 stages, to audiences of school children, family and friends. All 23 works were videoed and can be watched on Draíocht's YouTube Channel.
48 visual art works were commissioned, including portraits of the young people in the project, and after their Exhibition in our Ground Floor Gallery, they were gifted to Fingal County Council's Municipal Art Collection.
193 school children took part in a photography project, taking portraits of each other, for exhibition in our First Floor Gallery. Each child received a copy to keep and many brought family and friends to the exhibition to see themselves on our walls.