Kildare County Council Arts Service welcomes applications from individual artists and/or art collectives practicing in any artform to the Kildare Arts, Health & Wellbeing Award 2025. The Arts, Health & Wellbeing Award will provide a grant of up to €4,000 to support the development and/or creation and/or presentation of new artistic work that supports public engagement with the arts, in particular with hard-to-reach communities or those with limited access to the arts, whether for physical, social or geographical reasons.
Kildare County Council Arts Service is committed to supporting health and wellbeing through engagement and participation in the arts and developing opportunities for professional development. Kildare’s Arts, Health and Wellbeing programme supports public engagement, provides opportunities for artists working in this area, and aims to promote artistic ambition and inclusive participation. This programme is supported by the HSE.
Applications to the Arts, Health & Wellbeing Award are welcome from:
- individual artists and/or art collectives in any artform currently residing or from County Kildare, that are striving to grow and develop their Arts and Health practice.
- individual artists and/or art collectives in any artform not currently residing in or from County Kildare that are striving to grow and develop their Arts and Health practice in county Kildare.
Applicants must be able to show that the artist and arts practice is central to the proposal for which they seek funding.
For the purposes of this award ‘arts’ as defined in the Arts Act 2003, is as any creative or interpretative expression (whether traditional or contemporary) in whatever form, and includes in particular, visual arts, theatre, literature, music, dance, opera, film, circus and architecture, and includes any medium when used for those purposes.
Kildare County Council is committed to equitable remuneration and a policy to Pay the Artist. Please refer to the Arts Council's policy on
Paying the Artist.
Your attention is also drawn to
safetocreate.ie where you will find more information about the Safe to Create Dignity at Work programme which aims to impact change on the culture and practices of the arts sector in Ireland to provide safer working conditions for artists and arts workers.
Kildare County Council welcomes applicants who represent the diversity of Irish society. We encourage applications from all areas of the community regardless of your gender, sexual orientation, civil or family status, religion, age, disability, race or membership of the Traveller Community, or socio-economic background.
We welcome applications from artists whose first language is not English.
Although not an obligatory requirement, applicants to all grants offered by Kildare County Council Arts Service might consider demonstrating how their activity addresses the themes of climate change and climate action.
Although not an obligatory requirement, applicants to all grants offered by Kildare County Council Arts Service might consider demonstrating how their proposed activity addresses the themes of inclusivity, equality and cultural diversity.
Access Support
You can apply for additional costs if there are access needs relating to your application. These can be personal access costs or costs for making your work accessible to others. Personal access costs might for example include costs towards additional time needed to complete your project or
additional assistance required to deliver your proposed project. Costs for making your work accessible to others might include having an ISL interpreter, using an audio description service, making your content compatible with screen readers or producing materials in other formats such as in Braille or audio. Any such requirements should be outlined in your application and a breakdown of costs should be provided within your budget. These costs may be above the maximum award amount for this grant (up to 20% of the award available).
Application deadline
Applications will only be accepted via the online application form.
Applications must be submitted before the deadline at 12pm, Friday 28th February 2025.
Applications submitted after the deadline will not be accepted.
We suggest that applicants try to submit their application form early in case of technical difficulties. Should they arise, please email arts@kildarecoco.ie and we will endeavour to respond as soon as possible.
Supporting Material
It is advantageous to include supporting material that enhances your application. Applicants should not assume that the independent assessment panel are familiar with your work or your previous funding history. The panel will use the supporting material to get a better understanding of your track record, that of your creative collaborator(s) and the feasibility of your proposal.
Information Session
Kildare County Council Arts Service will host a number of Information Sessions in locations throughout the county about applying for arts grants and bursary awards with Kildare County Council. Sessions will be of particular interest to individual artists, art collectives, community groups, youth groups and schools who intend to apply for Arts Grants from Kildare County Council in 2025.
Please note that information imparted at each session will be the same - there is no need to register to attend all 3 sessions. All are welcome to attend this FREE session, but booking is recommended.
If you need help to complete and submit your application we want to hear from you. Please email or call the Arts Service team at least three weeks before the award deadline, or as early as possible, to give us time to assist you.
Email: arts@kildarecoco.ie / Tel: 045 980872.
- Applications will be accepted via the official online application system only
- Applications are welcome from individual artists and/or collectives practicing in any artform.
- The lead artists/applicants must be over 18 years of age.
- All recipients of grant assistance under the scheme for projects involving children or young people must have appropriate Child Protection policies in place.
- Kildare County Council Arts Service will require confirmation that the appropriate insurance policies, Health and Safety Procedures and Garda Vetting are in place.
- It is the responsibility of the grant recipient to follow government public health recommendations and guidelines.
Ineligible applications:
- Applications submitted after the deadline.
- Activities that do not meet the purpose of the award.
- Applications that do show that the artist and arts practice is central to the proposal.
- Proposals for projects centred around therapeutic arts.
- Applicants requesting assistance in respect of commercial activities.
- Proposals for work in retrospect.
- Applications from employees of Kildare County Council. These individuals may not apply as lead applicants, however in certain circumstances can be involved as creative collaborators / advisors / participants in proposals submitted by a third party.
- Activities better suited to others awards and/or schemes offered by the county council.
- Activities that could be better supported by other public agency supports for example Healthy Ireland, Arts Council, Creative Ireland, Culture Ireland, Design & Crafts Council Ireland, Music Generation.
Steps to complete and submit your application form
Here we have outlined the steps you will take to complete and submit your application for funding for Arts Grants, and what happens next.
- Read the call out and eligibility notes
- Click Apply and Register
- Create a new Profile or review your existing details. Please include a valid email address with your application – this will be used for all future correspondence relating to your application.
- Check your email to confirm your registration
- Complete the online application form. This form can be saved in draft for you to review and edit at a later time.
- Upload Supporting Material
- Send application form
- Verify email address (check your email for a copy)*
- Submit application
*Note regarding verification. If you do not receive verification email, it may have been blocked by your mail host and you may need to whitelist our address.
How to Whitelist an Email Address
Open Gmail. In the upper-right corner, select the Settings (gear) icon. From the menu, choose Settings .
Select Filters and Blocked Addresses .
Select Create a new filter . If you already have many filters, you'll have to scroll down to find this link.
A dialog box appears. In the From field, type the email address you want to whitelist. Be sure to type the full email address, like example@yahoo ...
At the bottom of the dialog box, select Create filter.
On the next screen, tell Gmail what to do with the email address or domain you just indicated. To do so, select Never send it to Spam .
Assessment and Decision
- Applications will be assessed by an independent assessment panel.
- Applications are assessed in a competitive context and with consideration of the application form and the supporting materials submitted. Applications are assessed taking the published assessment criteria into consideration. Consideration is also given to the artform(s) supported and the Arts Service’s remit to support the arts countywide.
- Must Fund: In the view of the assessment panel, the application is deemed to have fully met the criteria for the award and merits funding on that basis.
- Should Fund: In the view of the assessment panel, the application is deemed to have met the criteria to an extent sufficient to merit funding should resources allow.
- Could Fund: In the view of the assessment panel, the application is deemed to have met the criteria, but to a lesser extent within the competitive context than other applications.
- Not Shortlisted to Fund: In the view of the assessment panel, the application is deemed to have not met the criteria to an extent sufficient to merit funding.
- All applicants will be advised of panel's decision by email.
- The Arts Service is not in a position to provide feedback on individual applications.
- Grant aid provided by Kildare County Council must be acknowledged in all publicity material associated with the project. Kildare County Council reserves the right to publicise the awarding of the Arts Grants. Failure to acknowledge Kildare County Council appropriately may deem the grant invalid and grant aid received may need to be refunded to Kildare County Council.
- All successful applications will receive a copy of Kildare County Council logos, along with the document ‘Requirements for acknowledging Kildare County Council funding’ via email.
- If your application is successful, you will be required to submit a short report/update at the end of the project or before 31st October 2025, whether the project has been completed or not. An invitation to submit a report will be communicated to grant recipients in early autumn 2025. Failure to submit a report may deem the grant invalid and grant aid received may need to be refunded to Kildare County Council.
- The payment of a grant is not taken as an indication that the equivalent of any grant will be made to the organiser on another occasion.