Arts Office Recipient of Two National Excellence Awards
“National excellence awards are like late night busses – you wait twenty two years and then two awards come together within eight months” –according to County Arts Officer Fergus Kennedy.
Last November Longford County Council Arts Services was awarded the prestigious Excellence in Local Government Award for Sustaining the Arts. The prize, awarded by Chambers Ireland, was ostensibly for the literary development website www.virtualwriter.ie but was in fact a recognition of the sustained pioneering programme of the use of digital technology to develop local arts in Longford, specifically through the additional websites www.visuallongford.ie, www.longfordmusic.ie and www.longforddigitalarts.ie .
The development of these creative support websites and the many innovative digital projects associated with the sites has established Longford County Council as the leading local authority in Ireland in the rapidly evolving use of digital technology in local development, in this case specifically, local cultural development.
The winning of the Excellence in Local Government Award had the effect of shining the spotlight of national publicity on the work of Longford County Arts Office with the result that last week Longford County Council Arts Service was once again the recipient of another prestigious national award the Public Sector Service Award - Arts Category.
The awarding body, the Public Sector Magazine is Ireland’s largest on-line magazine concerned with all aspects of both central and local government. Each year the magazine awards prizes to government departments, local authorities, statutory agencies and private sector supplier. The rationale of the awards are more broadly based, the adjudicators look at an entire body of work and awards prizes in cases in which they observe best practice.
The kind of Longford projects that impressed the adjudicators were the digital technology cultural programme, Longford Schools Photography Programme which is Irelands largest and longest running arts schools programme. The international portrait photography programme Expressions, Longford County Choir established by the County Arts Office and is now in its twentieth year and the Midlands Arts & Culture Magazine produced in partnership with the three other Midlands local authorities.
Fergus Kennedy points out that as a small local authority it is difficult to have our successful projects and programmes recognise for their quality at a national level and therefore the winning of these prestigious awards is a validation of the work of the County Arts Office and more importantly, is a testament to the creativity and dedication of all Longford artists.
According to the County Arts officer “it is also appropriate to acknowledge the generous support for the work of the Arts Office of the members of Longford County Council and the daily encouragement and assistance of the Arts Office line manager Michael Nevin CEO Longford Enterprise Board and of Longford County Council CEO Paddy Mahon.”
