Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Jimmy Deenihan T.D. today (29th April 2013) launched the world’s first Masters in Festive Arts at the Irish World Academy of Music, University of Limerick.

Professor Mícheál Ó’ Súilleabháin, Chair in Music, University of Limerick said; “This new MA Festive Arts programme is a global first. It is the University’s gift in a way, to the city of Limerick at this time of the approaching City of Culture status. It will intersect with the City of Culture initiative, and will serve as one of the important legacy projects of the City of Culture 2014 year. Graduates of this programme will work on a practical level with festivals – and perhaps specifically with a new International Arts Festival proposed by the Irish World Academy as a further legacy project for the City of Culture year 2014.”  A feasibility study for a major international festival was commissioned by the Irish World Academy in 2010 and copies of this study were made available at the launch.

Speaking at the launch Minister Deenihan said; “The fact that this new MA in Festive Arts is an excitingly unique post graduate programme will I am sure attract graduate students from all around the world, students who will already have skills in festival activities of all kinds. In offering a programme that will encourage new ways of viewing the design and organisation of festivals, it will without doubt increase the international attractiveness of our many festivals already in existence. I have every confidence that this innovative programme will also ultimately lead to new festivals of a globally significant nature."   

Over 25% of the postgraduate students currently studying at the Irish World Academy are from outside the EU, and it is expected that the new MA in Festive Arts will help to attract international candidates already skilled in festival activities of all kinds.

This one year, full-time Masters offers  a comprehensive programme of study embracing practical, scholarly and performance-based aspects of festival studies.  Students will have the opportunity to apprentice with a festival in order to gain skills related to festival coordination and design, as well as being introducing to methods for the study of festival, a survey of global festivity, and aspects of festival management and curatorship.

The arts sector in Ireland is estimated to be worth € 715.9 million to the economy. Source: Indecon International Economic Consultants “Assessment of the Economic Impact of the Arts in Ireland’ report, commissioned by the Arts Council in 2011.