Government Announces €1.62m in Awards for New Recordings, Album Releases and Songwriting

James Vincent McMorrow

Government Announces €1.62m in Awards for New Recordings, Album Releases and Songwriting

Recipients include Sinéad O'Connor, Damien Dempsey, James Vincent McMorrow, Denise Chaila, Jerry Fish, Sharon Shannon, and Dónal Lunny.

Minister Catherine Martin has announced the  recipients of the Music Industry Stimulus Package, a recently established fund by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. The funding package, which is managed by the organisation First Music Contact, comprises three schemes; an Album Release Stimulus, a Recording Stimulus, and a Songwriting Stimulus. The scheme, which was open to a wide range of genres, was originally announced in September as a fund of €1 million, but was increased last month due to demand. 

The Album Release Stimulus supports the release of albums from October 2020 onwards, granting each recipient an award of €5,000. A total of €280,000 was awarded to recipients including Denise Chaila, John Spillane, Saint Sister, Cathy Jordan and Feargal Murray, Moxie, Nealo, Jack Lukeman, David Kitt, and Wyvern Lingo. 

A total of €897,103 was awarded for the Recording Stimulus award. The scheme made available €1,200 for the recording of singles, €4,000 for EPs, and €6,000 for album recordings. Erica Cody, Sharon Shannon, MuRli, CMAT, Iarla Ó Lionáird, and Dónal Lunny were awarded funding as part of the scheme, as well as Jiggy, Redmond O’Toole, Ye Vagabonds, Zoë Conway, Tebi Rex and Meltybrains.  

The Songwriting Stimulus scheme was created to facilitate songwriting camps, defined by FMC as ‘2 or more registered songwriters resident in Ireland, who are engaging with an Irish studio and/or producers to collaborate on new works…’. Successful applicants receive a grant of up to €6,000. A total of €443,123 was awarded overall. Artists such as Sinéad O’Connor, James Vincent McMorrow, Jerry Fish, Lemoncello, Thumper, Sean Carpio, The Pale and Damien Dempsey were awarded funding as part of the scheme. 

Commenting on the awards, Minister Martin said there would be further support for the music sector in the coming year:

Given the exceptional number of applications received to the open call for the music support grants this year, I am committed to rolling out more measures in 2021 to help meet the significant demand for support for the music sector. 

For the full list of successful applicants, see below. For more on the Music Industry Stimulus Package, visit: www.firstmusiccontact.com/misphomepage.

Published on 24 November 2020

comments powered by Disqus