merrion street

Tomorrow, Wednesday, 3rd July—Jimmy Deenihan TD, Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, will open the National Youth Arts Showcase in the National Gallery of Ireland at 12 noon.

This arts showcase is a ‘drop-in’ event staged by the National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI), the representative body for national voluntary youth work organisations. The event is aimed at providing policy makers and politicians with the opportunity to meet young people involved in the arts in Ireland; it will also present high-quality examples of youth arts in Ireland and show the beneficial effects of participation in youth arts on the lives of young people and on society.

Speaking in advance of the event, Minister Deenihan said: “I am delighted to have been invited to open the Youth Arts Showcase and to be given a chance to see a selection of the best of youth arts from around the country. Participation in the arts is of great benefit to our health, wellbeing and all-round education, and increasing involvement in the arts at an early age is one of the cornerstones of this Government’s Arts in Education Charter which I launched, in partnership with the Minister for Education and Skills, earlier this year.”

A number of NYCI groups will perform this afternoon, including the County Wexford Youth Theatre, the Kerry Youth Dance Theatre, and the Errigal Groove Orchestra from Donegal. CDS Pictures, a group of three young film-makers from Dublin who won the Fresh Film Festival 2012, will show their latest picture The Christmas Plan.

NYCI is supported in organising this event by a working group comprised of Young Irish Filmmakers, National Association for Youth Drama, Irish Association of Youth Orchestras and Children's Books Ireland.