Online Creatives Career Clinic now funded by IRMA

Fantastic news for the creative community as The Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) has a long-standing reputation for championing the industry, and their continued support of the Minding Creative Minds Career Hub and its Online Creative Career Clinics is a further support.
These clinics provide a vital bridge for artists, musicians, and creative industry professionals to get personalised, one-on-one guidance. Here is a quick look at why this partnership is so impactful:
Why the IRMA Partnership Matters
  • Accessibility: By funding these Online Career Clinics for Creatives online, IRMA ensures that creatives in rural areas or outside major hubs like Dublin and Cork have the same access to high-level Career advise.
  • Expert Insight: These online career clinics typically feature specialists who understand the “business” side of creativity—from rights management and royalties to sustainable career planning.
  • Empowerment: It moves the needle from “struggling artist” to “creative professional” by providing practical tools to navigate the modern industry landscape.
Our next Online Career Clinic takes place 13th May 2026.

New spaces now available for our Creative Arts Therapies in memory of Róise Quinn

We were inundated with bookings when we first opened this new initiative earlier this year and so it reached capacity very quickly. This week, thanks to a generous donation from Debra Daly, Meadhbh Roarty, Rachel MacNamara and Cathal Quinn we can now open up more spaces sooner than we anticipated.

Debra Daly and her friend Meadhbh Roarty hiked the Seven Sisters mountains in Donegal in memory of their close friend Róise Quinn (originally from Co. Donegal) who died by suicide in 2022 after battling clinical depression since her teens. Róise was deeply creative and passionate about art. Róise’s parents, Rachel MacNamara and Cathal Quinn, chose Minding Creative Minds as the recipient of funds raised from the climb which took place on what would have been Róise’s 25th birthday.

€6720.00 was raised for Minding Creative Minds, specifically to our MCM Creative Art Therapies services, which resonated with the family due to Róise’s passion for the creative arts. They wanted to support people in availing of free therapy particularly in alternative creative forms.

Our current creative art therapies sessions are dedicated to and in memory of Róise Quinn.

With this generous donation in honour of Róise Quinn, not only are we able to help more individuals with our Creative Arts Therapies services, we are also able to expand our service sooner into other locations, and are delighted to announce that the services will also be available in Dublin City and in North County Cork in January, in addition to more spaces being made available in our location in Sandyford.

 

“Róise was a bright, kind, articulate, musical, artistic and very talented young woman who battled clinical depression during her late teens and early twenties. Róise fought hard but finally died by suicide in March 2022 at 22 years of age.

Her wonderful friends Debra and Meadhbh recently climbed the Seven Sisters in Donegal in Róise’s memory and in the process raised €6720.00 for Minding Creative Minds.” 

– Róise’s parents, Rachel MacNamara and Cathal Quinn.

Book your creative arts therapies place now

 

Dublin Fringe Festival 2024

Now in its 30th year, Minding Creative Minds wishes the Dublin Fringe Festival team and all its contributors, a wonderful 2024 festival.  Dublin Fringe Festival is the agenda-setting festival for new work in Ireland, devoted to talent development and art form development.  It is a platform for new and emerging artists in Ireland to showcase their work and offers artists at every stage of their career an opportunity to challenge, subvert and invigorate their disciplines and practice.

For artists, Dublin Fringe Festival facilitates opportunities to innovate, to push boundaries and strengthen the conditions in which they work.  Dublin Fringe Festival champion artistic risk, ambition and excellence across art forms.

Whether you are performing at or working behind the scenes at the 2024 edition of Dublin Fringe Festival remember; Minding Creative Minds is your tribe and we are here to support you and your needs; everyone working in the Irish Creative Sector.

You can read more about our work and services here or feel free to contact us directly via the number which applies to you; ROI: 1800 814 244 | NI/UK: 0800 0903677 | International: +353 1 518 0277

Minding Creative Minds at Electric Picnic 2024!

Once again, we’ll be taking to Ireland’s largest music and arts gathering to support artists and crews backstage. We’ll also be teaming up with our friends at Hotpress to host a creative arts session in the famous Mindfield arena.

 

Minding Creative Minds Backstage Crew Village Marquee

Last year’s Minding Creative Minds Backstage Crew Village Marquee.

Anyone who’s worked at a festival or any live event will know the hard work that goes into it – long hours, stressful moments, the joy of doors opening, elation at seeing people connect with the work, followed by the gruelling take down and lows after such a brilliant and tumultuous and journey.

Our team will be set up in our Minding Creative Minds Crew Village Marquee backstage across the week to remind artists and crews how our free services can support them.

The Crew Village is a place where creatives and crews can chill out, share experience and advice with others working hard at the festival, plus, we’ll have our own in-house psychotherapists on-hand on Saturday and Sunday for specialist individual support for anyone who needs it.

You’ll be able to relax, unwind, & recharge. Enjoy a coffee & chat, savour some snacks, or take a short retreat and enjoy some surprise activities too. We look forward to seeing you there!

Friday & Saturday 11.00 – 19.00

Sunday, from 11.00 – 18.00

 

Creative Arts Therapy, Hotpress, Mindfield

If you’re going to Electric Picnic to enjoy the festival, don’t miss our:

Creative Arts Therapy session

Hotpress tent at Mindfield

Sunday at 12pm

 

Introduced by our Co-Director Ann Marie Shields, we’ll give you insight into how you can use creative art therapies to help you interpret, express, and resolve your emotions and thoughts.

Creative Arts Therapies is one of the many services Minding Creative Minds offers to Ireland’s creative sector at no charge. Our pilot programme is currently underway.  This practical session at EP will give you insight into how it works and how it might be of benefit to you.

At the session, we’ll focus on Music Therapy, one of the evidence-based art therapies, along with Lyndsey Connolly, IACAT Registered Music Therapist, our master’s level qualified arts therapist. In her work, she integrates knowledge of the arts with principles of psychotherapy and related fields.

You’ll have a blast and gain really valuable insight into how you can use your creative language to foster good mental and support your wellbeing.

So! When you’re planning your EP weekend make sure to factor us in! Sunday 12pm, in the Hotpress tent at Mindfield. See you there.

Minding Creative Minds at Ireland Music Week Panel

Read more

Minding Creative Minds at Dublin Fringe Festival

Minding Creative Minds (MCM) is Ireland’s (free and confidential) first 24/7 wellbeing and support programme for the entire Irish Creative sector here at home and our Irish overseas.  Everyone working or involved with Minding Creative Minds (MCM) work in the creative sector across a number of streams and roles. With Dublin Fringe Festival now underway for its 2023 programme we wish to remind everyone working on or off the stage as part of the festival; our supports at Minding Creative Minds are for you, all of you. 

  • Minding Creative Minds can be contacted via the following numbers; 24/7 Dedicated Phone Line (Phone 1800 814 244) | (Calling from NI / UK – 0800 0903677) (International – 00353 15180277)

 

  • One such event within the programme is You’re Needy (sounds frustrating).

 

Premiering as part of Dublin Fringe Festival 2023, You’re Needy (sounds frustrating) opens today on Friday 15th and runs through Saturday 23rd September.  Performances will run four times a day and have a running time of 35 minutes.

 

You’re Needy (sounds frustrating); Carrie’s moved into her bathroom. she’s living on slim noodles, chopped parsley baths and SnailMucusWhalePlacenta Face Masks (™). every week she’s visited by a volunteer hired to help her reintegrate into society. This week, it’s your turn. Take an ocean breath, snort a line of rock salt and brace your orifices for some steaming. All your yoni eggs have come home to roost: it’s time to peel off those cucumbers and take a long hard look at yourself:

 

You’re Needy (sounds frustrating), is an unique off-site experience for one actor and one audience member set in the bathroom of a (real!) house; Pembroke Cottages, Donnybrook. (There will also be a volunteer from Dublin fringe festival at all performances.)

It centres on Carrie, a young woman, who has retreated to her bathroom in pursuit of peace, solitude and “wellness”. The piece interrogates how capitalism seeks to control women’s bodies through the “wellness” industry, touching on monotony, meditation, medication, and, of course, Gwenyth Paltrow.

 

You’re Needy (sounds frustrating) was developed at FRINGE LAB and supported by Dublin Fringe Festival’s Make Space for Art Fund. The development of the project was supported by Corcadorca, Pavilion Theatre, Kilkenny Arts Festival, Shawbrook Residential, Pan Pan Starter Programme and Camden People’s Theatre.

 

Bookings for all fringe festival shows can be made via: fringefest.com or T. 1800 374 643

We’ll be at Electric Picnic!

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We are very excited to be heading back to Electric Picnic this year and offer our thanks and gratitude to Festival Republic for inviting us.

If you are working at the festival, please pop by our Minding Creative Minds Crew Village in the production area across from crew catering, we will be on site daily from Friday lunchtime. We would love to see you to say hello, for some calm time on your lunch or dinner breaks and if you wish to chat with one of our experts; we can help with this also.

As part of our presence at Electric Picnic 2023, we are delighted to collaborate with Hot Press in the MindField area, this year also. If you work in the creative sector but not working and attending the festival to simply enjoy the music and all the festival has to offer; we are also collaborating with Hot Press on both Saturday and Sunday. From 1.45pm on both days.

On Saturday, September 2nd we are holding back to back masterclasses from 1.45pm when Award winning coach, TedX speaker, playwright, actor, author, endurance athlete, personal trainer, insomnia coach + more; EOIN RYAN presents Wellness tools for Freelancers & Creatives masterclass. Next up, we also welcome life coach, mentor and trainer Sue Cullen with her programme Developing a positive mind-set.

Both Eoin and Sue will also be present at our Minding Creative Minds Crew Village in the production zone from 1pm also on Saturday and Sunday

Click to enlarge

On Sunday, September 3rd from 1.45pm Hot Press’s own Stuart Clark will moderate a panel conversation around broadening your horizon as a creative, in your creative career. Joining Stuart are three very talented beings who will tell us about their work lives as creatives; Comedian, co-founder of the Irish Comedy Guide and accountant; Ailish McCarthy, Writer, actor, comedian, satirist and singer / songwriter; Tadhg Hickey and singer / songwriter, author and lecturer; Dan (Daniel) Murphy from Hermitage Green.

New Minding Creative Minds Trauma and Abuse Counselling Service

Minding Creative Minding (MCM) announce an enhancement of its service offering to include trauma and abuse counselling.

This announcement and launch is in collaboration with our partners at Screen Ireland and Irish Theatre Institute as part of the Safe to Create Programme and with the continued support of The Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

This October 5th Minding Creative Minds will announce an enhancement of its service to include specialist trauma and abuse counselling care.  This additional service is being launched with our pan-creative sector peer team; we are privileged to collaborate with Screen Ireland and Irish Theatre Institute as part of the Safe to Create programme on this primary advancement for our service offering and very thankful to do so with the continued support of Minister Catherine Martin and her team at The Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

In both public and private health tiers, trauma and abuse counselling services can have significant wait lists, depending on the user’s catchment area and services accessed.  At the time of writing, we understand a six-months plus wait list exists.  With Minding Creative Minds enhanced service, our team of counsellors will also provide supportive care while the service user is waiting for a specific service referral. This approach ensures our (enhanced) service user is supported day to day with their coping and managing techniques until the bridge to engagement around the historical trauma is secured.

How will our enhanced service to include specialist trauma and abuse counselling care work?

1. The first point of contact on initial engagement with the Minding Creative Minds helpline is our case managers who are fully qualified psychotherapists / counsellors.

2. In the case of a caller contacting the service outlining they have been the victims of trauma / abuse the case manager will offer in the moment support while also arranging a call with one of the Minding Creative Minds Senior Clinicians and Trauma Specialists (who have expertise in trauma, rape, sexual violence and abuse) within 24hrs, at a suitable time for the caller. During
this call, specialised support will be provided to the caller and a comprehensive intake assessment of the caller’s needs will take place.

3. Following the assessment and support call the Minding Creative Minds Senior Clinician will determine the most suitable intervention and to determine if short-term counselling (up to 12 free sessions) is appropriate or if more specialised, long term or open-ended support would represent a more robust and clinically appropriate intervention.

4. If a referral to short term counselling is deemed the most appropriate intervention; a referral will be made during the call to one of Minding Creative Minds Trauma Specialists Counsellors who would have expertise in trauma, rape, sexual violence and abuse for 8-12 sessions of counselling.

5. Minding Creative Minds can arrange a suitable referral pathway for longer term or open-ended support for survivors of sexual abuse if this is deemed necessary through signposting to the most suitable services.

 

Minding Creative Minds (MCM) is Ireland’s first 24/7 (32 county and our Irish overseas) wellbeing support programme for the entire Irish creative sector. Minding Creative Minds’ counselling and advice services, in association with Spectrum Life, include a *24/7 Dedicated Phone Line; Short-term intervention, telephone Counselling together with secure video counselling amongst other contact options (see the full list later in this document). Alongside our counselling services we offer advice and support on practical day to day issues which have the potential to cause stress and anxiety; for example, legal and financial advice, career guidance and life coaching. Our service offering focuses on the entire individual; whatever your need or question; if you work in any area of the Irish creative sector, contact us and let us help you; our services are free and confidential.

To access this service, or any of our other services, please call 1800 814 244.
For international numbers click here.

 

 

 

Patrick Kavanagh ‘Almost Everything…’ is OUT NOW!

Bono, Hozier, Imelda May, Liam Neeson, Jessie Buckley, Aidan Gillen, Lisa McGee, Lisa Hannigan, President Michael D. Higgins, Evanna Lynch, Sharon Corr, Kathleen Watkins, Christy Moore, Rachael Blackmore and Aisling Bea bring the work of seminal Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh to life on a new record, ‘Almost Everything…’ , released today from Claddagh Records.

For many of us, Patrick Kavanagh joined our life’s journey as we sat at hard desks in cold classrooms struggling to make sense of so much. Kavanagh made poetry real. He opened our minds to life, soil and soul.

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Originally released on Claddagh Records in 1964, the double album also features the only recordings of the revered Irish poet reading his most celebrated poems. Now remastered and reimagined this new two-part album features the original recordings together with Kavanagh’s poetry read by some of Ireland’s most recognizable names and set to a truly stunning musical composition.

The vinyl format of this release contains two truly unique sleeves. The first hosts a printed collage of sketches of all the celebrated readers around Patrick Kavanagh, with Kavanagh himself visible through the cut-out square on the cover itself. The second vinyl sleeve is an exact replica of the original 1964 release. Both physical formats include a booklet containing all the poetry one will hear on the album.

Order or Listen now

Maria Kelly – Postcards In-Between

 

Ireland & UK Tour  + Exhibition & event in association with Minding Creative Minds + New versions of songs from ‘The Sum of the In-between’ album

 

Irish alt-folk star Maria Kelly today announces the details of Postcards In-between: an ambitious project that comprises a tour of Ireland and the UK; a pop-up exhibition and event that brings Irish creatives together in an effort to cultivate self-compassion and examine mental health supports; and new versions of a selection of the songs from her debut album, The Sum of the In-between, which was released last October. 

 

The Postcards In-between Tour 

Maria Kelly will play tour dates in Ireland and one in the UK this May and June, in a tour presented by Singular Artists & Friends. Tickets for all shows are on sale now. Dates as follows: 

 

Sat 7th May – Dublin – Whelans Main Room 

Sun 8th May – Galway – Róisín Dubh 

Fri 13th May – Limerick, The Record Room 

Sun 15th May – Cork, Winthrop Avenue

Wed 1st June – London, Servant Jazz Quarters

 

The Postcards In-between Pop-Up Exhibition 

The Postcards In-between project initially started with Maria asking her fellow Irish songwriters to pen a ‘note to self’ letter to a version of themselves that they thought might need a helping hand. The letters became 12 postcards – each one linking to a track on the original The Sum of the In-between album. 

The project features 11 of Maria’s fellow Irish songwriters: Abbacaxi, Ciaran Lavery, James Vincent McMorrow, Paul Noonan, Rosie Carney, Runah, Saint Sister, Sammy Copely, Shiv, Sive and Tim Chadwick. 

Designed by Irish-French illustrators Pipe & Pallet (Nathanaël Roman) and Cécilia Noiraud, these postcards will be exhibited in various forms at a free pop-up exhibition taking place at Universal Space, Dublin on the first two days of the May bank holiday weekend – Saturday 30th April and Sunday 1st May.

On the Saturday evening, at 7pm, there will be a ticketed event with a panel discussion and live music performances.

Get tickets here

The exhibition and event are being run in association with Minding Creative Minds, Ireland’s first 24/7 (32 county and our Irish overseas) wellbeing support programme for the entire Irish creative sector.  Minding Creative Minds‘ counselling services (in association with Spectrum Life) include: *a 24/7 Dedicated Phone Line; Short-term intervention, telephone Counselling, secure video counselling and comprehensive web portal and app enabling live chat function with a counsellor. Minding Creative Minds focuses on the wellbeing of the entire person, so our programme also includes access to a number of additional services, helping users with various practical issues also.  See **additional details on our key supports and all our contact details in the editors notes section later in this document.

Dave Reid founder, Minding Creative Minds says: “Our focus at Minding Creative Minds is supporting the entire individual. We ask people in our creative community not to wait until they are in a crisis to contact us; if something is troubling you, regardless of how small you deem it to be, let us help you. This in itself is one of the kindest acts of self-compassion you can show yourself; the theme Maria has chosen for this beautiful and thought-provoking exhibition and event. We applaud Maria for this initiative and are very pleased to display our support by partnering with her for The Postcards In Between Exhibition and Event.”

 

The Postcards In-between Music 

In addition to the postcards to be exhibited, Maria has also teamed up with a number of the artists mentioned to record a series of reworkings, remixes and alternative versions of a selection of the songs from The Sum of the In-between. 

Details of the singles to be released will be announced over the coming weeks and months, but we can reveal that the first of these will be a collaboration between Maria Kelly and Paul Noonan for a stunning version of the album’s title track ‘The Sum of the In-between’,  which will be released on Wednesday 30th March on Maria’s label, Veta Music. 

Of this project, Maria Kelly says: “‘Postcards In-between’ aims to bridge the gap between who we were, who we are, and who we will be. It’s a project about self-compassion; acknowledging the part of ourselves that is always changing, growing and learning. The part that is always, at some level, trying their best. 

“By collecting different perspectives this way I hope that anyone reading the postcard or visiting the exhibition might be able to identify with them, finding some comfort in the fact that somebody else made it out the other side – a way of seeing yourself, by meeting somebody else exactly where they are.”