Age & Opportunity and Fingal County Council and Kilkenny Council Arts Offices announce the successful recipients for the Age & Opportunity Tyrone Guthrie Residency Awards
Age & Opportunity and Fingal County Council and Kilkenny County Council are pleased to announce the successful recipients for the Tyrone Guthrie Residency Awards for 2026. The awards, in partnership with Age & Opportunity, aim to support professional artists aged 50+ to develop their practice, by creating time and space to think and reflect on their work and to bolster their peer network. The awards were opened for applications in May and five artists have been selected to receive a funded week-long residency in the Tyrone Guthrie Centre including a stipend.
Age & Opportunity’s Arts Programme Manager Dr. Tara Byrne comments on the residency initiative, “Age & Opportunity has long championed and supported artists of 50+ and is proud to be a founding partner of this important residency opportunity”.
Fingal County Council Arts Office in partnership with Age & Opportunity and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre have announced two Fingal residency recipients for 2026; visual artist Emma Fitzpatrick and writer Deborah Grimes.
Emma Fitzpatrick is an Irish fine art printmaker based in Dublin.
Her work explores landscape, time, and humanpresence through monotype and etching, rooted in the remote natural landscapes of Ireland’s west coast.Deborah’s first foray into screenwriting came in 2014 with the Irish-language short Lá Bréa Chuige (TG4/ROSG). In 2019, she directed an English language short, The Yellow Dress, which screened at over 50 international festivals and picked up several awards.
Deputy Arts Officer for Fingal County Council, Síle Stewart, commented “This fantastic partnership with Age & Opportunity provides a unique residency for Fingal artists over the age of 50 to develop their work and practice in the idyllic setting of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre. This residency will provide each of them the time and space to focus on their practices.”
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Kilkenny County Council, in partnership with Age & Opportunity and Tyrone Guthrie Centre, is pleased to announce that the recipient for the week-long residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre this year is Poet Frances Moore.
Frances Moore is a Kilkenny-based poet and creative writing facilitator. A past recipient of the Annie Deeny Prize at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, her poetry and essays have been broadcast nationally on RTÉ Radio 1 (Arena, Sunday Miscellany) and published in print and digital journals, including THE SHOp, Eunoia Review, and the Kilkenny Poetry Broadsheet.
Kilkenny County Council Arts Officer Mary Butler commented: “The Age & Opportunity Tyrone Guthrie Bursary is a significant support for mature artists, providing them with the time and space needed to nurture and develop their practice.”
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Age & Opportunity is the national organisation working to enhance wellbeing for older people through participation in sport and physical activity, arts and creative engagement, personal development, community collaboration and active citizenship.
Age & Opportunity Arts is a dedicated programme which supports the participation and representation of all older people in cultural and creative life in Ireland. We do this work by supporting and resourcing artists, arts audiences and arts organisations and encouraging involvement in arts activities by people all over Ireland. We also aim to raise the standard, knowledge-base and visibility of the arts and older people sector.
Based in rural County Monaghan, The Tyrone Guthrie Centre is a cross-border organisation that offers time away, space to work, and opportunities for collaboration and networking for artists and ‘other like persons’ that facilitates the development of their practice across all art forms. Annaghmakerrig House, otherwise known as the ‘Big House’, is situated in the quiet countryside of County Monaghan, and together with the self-catering cottages, studios and performance spaces, as well as the lake and forests, gardens, and fields, The Tyrone Guthrie Centre is a place where creativity flourishes amid the many pressures and distractions of contemporary life.
