A year of arts and community partnerships, 2025
2025 marked a new chapter for Clinch, as Michele McGuirk took the helm as Chair of the Clinch Board of Directors. Working alongside Managing Director Tom Clinch Director Andrew O’Donohoe, Michele is guiding the company’s next phase of growth and leading on our culture and values.
As ANU and Landmark Productions’ sell-out run of The Dead at MOLI – Museum of Literature Ireland drew to a close at the end of January, Michele reflected on our relationship to the arts. She said ‘whatever we do as a company, it will always be genuine’.
Arts and community partnerships feel right to us because they are something that the occupants of No. 5 Northumberland Road truly care about. After all, a company’s culture reflects the values of those who work there.
As well as supporting cultural phenomenon The Dead, in 2025 we were proud to champion genre-defying theatre makers THISISPOPBABY and their kinetic show RIOT in July, before our partnership with Dublin Theatre Festival brought their Fair Play access programme to even wider audiences in September. We travelled to beautiful West Cork in May for Fastnet Film Festival, where Clinch sponsored the Irish Language Day on Cape Clear, and to Carlow in June where we backed the Borris Festival of Writing and Ideas. In between, we partnered with the Blackwater Valley Opera Festival, a celebration of stellar operatic talent. We were also delighted to continue our sponsorship of the Wigmore Series in Royal Irish Academy of Music – RIAM, a showcase of the best global talent in chamber music at the stunning Whyte Recital Hall.
We supported outstanding Irish artists like Ailbhe Ní Bhriain and Isabel Nolan, and helped to put Dublin Gallery Weekend on the map in November, giving the visual arts the place it deserves on Dublin’s cultural calendar.
Our commitment extended to community initiatives like supporting the Belvedere Youth Club in the North Inner City and sponsoring the Ranelagh Gaels’ juvenile teams in Dublin 6, where we are proud to be associated with passing the torch of our sporting heritage to the next generation. Finally, we facilitated access to education for those who may not otherwise have had the opportunity through the Mount Anville Past Pupils Association Rose Bursary and a bursary to The Lir National Academy of Dramatic Art at Trinity College Dublin.
All of these partnerships are heartfelt, and we continue to be grateful to our cultural partners for their close collaboration.