Culture

Arts employers in Ireland are typically large state organisations and small businesses. Self-employment is quite common.

Career opportunities within the sector include:

Curators

Curators work within museums, zoos, botanical gardens and historical sites. Responsibilities include supervising the cataloguing, indexing and storing of species; overseeing the development of guided tours, planning and preparing exhibitions, supervising volunteer programmes, and preparing budgets. Curators generally specialise within a field, eg history, art, botany.

Conservators

Conservators manage, care for, preserve, treat, and document works of art, artefacts, and specimens. They examine specimens and determine their condition, the treatment needed and the appropriate method for preservation. They tend to specialise in a particular material or group of objects, eg books, textiles, metals.

Education officers

Education officers are responsible for liaising with schools and organising visits, providing educational services including teaching, talks, seminars, courses, meetings, demonstrations, outreach, developing, preparing and managing educational resources.

Arts officers

Various local authorities employ arts officers to promote the development of arts and culture policies. Responsibilities include developing information services, co-ordinating marketing activities, supporting arts projects and initiatives, supporting artists, promoting the profile of the arts locally and nationally and promoting arts in communities and schools.

Entry routes

Routes into the industry vary widely. Many people start in quite junior roles and some begin by working on a voluntary basis. Although the area is open to all degree disciplines, a degree in one of the following areas may be an advantage; drama/theatre studies, film studies, arts, music, archaeology, English, history or Celtic studies. A number of universities offer postgraduate programmes in arts policy and practice, cultural policy and art management. Undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in museum studies are offered in a number of UK universities.