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A letter from the Society of Authors to the Northern Irish Assembly

Grand Opera House, Belfast
Picture of Hilary McCollum

Hilary McCollum

Hilary McCollum joined the SoA in March 2023 as Senior Policy and Liaison Manager for Northern Ireland. Hilary is a writer of fiction, non-fiction and drama and has been a member of the Society of Authors since 2013. In 2021, she completed an AHRC-funded PhD in Creative Writing at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University Belfast. She was the Centre’s Publishing Fellow in 2022.
In response to the proposed cut of 10% to Arts Council NI’s budget, our Senior Policy and Liaison Manager for Northern Ireland urges the government to reconsider and redress the funding gap

Hilary McCollum, Senior Policy and Liaison Manager for Northern Ireland at the Society of Authors, has penned a letter to Colum Boyle, Permanent Secretary of the Department of Communities at the Northern Irish Assembly, regarding the government’s plan to cut 10% of Northern Ireland’s Arts Council budget.

In April 2023, the SoA joined other creative unions, artists, and campaigners to deliver Equity’s Resist the Cuts petition to the Department for Communities in Belfast in response to the proposed cuts of £1.3m.

In her letter, Hilary urges the government to ensure that there are no cuts to arts funding and asks the Department to consider how it can invest more in the arts to redress the funding gap creatives experience in Northern Ireland.

Read the full letter here:

Letter-from-the-SoA-to-Colum-BoyleDownload
Grand Opera House, Belfast

Society of Authors joins calls to halt cuts to arts funding in Northern Ireland

27 April 2023

The government has proposed a £1.3m cut to the budget of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland