Today the affiliation of creative artists in Ireland, Aosdána, has elected 8 new members at its 42nd General Assembly in the Hibernia Centre, Dublin Castle. Now totaling a membership of 250 members, the newly elected members are; Paul Lynch – Literature, Sinéad Ní Mhaonaigh – Visual Art, Ed Bennett – Music, Andrew Hamilton – Music, Shaun Davey – Music, Louise Lowe – Literature, Catherine Dunne – Literature and Roisin Heneghan – Architecture.
Aosdána, founded in 1981, honours artists whose work has made an outstanding contribution to the creative arts in Ireland, and assists members in devoting their energies fully to their art. Membership of Aosdána, which is by peer nomination and election, is limited to 250 living artists, who have produced a distinguished body of work. The membership includes creative artists working in a wide range of disciplines including architecture, choreography, music, literature and visual art.
A minutes silence was held in memory of the deaths of former Aosdána members Camille Souter, Críostóir Ó Floinn, Maurice Scully, Michael Viney, Seóirse Bodley, Thomas Kilroy, Michael Coady and Imogen Stuart all of whom have died since the 41st General Assembly.
The 8 newly elected members are:
Paul Lynch – Literature
Paul Lynch is the Booker Prize-winning author of five novels. Born in Limerick in 1977, Lynch grew up in Co Donegal, and lives in Dublin. Previously the chief film critic of Ireland’s Sunday Tribune newspaper from 2007 to 2011, Lynch wrote regularly for The Sunday Times on cinema. He is a full-time novelist. Prophet Song was published to ravishing praise in August 2023 and won the Booker Prize as well as being shortlisted for the An Post Irish Novel of the Year.
His debut novel Red Sky in Morning was published to critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic in 2013. It was a finalist for France’s Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger (Best Foreign Book Prize) and was nominated for the Prix du Premier Roman (First Novel Prize). The Black Snow (2014) was an Amazon.com Book of the Month. In France it won the French booksellers’ prize Prix Libr’à Nous for Best Foreign Novel and the inaugural Prix des Lecteurs Privat. Grace was published in 2017 to massive international acclaim. It won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year and was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize and the William Saroyan International Prize. Beyond the Sea was published in September 2019 to wide critical acclaim in the UK, Ireland, Australia and the US. In 2021, it was published to wide acclaim in France where it won the 2022 Prix Gens de Mers.
Sinéad Ní Mhaonaigh – Visual Art
Sinéad Ní Mhaonaigh graduated with a BA in Fine Art Painting from Dublin Institute of Technology in 2001. In 2010 Ní Mhaonaigh was recipient of the Hennessy Craig Scholarship and was awarded The HOTRON Award 2019 by VISUAL Carlow for outstanding work. She was shortlisted for the Marmite Prize for Painting 2016, and the John Moores Painting Prize 2018.
Recent solo exhibitions include Structure (2022) at 532 Gallery Thomas Jaeckel; Struchtúr (2022), Dúil Series (2021) and Teorainn (2020) at Kevin Kavanagh Gallery; Cnuasach (2021) at Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre; and Macalla (2020) at Mermaid Arts Centre. Ní Mhaonaigh exhibited as part of VOLTA New York in a solo presentation in 2016, and her work has been presented at major international art fairs, including Art Market Budapest and VOLTA Basel. Ní Mhaonaigh’s paintings are held in many important public collections, including the Centre Culturel Irlandais (Paris), Ernesto Ventós (Barcelona), Luciano Benetton Collection (Treviso), O’Brien Art Collection (Chicago) and The Arts Council of Ireland (Dublin), as well as private collections in Ireland, across Europe and in the Unites States.
Ed Bennett – Music
Ed Bennett’s music is regularly performed and broadcast in over 30 countries. His substantial body of work includes orchestral works, ensemble pieces, solo works, electronic music, opera, and works for dance and film. Recent highlights include ‘Psychedelia’ for the RTE NSO and Thomas Adès, ‘Ausland’ for the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Reinbert de Leeuw and performances at the Lincoln Centre, Carnegie Hall and London’s Southbank Centre. Four critically-acclaimed portrait discs of his work have been released to date. He was recently awarded the ACNI Major Individual Artist Award, the highest honour awarded to an artist from the region.
Andrew Hamilton – Music
Andrew Hamilton was born in Dublin in 1977 and studied in Ireland, UK and The Netherlands with Kevin Volans, Anthony Gilbert and at the Koninklijk Conservatorium with Louis Andriessen. Recently he has had works performed by Irish National Opera, Alarm Will Sound, Musarc, Manchester Collective, Crash Ensemble, An assembly, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Choir Ireland, members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, EXAUDI, Juliet Fraser, Maxime Echardour, Michelle O’Rourke, Eliza McCarthy and worked with the conductors Ilan Volkov, Jack Sheen, Paul Hillier, James Weeks, Fergus Sheil, David Brophy, Gavin Maloney and Alan Pierson. During the summer of 2019 his work was performed at the Tectonics and Tanglewood festivals. In 2018 his first portrait album was released on the NMC label and in June 2020 a new solo disc was released on the Ergodos label. He was recently appointed composer in residence with Crash Ensemble and currently teaches at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
Shaun Davey – Music
Shaun Davey is an Irish composer whose pioneering works like The Brendan Voyage and Granuaile explore commonalities between musicians of aural and classical traditions. The Deer’s Cry and the Special Olympics anthem, May we never have to say goodbye are particularly well-known. His work in theatre and film has been internationally recognised by two BAFTA nominations, an Ivor Novello Award and, on Broadway, by a Tony nomination. In recent years he has concentrated on concert work. His latest, Refuge, Suite for Cello and Orchestra composed during the pandemic premiered at the NCH with the NSO in 2023. He is an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.
Louise Lowe – Literature
Since co-founding ANU in 2009, Louise Lowe has directed all of the company’s multi-award winning work to date, in theatre productions at The Gate, Dublin Theatre Festival, Manchester Int’l Festival, The Abbey, London International Festival of Theatre, and commissioned works in collaboration with Dublin Port, and the National Museum of Ireland. Lowe’s work has earned several Irish Times Theatre Awards, including titles The Lost O’Casey, Hentown, and Pals. As a freelance Director, her work includes plays The Saviour, Test Dummy, Deep, The End of the Road, Across the Lough, Secret City, Right Here Right Now, The Baths, Demeter Project.
Catherine Dunne – Literature
Catherine Dunne is the author of twelve published novels, one novella and one non-fiction work, An Unconsidered People (reissued 2022), exploring the lives of Irish immigrants in 1950s London. Her novels include: The Things We Know Now, recipient of the Giovanni Boccaccio International Prize for Fiction in 2013; The Years That Followed, longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award in 2018; and Come cade la luce (The Way the Light Falls), shortlisted for the European Strega Prize for Fiction in 2019. Catherine received the Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Contribution to Irish Literature in 2018. In January 2021 she was decorated as Cavaliere of the Order Stella d’Italia. Her twelfth novel A Good Enough Mother was published in Italy in November 2022.
Roisin Henneghan – Architecture
Roisin Heneghan was born in Erris, Co. Mayo in 1963. She graduated with a Bachelors in Architecture from University College Dublin in 1987 and received a Masters in Architecture from Harvard University in 1992. She co-founded heneghan peng architects with Shih-Fu Peng in New York and moved to Ireland after winning the competition for the design of Kildare County Council’s civic offices. Completed projects include the Grand Egyptian Museum, Giant’s Causeway Visitors’ Centre, the refurbishment of the National Gallery of Ireland Historic Wings and current projects include the Old Library redevelopment at Trinity College Dublin, Storm King Art Centre and a visitors’ centre at the Botanic Gardens Berlin.