Droichead exists to put arts at the heart of people’s lives and ambitions in Drogheda, East Meath and Louth.
Established in 1989, Droichead Arts Centre is a multi-disciplinary centre in the heart of Drogheda Town that provides an extensive curated arts and cultural programme. The Centre is housed over two buildings: Stockwell Street, which hosts a modern 169-seater theatre and a bright contemporary visual arts gallery, and Barlow House, an 18th century Georgian style townhouse, which hosts artist’s spaces and print studios.
Droichead actively supports artists and arts organisations, and particularly those in or from the North East region, through residencies, bursaries and other bespoke development support. Droichead is equally committed to its audiences, with people of all ages, backgrounds, cultures and traditions encouraged and enabled to engage with the Centre through a wide variety of responsive and imaginative schemes and initiatives. Droichead is also proud to host and be a key resource for very many local community, voluntary and amateur groups.
The work of Droichead is supported and amplified by its participation in key networks including NOMAD, the North East Network, Louth Creative Ireland and The Live Network, by its affiliation with festivals such as Cruinniú na nÓg, and Drogheda Arts Festival and by its partnership with other cultural providers including Drogheda Classical Music and Drogheda Traditional Music and Singing Weekend.
Droichead curates and produces a compelling programme of work that supports artists, and nurtures audiences. This is at the heart of who we are and what we do. It is why we exist. To put the arts at the heart of peoples’ lives we need to ensure two things. We need to take care to create a programme that is of interest and relevant to all those within our many, diverse communities. We also need to enable artists to make work of ambition. As such, we must be part of an ecology which nurtures art and artists, and which makes the production and presentation of high-quality work available. We do this by curating a coherent programme that considers our current and future audiences and advances our ambitions to be relevant to our many, diverse communities. Creating a suite of artist development supports including residence programmes, awards and bursaries. We undertake commissions and provide opportunities to showcase work. We produce discrete projects across all genres independently and in collaboration with others. We will continue to extend our local, national and international creative alliances and partnerships focussing on long term initiatives that advance our ambitions for artists and our communities. Whilst the programme is curated by our Director, Collette Farrell, we also work with various external curators across many of our programmes including our Visual Arts Curator in Residence, Dorothy Smith; Dani Gill for Literature and the Live Network, and SJ McArdle, and Brian Hegarty/33-45 on our music programmes.
For more information on our programme, and our artists supports, please email collette.farrell@droichead.com
Our Buildings:
Droichead Arts Centre, Stockwell St.
At our venue on Stockwell Street you will find a contemporary gallery, 169 seater intimate theatre, café bar and our box office services. It is located next to the Library in Drogheda Municipal Centre.
Theatre
Our theatre is an intimate space featuring a large stage area (W7.57m, L10.35m and H5m) and comfortable 169 fixed rake seating. Technical Specifications Here, and hyperlinked to tech page
Gallery
A large and bright exhibition space with lighting from both the skyline and adjacent windows. The gallery leads off the box office area and is easily accessible to the public. Gallery Specifications are available here
Café Bar
The centre has a small café bar, with a theatre licence where we serve pre show and interval refreshments for our audience to enjoy. We can also host poetry readings, talks and small acoustic music events in the space, as well as making it available for workshops and rehearsals for associated programmes and artists.
Droichead Arts Centre, Barlow House
Built in 1734 and purchased by Droichead in 1999 this beautiful Georgian building still exhibits much of its original features. Designated by both An Foras Forbartha and the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage with their highest status as of ‘National’ importance.
Barlow House hosts offices for our administration and marketing staff. We also have four artist studios in the basement, where associate artists and recipients of our Droichead bursaries can work from for a period of 6-8 months. We also have meeting rooms, and rehearsal rooms available for hire. For more information contact info@droichead.com
History of Barlow House
A five bay town house constructed in 1734 within the walls of the western barbican, the design is attributed to the Neo-Palladian builder Richard Castle, a German draughtsman and Francis Bindon, the Munster architect and portrait painter. The building was commissioned by Alderman James Barlow, a merchant and active participant in the corporation. It served as his family home which he shared with Althamia Leigh and their six children. To the front of the house there were formal sculpted gardens leading down to the river and this fact is supported by several maps of the period including Revels map.
Night Moves Culture Late Trail/Map
An innovative FREE late-night programme produced by Droichead Arts Centre, funded by The Arts Council, Drogheda’s Nighttime Economy Advisor and the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport, in
partnership with several promoters, curators, and artists across Drogheda.