INTRODUCTION
Having struggled with the formal education system in my own youth, I tumbled back into it as a workplace during my time at Upstate Theatre (1997-2010) when the company developed partnerships with Dundalk Institute of Technology and later New York University. After leaving Upstate I Joined the NYU study abroad faculty in my own right and at the same time was appointed to a two-term contract as Creative Director of the BA Connect in Applied Drama, Film and Creative Writing, a finite pilot programme at NUI Galway. I spent two fruitful Winter Semesters commuting weekly from my North Dublin home to the amazing cultural city that is Galway, at which point the scheme ended, and with it my brief time as a university professor in Ireland!
However, I have continued to work regularly in education with NYU, the Teacher-Artist Parnership (Primary School) programme and since 2018 as a Creative Associate on the Creative Schools programme.
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
Since 2006, I have worked on postgraduate Dublin Study Abroad programmes of New York University as a tutor and project leader in “Writing and Devising for Community-Engaged Theatre”. The students now come every two years to the Trinity College Dublin campus, where pre-Covid it was an annual programme with a North-South dimension. It is always a time of renewal and excitement.
TEACHER ARTIST PARTNERSHIP PROGRAMME
Although I had worked occasionally in youth drama with young adults, I had never worked with primary school age children until 2015 when, as part of a short residency at the Boathouse Artist Studio in my own village of Loughshinny, I was invited to run a series of drama and environment workshops with St Brendan’s National School. This opened a whole new door to me and I discovered a great love for working with teachers and children, many coming to the contemporary and collaborative performing arts for the first time.
This led me to undertake training under the Dept of Education and Skills “Teacher Artist Partnership” training programme in 2016. I now deliver T.A.P. training to primary school teachers and artists in County Monaghan and more recently at Drumcondra Education Centre (DCU campus) each July or August.
In 2016, arising from the training I partnered with principal Fiona Coll at the small, 3-teacher St. Dympna’s National School in the village of Tydavnet in County Monaghan. Together we worked with children in 4th, 5th and 6th classes (ages 9-12) who created their own wonderful drama entitled “One Day in Gorgals”, a fantastical tale of life in a rural village. Arts Minister Heather Humphrey’s attended the performance given at the school for the local community, a day of joy to conclude a term of exciting creativity in the classroom.
In 2025-26 I will return to a TAP project as a drama artist within a school (as distinct from a trainer) and I am excited to be partnering with teacher and visual artist Aoife Bambury at St. Anne’s NS in Ardclough, Co. Kildare.
Independently, at second level, I have also worked on drama projects in St. Oliver’s Community School in Drogheda, partnering teacher Barbara Carr; and at Beech Hill College in Monaghan which is a designated Creative School, where I linked with Joanne Brennan, a teacher and noted youth arts activist.
CREATIVE SCHOOLS
In 2018, I was appointed to the panel of Creative Associates on the newly-launched Creative Schools Programme.
As described on the Arts Council website, “Creative Schools is a flagship initiative of the Creative Ireland Programme to enable the creative potential of every child. It is led by the Arts Council in partnership with the Department of Education and Skills and the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht.”
With The Voice of the Child at its core, the programme seeks to “establish a range of collaborative opportunities for schools and will develop and strengthen the relationships between schools and the broader cultural and community infrastructure within which they operate.”
Every school in the programme is assigned a Creative Associate for two years. “Creative Associates are artists, creative practitioners and/or educators with an understanding of the arts and creativity and its potential to transform the lives of children and young people. Creative Associates match the needs of schools to arts and creative opportunities in their locality.”
For my first two years on the programme, I was assigned to three primary schools in the Louth/Meath area. Since then I have continued with a mix of primary and secondary schools in Dublin, Fingal, Meath and Monaghan. I have been privileged to meet and work with hundreds of children, young people and their teachers, as each of these schools has built gradually towards self-sufficiency as creative hubs in which children are encouraged to understand and then make decisions about their own artistic and creative lives. In the course of this work I have connected with a number of visual and musical artists who have in turn taken up residencies within the schools.
In November 2019, I accompanied teacher Marietta Graham Reynolds and artist Pamela Whitaker to the National Arts in Education Portal day at NUI Galway where we presented and led a workshop based on the methods developed with the children at Tullyallen NS.
sample Images – by kind permission of the schools involved – are
(top to bottom – all 2019 )
from Bunscoil Buachaillí Réalt na Mara; Sandpit National School and Tullyallen National School.
Ⓒ Images may not be reproduced without permission.
New departures 2024
OIDE CREATIVITY
Since January 2024, I have been working on design teams for two exciting new secondary school, Junior Cert training and engagement initiatives, with OIDE CREATIVITY, (Dept of Education and Science): “Play in a Day” and “TAP for Junior Cycle”.
JOURNALS ETC
I am pleased to have an had an essay “LEARNING TO LISTEN” included in the “REFLECTIONS ON YOUTH VOICE” publication (Arts Council Creative Schools 2024).
Declan Gorman 