A total of seven grants were awarded in 2025:

• Maeve Cadden

Maeve is in her third year of the MA Museum Practice and Management programme at Ulster University. She is Curator of the Inniskillings Museum and is actively involved in the development of Untold, a forthcoming museum dedicated to sharing stories of the Irish in the British Army.

The grant will support Maeve’s research project which critically evaluates how the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) is represented in public museums. It explores the influence of historiography and curatorial approaches to contested heritage (particularly in relation to the Troubles) on current representations of the Regiment. The project also includes a review of existing UDR collections in public museums across the United Kingdom and Ireland and incorporates perspectives from the UDR community through engagement with advocacy groups. The findings will ultimately provide recommendations for future museum practice within this context.

• Alice Cusan

Alice is a Collections Assistant at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, working with medical instruments and materia medica collections. She is also a PhD candidate at the University of Aberdeen, researching the care, curation, display, and ethical interpretation of human remains in Italian museum collections. 

The grant will support Alice’s participation in a series of international academic and professional conferences, providing opportunities to share her research findings, engage in interdisciplinary dialogue, and strengthen international networks in the fields of museum studies, anthropology, and heritage ethics.

• Lloyd Eaton

Lloyd is a Senior Living Historian and Tour Guide with ten years experience in public engagement in the archaeology and history of Viking and Medieval Dublin. 

Lloyd’s objectives are to research, educate and disseminate information on Dublin’s Viking and Medieval archaeology and history. The grant will support Lloyd’s Visitor Experience Microscopy Project which puts visitors at the centre of engagement by using a digital microscope and large screen to present rarely seen or appreciated features of artefacts directly associated with Viking and Medieval Dublin to a broad audience.

• Dr Paul O’Keeffe

Paul is the Head of Education and Research at Airfield Estate, a 38-acre urban working farm in Dundrum that provides and promotes sustainable agriculture and food education. He is an expert on the role education plays in connecting communities and driving development.

Tastes of Time: Airfield’s Food Story: Paul receives the grant to assist his project that explores the history of food production and consumption at Airfield Estate within the broader context of Irish food heritage. The project will create a “How-To” manual for conducting Leaving Certificate History report research and a curriculum aligned educational tour on the history of food at Airfield Estate.

• Rachael Kelly Ryder

Rachael is an artist, researcher, and filmmaker. Her practice spans experimental documentary, participatory projects, sculpture and printed matter. In 2023 and 2024, she created three moving image works documenting the Irish diaspora in Scotland and other diasporic communities in Glasgow, screened at the CCA Glasgow cinema, Market Gallery and Transmission Gallery. 

Rachael is currently completing a practice-based PhD at the Glasgow School of Art and National Library of Scotland Moving Image Archive, exploring Irish emigration and immigration histories through archival research, a documentary film and a public programme.  The Grant will support Rachael’s project which looks to the past to learn from earlier histories of forced displacement, prompted by the current global refugee crisis. It seeks to engage with Irish national archives, community archives, and UK-wide archives to identify and develop creative methods for engaging with hidden histories. 

• Mary Plunkett

Mary is a designer and printmaker, specialising in letterpress and book arts. She has facilitated workshops and worked on a number of projects with the National Print Museum since 2012. In 2019 she joined the staff as Education Officer.

The grant will fund Mary to attend the annual conference of the Association of European Printing Museums (AEPM) at The Centre for Printing History and Culture, Winterbourne House, Birmingham. While attending the conference it will also be possible to visit Winterbourne Press, Winterbourne Typographic Library and attend the annual Whittington Press Open Day to meet with practitioners and visit a working letterpress establishment.   The AEPM shares knowledge, experience, initiatives, and resources in all fields of the graphic arts as they have been practised from the time of Gutenberg until the present day. 

• Eithne Verling

Eithne is Director at the Galway City Museum. 

The grant will support desk research & UK study visits to design a social-care engagement model for the museum.