Galway’s Macnas Theatre company is one of six organisations that have been awarded Government funding to produce creative initiatives for children and young people living throughout the island of Ireland.

The other groups are Music Generation, Fighting Words, Narrative 4, Extern Northern Ireland and Tallaght Community Arts.

A total of €1,070,112 has been allocated to the groups under the Shared Island dimension of the Government’s Creative Ireland programme.

Macnas received funding for Future Parade, which will involve young people from Belfast and Galway coming together for a series of workshops and residential experiences to create parades that celebrate their collective creativity.

The other projects include mythical story exchanges, residential musical hot houses, story-telling and interactive theatre performances.

The scheme brings children and young people from across the island together to take part in creative projects with the aim of nurturing collaboration, understanding and hope,.

The six successful projects were created as a result of direct consultation with children and young people

They also include Living Legends, a cross-border storytelling project which draws inspiration from the mythical landscape of the Aran Islands and the Giant’s Causeway. That’s led by Narrative 4, a group that uses storytelling to create empathy, shatter stereotypes and breakdown barriers.

Fighting Words, which was co-founded by Roddie Doyle in 2009 to help people develop their writing skills, and which operates throughout Ireland, including in Rosmuc and in Galway City, will present Creative Connections – Shared Writing Across the Island. This will engage children and young people aged 15-24 from communities all over Ireland, through creative writing initiatives, including scriptwriting, poetry, prose and songwriting.

Pictured: Members of Macnas Youth Theatre who will be part of the company’s Future Parade project. Back row; Keira Kelly (left) and Ava Mc Grath. Front; Isobel Koppe, Enya Eglite and Heather Mc Kenzie.