Background
Creative Ireland is a culture and wellbeing programme with the stated ambition of inspiring people, places and communities through creativity. It is an initiative of the Irish government, and is supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. It is a public programme and is unique to Ireland.
Cruinniú na nÓg (which translates as ‘Gathering of Youth’) is an initiative of the Creative Ireland Programme’s Creative Youth Plan. Its purpose is intended to enable the creative potential of children and young people. The first Cruinniú na nÓg took place in 2018 and since then, young people and families have come together to enjoy a wide range of creative activities, from workshops and tutorials to recitals and readings across the country.
Our project
In 2025, Clare Museum’s contribution to Cruinniú na nÓg was a sketching workshop on site at the museum. Entitled ‘Sketch Hunters’, it was aimed at eight to 12-year-olds and it was held on a Saturday morning. These children were invited to discover, observe and draw artefacts on display in the first-floor gallery of the museum, which was closed to the rest of the public for the event’s two-hour duration. Under the guidance of visual artist and facilitator Leigh O’Connell, a total of 15 children were shown how to draw objects using charcoal. They were then invited to find an object they liked on display, to use as inspiration for a creative drawing.
Items on display that were available to stimulate creativity included samples from the Clare embroidery collection, objects from our Irish War of Independence exhibition, archaeological objects on loan from the National Museum of Ireland, musical instruments, and sporting objects. The museum provided the sketching materials, and crucially, plenty of seating and clip boards to facilitate the artists, though some chose to sketch on the floor or to rest against flat topped showcases.
Conclusion
The event was very popular with the public and was over-subscribed – we had only intended catering for twelve participants. However, the museum was fortunate to have an excellent facilitator who was easy to collaborate with and was very capable in her work with children.
While this Cruinniú na nÓg project was, it is hoped, to the benefit of the children who participated, ‘Sketch Hunters’ was also beneficial to the museum. It provided a new way for the museum to use the collection for the public benefit, something we are obliged to do as recipients of public money. It also allowed us to serve a demographic during the summer holidays that would normally only visit the museum in numbers during an organized school visit. As a result, we intend holding similar sketching events again, hopefully before the end of the summer.
The sketches made by the children will be displayed in the museum. You can see a few of them below.
