Athlone Mayor discusses festival funding streams during Brussels visit

Town Mayor, Cllr Frankie Keena, and the chairman of the Athlone Festivals and Events Committee, Mr John Henson, attended the European Parliament in Brussels recently where they met with Midlands-North-West MEP Maria Walsh to discuss accessibility to funding streams for festivals in Athlone.

"The purpose of this self funded visit was to explore different avenues and mechanisms of accessing funding streams that may be available to festival groupings such as the Festival and Events Committee in Athlone," Cllr Keena said.

"We are very grateful to MEP, Ms Maria Walsh who agreed to meet with us, for the amount of time she gave to us, her hospitality and also for her eagerness to open up avenues with other groupings within the European Festivals arena. Physical, centrally located festival equipment and permanent infrastructural inputs into the streetscape to assist in preparing towns for upcoming festivals were of particular interest during our discussions with the MEP.

"We are indebted to Mr. Jim Mulkerrins, chairman, Feile na Sionnaine committee, for preparing a very professional brief that formed the basis of our discussion."

Mayor Keena, who also fulfils the role of secretary on the Athlone Festival & Events committee, noted the urgent need to source common resources and infrastructure that can be used by all local festival groups, he said.

"Thus, the purpose of the visit was to source information within the EU on any community funding that may be available to assist us on such matters.

"I would like to sincerely thank MEP, Ms. Maria Walsh for her time, her warm engagement, and her enthusiastic interest in all our queries on this matter. Various options were discussed as possibilities, and we are now looking forward to linking with her further on a follow up meeting in Athlone," Cllr Keena concluded.