€1m Diageo Digout Delights D8
Patrick Ryan reports on a five-year-long community fund by Guinness owners which will make a big difference at local level.
Are you a community group, local charity, or non-profit organisation based in Dublin 8 – and could you use some extra funding?
Then read on because as the headline says there is a million euros up for grabs!
Diageo Ireland, Guinness and The Guinness Storehouse has announced details of a five-year, €1 million investment programme in this part of the capital.
Under the Guinness Dublin 8 Community Fund grants will be based on enhancement of adult educational opportunities and outcomes for the local communities, fostering community development, and addressing themes of sustainability and climate.
Sums of €2,500, €20,000 and €75,000 will be awarded, and the fund will allocate €500,000 to recipients in year one, supported by €125,000 in the following years until 2030.
Organisers say that proceeds from last May’s Lovely Days Live at the Home of Guinness, a three-day celebration of music, food, and culture featuring Fontaines DC, CMAT, Lankum, BIIRD, and DJ Barry Can’t Swim to celebrate the Storehouse’s 25th anniversary, are included in the total, further helped by sales of merchandise from Fontaines DC.
The rest of the money is coming directly from Diageo Ireland, Guinness and the Storehouse. The centre is one of the island’s most popular tourist sites, attracting 1.65 million visitors from 200 countries to Thomas Street last year, a 10 percent increase on 2023.
There are a long list of positives in Dublin 8, and many success stories. Community spirit among the roughly 50,000 people here, a population comparable to Drogheda or Waterford City, is seen as among the strongest in the capital but the area also has problems, and that’s something which goes back centuries with chronic deprivation and poor health issues highlighted by campaigners since Victorian times.
Even today studies show that communities like those in Oliver Bond Street, Usher’s Street, Teresa’s Gardens, Bridgefoot Street, Basin Street, James’s Avenue and the Dolphin House area for example have a significantly higher percentage of people leaving school without qualifications and a lower number of residents going on to third level education than almost any other place in Ireland.
There’s a younger age profile than the national average too. Dublin 8 boasts a larger proportion of citizens between the ages of 20 – 39 than is typical, while about one third of our residents were born outside the country.
Thankfully good work continues to be done throughout the community by volunteers to provide services of all sorts, particularly for young people, delivering a positive focus for their energy and drawing them away from bad influences that are all too prevalent today.
However this needs ongoing investment. This announcement from Diageo will make a difference in Dublin 8 over the next decade.
“It’s is a real boost, and particularly noteworthy that the Community Fund is from Guinness, a company which has supported, and been supported by, local people for over 250 years,” says Eoghan Brunkard, a manager with the Dublin 8 Newswire’s parent organisation, Fountain Resource Group Ltd, which coordinates a wide variety of programmes impacting places like the Liberties, Inchicore, Kilmainham, Portobello, and Dolphins Barn.
“We’re never short of goodwill from volunteers, and people step up to help on the ground. But soaring costs are making everyone’s life more difficult, and we feel the pinch too,” he admits.
“I know from talking to people in other organisations here the story is much the same, and we’ll all be applying to this new fund to help meet commitments to our friends and neighbours for 2026 and beyond.”
Applications for this new initiative close at 11.59pm on Monday, November 24th, with winners announced and money awarded in late January of next year. Full details on eligibility and terms and conditions are on the Community Foundation Ireland website: www.communityfoundation.ie/
Go n-éirí libh!
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