Northern Ireland Screen has been managing the Irish Language Broadcast Fund (ILBF) since its inception in 2004 with the first television projects funded in March 2005. On Thursday, 26th February, a number of industry practitioners, former trainees and Irish language enthusiasts will gather in the Linen Hall Library to mark the achievements of the fund over the past 10 years.
To date almost 800 hours of content has been funded by the ILBF across a range of genres including drama, children’s content, animation, lifestyle and factual. The ILBF has become a critical tent-pole of the growing independent production sector in Northern Ireland contributing approximately £3.5 million in turnover to a sector that is worth approximately £20 million in total.
The ILBF has succeeded in putting Ulster Irish on television in a consistent way for the first time and creating an almost instant creative hub for Irish language production. The fund has also been instrumental in the development of a local low budget drama sector with series Seacht and Scúp. A notable achievement of the ILBF has been the introduction of programming for the full range of young audiences from cartoons and cookery through to participatory sports programmes and teen drama.
The successes of the Irish Language Broadcast Fund have been endorsed by various festivals and awards ceremonies. In 2007 the feature films ‘Kings’ was Ireland’s first ever submission to the Foreign Language category of the Academy Awards. ‘Kings’ also picked up the Special Irish Language Award at the Irish Film and Television Awards and a Torc Award at the Celtic Media Festival in 2008. Torc Awards went to preschool series ‘Na Dódaí’ in 2009 and teen drama ‘Seacht’ in 2009 and 2010. ‘Seacht’ and border documentary series ‘Teorainn’ were both nominated for IFTAs in 2010.
The ILBF has also provided or supported the training of around 200 Irish speakers across a range of areas including: apprentice style training in production and technical skills; post graduate training in media management, documentary practice and Irish medium script writing; short term training courses in producer based and technical skills.
The provision of production funding and training support over the past 10 years has ensured the growth of a sector that began with just five people working in it to the present day when around 15 production companies are supported by the ILBF.
Áine Walsh, Head of the Irish Language Broadcast Fund said: ‘We are very proud of what the ILBF has achieved to date, creating and growing the Irish speaking production sector from a standing start, and ensuring that local audiences can enjoy quality Irish language content across a range of genres and on a range of platforms. We hope to build on this success in the coming years to ensure a skilled workforce is continually available to carry on producing wonderful content that audiences can enjoy.’