Fingal Arts Office in partnership with Age & Opportunity and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre announce the 2026 recipients of the Tyrone Guthrie Residency for an Artist 50 years +
Fingal County Council Arts Office in partnership with Age & Opportunity and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre have announced two Fingal residency recipients for 2026; visual artist Emma Fitzpatrick and writer Deborah Grimes.
The Fingal residency offers an opportunity to a professional visual artist and a professional writer over the age of 50 to develop their practice, by creating time and space to think, reflect and develop new work. These residencies aim to celebrate and support older artists at all stages of their careers working in literature and visual arts. The successful recipients receive a two-week long residency, including a small stipend.
The residency will take place in the prestigious Tyrone Guthrie Centre, a cross-border organisation that offers time away, space to work, and opportunities for collaboration and networking for artists that facilitates the development of their practice across all art forms.
Age & Opportunity is the national organisation working to enhance wellbeing for older people through arts and creative engagement, participation in sport and physical activity, personal development, community collaboration and active citizenship.
Deputy Arts Officer for Fingal County Council, Síle Stewart, commented "This fantastic partnership with Age & Opportunity provides a unique residency for Fingal artists over the age of 50 to develop their work and practice in the idyllic setting of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre. This residency will provide each of them the time and space to focus on their practices."
Dr. Tara Byrne, Arts Programme Manager at Age & Opportunity said, “Fingal continues to be a place where creativity flourishes, and it is essential that artists over 50 are given opportunities to grow, create, and have their work recognised. We are proud to support artists at this stage of their careers and to help ensure their work remains visible and valued."
Deborah Grimes said "I'm so grateful to Fingal Arts for this opportunity. Getting to spend time at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre is such a gift and I'm looking forward to immersing myself in my projects in such a unique creative setting."
Emma Fitzpatrick commented "I am deeply grateful to have been selected for the Fingal County Council, Age & Opportunity and Tyrone Guthrie Centre Residency Award 2026. Having this dedicated time and space to develop new work, away from everyday demands, is an invaluable gift for any artist. I am particularly looking forward to working in the print studio and immersing myself in the beautiful, historic surroundings of Annaghmakerrig. A huge thank you to everyone involved in making this award possible and for their continued support of artists over 50."
Notes to the Editor
About the Artists:
Emma Fitzpatrick is an Irish fine art printmaker based in Dublin. Her work explores landscape, time, and human presence through monotype and etching, rooted in the remote natural landscapes of Ireland's west coast. She is a member of Black Church Print Studio, Dublin, and Leicester Print Workshop, UK.
She has exhibited widely across the UK and more recently in Ireland, with selected exhibitions including Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, Bankside Gallery, the Royal Society of British Artists, Royal West of England Academy, Society of Women Artists, Ty Pawb, Tarpey Gallery, Ballinglen Arts Foundation and the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin.
She has received grants from Arts Council England and most recently was awarded a Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council Professional Development Arts Grant 2026 to develop her etching skills. Residencies at Cill Rialaig Arts Centre and Brisons Veor have been central to her engagement with remote landscape and mark-making. Outdoor sketching is integral to her work process. She founded the Leicester Chapter of Urban Sketchers, a global drawing community, and her location-based drawing feeds directly into the studio work.
Deborah Grimes:
Deborah's first foray into screenwriting came in 2014 with the Irish-language short Lá Bréa Chuige (TG4/ROSG). In 2019, she directed an English language short, The Yellow Dress, which screened at over 50 international festivals and picked up several awards. In 2020, her feature screenplay Oileán, a historical drama, received Screen Ireland script development funding though by then, she had begun to reimagine it as a novel. Building on that, Deborah wrote The Promised Land as a novel and this past summer, she began writing the screenplay, after its selection at Stowe Story Labs.
Other projects include Noah’s Return, adapted as a novel with plans to return to the screenplay; A Becoming in Paris, her first work of fiction set in Paris, which she hopes to develop as a TV series. Ceiliúradh, a short Irish-language script, is being developed as a theatre piece.
About Age & Opportunity
Age & Opportunity is the national organisation working to enhance wellbeing for older people through participation in sport and physical activity, arts and creative engagement, personal development, community collaboration and active citizenship. We envision a society where all older people can be active, visible, creative, connected and confident about ageing.
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