Frank Berry is an award-winning Irish filmmaker whose path to feature films began with ten years of community filmmaking and television. This work led to the feature documentary Ballymun Lullaby (2011), which won the Directors Guild of America’s prestigious Finders Award and set him on a path of socially engaged filmmaking. He has since directed four acclaimed feature dramas, including the IFTA Best Film winner Michael Inside (2017) and Aisha (2022). Funded by BBC Film and Screen Ireland, Aisha premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival before its international theatrical release. Berry’s latest film, The Lost Children of Tuam (2026), produced by Liam Neeson and Element Pictures and starring Monica Dolan, won Best Irish Film at the 2026 Galway Film Fleadh before screening at the Toronto International Film Festival.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

For more than four decades Sheila de Courcy has been involved in telling stories, through words, photography, video and audio recordings. Her work has appeared on BBC and RTÉ television and radio as well as in Irish newspapers, anthologies published by Accidental and Bradt, and arts and travel journals. A former Producer/Director and Group Head of Young People’s in RTÉ and conservation assistant in the National Museum of Ireland, she has served on arts and journalism boards over the past 30 years and is currently Chair of the Steering Groups of the Animation and VFX Talent Academies and Culture & Creative Industries Skillnet.

John Lynch is founder and Design Director at Context Studio, an award-winning service design studio based in Dublin. His work applies design and creativity to help public bodies, businesses and non-profits create better outcomes for the people they serve. With a background in software development, John's career in design has taken him to Denmark, the UK and beyond, working with organisations ranging from global corporations to government departments and public services. Since founding Context Studio in 2018, he has focused on applying people-centred design approaches to complex societal and organisational challenges, particularly in the areas of public service innovation and transformation. John is a voluntary board director at the Institute of Designers in Ireland, former co-chair of Service Design Ireland, and served as a local leader for IXDA Dublin. He has contributed to advancing design within the Irish public sector through the Service Design in Government Working Group and as co-curator of the Design in Government: Impact for All conference 2022. He is passionate about the role creativity can play in improving services, strengthening communities and creating meaningful public value.

Fiona Kilkelly is Director of Ulster Screen Academy and Professor of Creative Industries at Ulster University, connecting Northern Ireland's screen sector talent and innovation pipeline with national and global opportunities. Fiona has been instrumental in building the UK's creative economy infrastructure for over 25 years, devising national strategies and technology innovation, business growth and talent development programmes such as the UKs Creative Industries Cluster programme and in her roles at NFTS as Head of Immersive, as Head of Creative Industries at Innovate UK and at Immerse UK, which she established in 2016. More recently, as Head of Enterprise & Commercialisation she devised and directed UK activity at CoSTAR National Lab as part of a £70 million UK Government investment in screen and performance, one of the most significant public commitments to UK creative sector innovation to date. Fiona has catalysed major public R&D investment through landmark industry reports that have set the evidence base for policy and investment across the sector, including the first ever UK Immersive Economy Reports (2018/19) and the Virtual Production Skills in the UK Reports (2021/22).

As Head of Insights & Strategy at THINKHOUSE, Claire Hyland leads The Youth Lab – the agency’s future-focused insights division that helps C-suite leaders drive organisational transformation through the lens of the next generation. With 20+ years’ experience across the UK, US, and Ireland, she blends cultural insight with creative strategy to unlock growth for ambitious global brands and organisations including Tourism Ireland, Keelings, AIB, CIE, Musgrave, Pernod Ricard, and Heineken. At THINKHOUSE – a B Corp and one of the world’s leading independent agencies renowned for bold, culturally-led work – she champions insight-driven ideas that are both impactful and sustainable.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Rick O’Shea is the presenter of RTE’s flagship Arts show Arena, weeknights on RTE Radio 1. He conducts public Arts interviews, curates literary events and runs Ireland’s largest online book club. He has been curator of the Waterford Writers Weekend, literary curator of the UCD Festival, and has previously been a book columnist with the Irish Independent. He has been a judge at the Costa Book Awards, Dalkey Literary Awards, Dublin Fringe, Choice Music Prize, and at the Irish Book Awards. Rick is the long-standing national patron of Epilepsy Ireland and is on the board of Fighting Words Northern Ireland. Photo Credit: Ruth Medjber

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Martina Chapman is usually found where policy, research and projects meet, especially around media and information literacy, media regulation, media freedom and countering disinformation. As an independent consultant, she has worked with the Council of Europe, the European Commission, the European Audiovisual Observatory, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe and UNESCO, as well as European regulatory bodies, public service media and media institutes. She is the National Coordinator of Media Literacy Ireland and the Be Media Smart campaign. She is a Council of Europe expert and also serves as a member of the EU Media Literacy Expert Group, the European Disinformation and Media Observatory Council, and the National Counter Disinformation Strategy Steering Committee. Previously, she served on the Council of Europe CDMSI sub-committee on Quality Journalism in the Digital Age (MSI-JOQ).

Deirdre Ní Choistín is Director General and Editor-in-Chief of TG4, Ireland’s national Irish-language public service media organisation. Appointed in 2025, she is the fourth person to lead TG4 since its establishment in 1996 and the first woman to hold the role. She has more than 25 years’ experience with TG4, having joined the organisation in 1999. During her career, she has held a range of roles across production, operations, communications, marketing, digital media, news and current affairs. She founded MOLSCÉAL, TG4’s online news and entertainment platform, in 2017. As Director General, her focus is on shaping TG4’s digital future, strengthening its distinctive public-service role and leading its response to changing audience needs, technology, distribution and the wider media landscape. She is ambitious in creating the conditions for creativity and innovation to flourish within TG4 and across the Irish-language and Gaeltacht creative sector, while sustaining TG4’s contribution to Irish culture, language and public life.

Ruth Medjber has been photographing since the age of three after being gifted a pink plastic camera by her parents. While in her honours year of a Bachelor of Arts (Photography) at Dublin Institute of Technology, Medjber regularly contributed to music magazines such as NME, Hot Press and Rolling Stone and subsequently became Ireland’s foremost contemporary live music and portrait photographer. Medjber’s music portfolio spans decades and includes all of the greats such as Grace Jones, Beyonce, Leonard Cohen, Metallica and the Foo Fighters. Most recently she has been documenting Hozier on his world tour, as well as covering the Glastonbury Festival for the BBC. In 2020, when the music industry was paused by covid19, Medjber began taking portraits of people at home through their windows in a series titled "Twilight Together". This body of work, now published as a best-selling book by Penguin, became one of the most iconic portrait series of our time. You can find Ruth’s column in the Independent Newspaper each week and see her photographic work regularly exhibited in galleries such as Photo Museum Ireland.​​​

Des Carey began his film career as an apprentice to George Lucas and has spent more than three decades working at the forefront of feature film and television production and technology. An accomplished entertainment technology and production executive, Des has worked with many of the industry’s most influential filmmakers, including Steven Spielberg, Brian De Palma, Oliver Stone, Michael Bay, Gore Verbinski, David Fincher, Steven Soderbergh, J.J. Abrams and Robert Zemeckis. His expertise spans Physical Production, Virtual Production, Visual Effects, Animation, Script Development, Budget Analysis, Tax Incentives and Post-Production. He has designed and produced the digital finishing of more than 100 major Hollywood feature films, his credits include “Blade Runner 2049”, “The Star Wars Trilogy – Special Edition”, “Pirates of the Caribbean”, “Watchmen”, “Mission: Impossible 3”, “Quantum of Solace” and “John Wick”. While at Lucasfilm, Des was a pioneering figure in the development of what became known as the Digital Intermediate process, helping establish a workflow that transformed modern feature film and television production. In 2012, Des was named one of the “Hollywood 50,” recognizing the entertainment industry’s most influential technology innovators.

A Singaporean-Irish illustrator and muralist based in Dublin, Ireland, Holly Pereira creates bold, colourful work that transforms spaces and invites people to engage with their environment. Working across murals, illustration, lettering and animation, her practice is rooted in a fascination with colour, form, typography, and the ways visual language can shape how we experience a place. Her work brings energy and character to walls across Ireland and internationally, often using large-scale colour and graphic forms to create environments that feel playful, welcoming and alive. Lettering and typography often sit at the heart of her illustration practice. By combining words with imagery, she creates work that communicates with clarity and impact—using language not simply as text, but as a visual form in its own right. Pereira studied Fine Art and Animation in Dublin, developing a practice that moves fluidly between the static and the moving, the personal and the public. She is also a proud member of The Minaw Collective, an Ireland-based collective of muralists, street artists and graffiti artists. Photo Credit: Ruth Mejdber

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Ray O’Donoghue is Dublin City’s Night-Time Economy Advisor, leading work to support and develop a safer, more diverse and culturally vibrant city after dark. Since taking up the role in 2024, he has led the development of Dublin’s first Night-Time Economy Strategy and worked across culture, music, hospitality, transport, public safety and city planning. His work includes initiatives such as Dublin by Dusk, Dublin Nights and the city’s Help Zone, alongside supporting hundreds of cultural events and projects across Dublin. Ray has spent his working life in and around Ireland’s creative and cultural sectors, beginning as an actor before going on to work as a musician, DJ, promoter and record-label owner. He later spent 13 years as Festival Director of Sea Sessions Surf & Music Festival. That experience — from creating and promoting culture to shaping city policy — now informs his work exploring how creativity and innovative thinking can influence cities and how people experience them after dark.

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Dagogo Hart is a Nigerian-Irish writer, director, poet and performer working across theatre, film and live performance. His work is rooted in character-led storytelling and often explores masculinity, migration, grief, faith, family and Black Irish identity. He is the co-founder of WeAreGriot and co-founder of Belema Art House, an independent production company developing original theatre, film and live experiences. Recent work includes MUSTER at Dublin Fringe Festival, Mmanwu, the short film GNIB, and PALMFIST, developed with Arts Council support. Alongside his artistic practice, Dagogo has extensive experience in participatory arts and creative facilitation, working with young people and communities across Ireland through schools, festivals, arts organisations and community partners.​​​​

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  Aoife Barry is a writer, freelance arts journalist and weekly columnist for the Sunday Times. Her 2023 book on social media, Social Capital (HarperCollins Ireland) was nominated for an Irish Book Award. She has had bylines across various publications including the Irish Times, the Irish Independent, Tatler, The Journal and Irish Examiner. She features regularly on RTÉ Radio One and Today FM and her essays and fiction have been published by ROPES journal and Banshee, and broadcast on Sunday Miscellany. Alongside fellow journalist Lauren Murphy she co-presents the arts and culture podcast Get Around To It. 

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Will Sliney is an Irish comic book artist and television presenter who began his career in comic books before moving into show creation and directing. He spent over a decade working as an artist for Marvel Comics, contributing to titles such as Spider-Man 2099, The Amazing Spider-Man, Fearless Defenders, and various Star Wars projects. Sliney now creates, hosts, and directs art-focused children's TV programs and animations. His original creator-owned comic series, The Shrouded College was optioned by Seth McFarlane's Fuzzy Door for Universal.

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Catherine Martin served in the Irish government as Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media from 2020 to 2025, during which time she led and delivered significant reforms to how the arts in Ireland were supported and funded. She introduced the groundbreaking Basic Income for the Arts pilot scheme and secured and delivered funding to many other innovative initiatives that placed creators’ wellbeing, pay and sustainability at the centre of cultural policy. Catherine is the former Deputy Leader of the Green Party in Ireland and was their lead negotiator in the Programme for Government talks in 2020. She has recently been appointed as Head of Policy, Ireland with The Ivors Academy where she intends to focus on increasing protection, empowerment and celebration of songwriters and composers across the island of Ireland. Catherine is also an Arts Strategic Consultant advising arts organisations on strategy, positioning and funding. Photo Credit: Louise Haywood Schiefer

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