This year’s winners show how partnerships can preserve history, strengthen cultural identity, and create spaces for artists to thrive
Last night, the 33rd annual Business to Arts Awards took place in the National Concert Hall, celebrating the outstanding achievements of partnerships between businesses and arts organisations. These collaborations highlight the role of creativity in preserving heritage, fostering a sense of belonging, and creating spaces in which artists and communities can flourish.
More than 500 business and arts leaders gathered to recognise the 2025 winners who have set a new standard for how corporate engagement can shape cultural infrastructure and honour our shared histories and futures.
In the first of a three-part series, we explore the projects that are weaving Ireland’s stories into the spaces where art is imagined, created, and shared.
Among them is the major arts partnership award winner, Xestra Asset Management and Dublin City Council Arts Office, whose Artane Artist Studios initiative has significantly transformed the creative landscape on Dublin’s Northside. Providing 12 new dedicated workspaces for local professional artists, these studios mark the crucial first step in an ambitious plan to establish 60 studios across the city under the broader Space to Create initiative.
This initiative aims to address the acute shortage of affordable workspace for artists, responding directly to a need that had been identified by the arts community and policymakers alike. Beyond this provision, the project carries deep significance for the local community, honouring the legacy of the Stardust nightclub tragedy. The partnership involved close engagement with survivors and their families, ensuring that the studios are not only functional creative hubs but also places of remembrance and respect.
The judges praised the partnership for its strong strategic direction and clearly aligned mutual goals, noting its sensitive and meaningful engagement with the Stardust community as a defining strength of the collaboration. This project exemplifies how arts infrastructure can be deeply embedded in local history, creating spaces where artistic creation and community memory intersect.
The enduring relationship between literature and place found fresh expression through the small arts partnership award winner, Clinch Wealth Management and ANU Productions, Landmark Productions, and the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI).
Their immersive staging of The Dead, based on James Joyce’s classic short story, transported audiences to 1920s Dublin, recreating the atmosphere of the narrative within the walls of MoLI. The production’s attention to historical detail—period costumes, authentic props, and a setting steeped in literary history—created a transportive experience.
For many attendees, it was a first encounter with a live performance outside a traditional theatre setting, allowing them to connect with the story in an unusually intimate way. The judges commended the project as a traditional sponsorship model that delivered high impact returns for the business partner, while enabling the arts partners to fully leverage its network to expand the production’s reach.
Another cultural space is celebrated in the partnership between The Irish Times long-term partnership award winners Henry J Lyons and Temple Bar Gallery and Studios. Since 2017, the architecture practice has supported the Dublin Art Book Fair. The fair brings together artists, publishers, and the public in a space where visual culture and print intersect, enabling new audiences to engage with the book as a creative object while sustaining an artform that bridges the visual and literary worlds.
This partnership is a study in relationship building—Henry J Lyons has remained a constant supporter as the fair has grown in scale and reputation. The judges highlighted the partners’ enduring commitment to their community of art book lovers and their role in driving the fair’s remarkable growth over the years, noting how their backing has helped the fair become a fixture in Ireland’s cultural calendar.
Commemoration also took centre stage in the Jim McNaughton/TileStyle best commissioning practice award, presented to Drogheda Port Company and artist Emily McCormack for Brig Manley. Part of the port’s two-decade-long art programme, the commission tells the story of the 1871 shipwreck through painting and music. Unveiled at the site of the tragedy and accompanied by a live performance of a commemorative song, the work has deepened community ties to Drogheda’s maritime heritage.
Beyond its historical content, the project demonstrates how art can make history tangible and emotionally resonant, encouraging intergenerational storytelling and local pride. Judges noted the project’s powerful combination of heritage and storytelling, reflecting the port’s long-standing approach to commissioning art and its strong relationship with a local artist.
Peter McGovern, of Henry J. Lyons and Cliodhna Shaffrey of TBG+S promoting the 2019 Dublin Art Book Fair. Photo Credit: Naoise Culhane
These four winning partnerships present a compelling case for the role of art in shaping how we inhabit our shared spaces. They exemplify what becomes possible when business and the arts collaborate with clear purpose and shared values.
Whether transforming disused buildings into vibrant studios, reimagining literary classics within historic sites, fostering niche cultural gatherings, or memorialising local histories through public art, each project has left a lasting imprint on the physical and cultural fabric of its community. They remind us that heritage is not static or confined to archives, but a living force—one that must be actively nurtured and shared.
For arts organisations, these collaborations unlock ambition and scale; for businesses, they foster deep connection, brand integrity, and impact in ways few other investments can. In a values-driven world, investing in the arts is not only a cultural contribution, it is a strategic act of leadership. Together, these partnerships ensure that Ireland’s past continues to inspire the creativity of the present and the future.
Speaking about the significance of all nominated partnerships, Louise O’Reilly, chief executive of Business to Arts, says, “What we celebrate tonight is far more than sponsorship — it is shared vision and shared value. The partnerships recognised at the Business to Arts Awards 2025 show how creativity, when backed by business leadership, becomes a catalyst for inclusion, sustainability, and long-term social impact.”
The Business to Arts Awards continue to celebrate impactful partnerships between the corporate and cultural sectors in Ireland. This year’s winners exemplify how businesses and arts organisations can work together to address societal issues, promote inclusivity, and bring the arts to diverse communities. In the next part of this series, we look at projects that are transforming access to the arts, deepening inclusion, and connecting with communities in innovative ways—demonstrating that the most enduring cultural legacies are built when creativity is made available to all.
