Advisory Committee on Women’s Stories

In March 2024, the then Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Catherine Martin T.D., established a new Advisory Committee focusing on the representation of women and women’s stories in the context of the national cultural institutions and the national collections. The committee is examining how the diverse experiences and voices of women are represented within the national cultural institutions and the national collections. As part of its work, the Advisory Committee will consider the possibility of creating a dedicated presentation of women’s stories through a range of options, which may include a women’s museum, a re-imagining of the national collections, or other initiatives.

Minister Martin appointed Dr Sandra Collins, University Librarian in University College Dublin and former Director of the National Library of Ireland, to chair the Advisory Committee.

The role of the Advisory Committee is to advise the Minister on appropriate policy recommendations. The Committee is fully independent and autonomous in its work and deliberations. It is not the Advisory Committee’s intention to focus on individual stories about specific historical or contemporary women, but rather to make clear and actionable policy recommendations to advance the representation of women.

The Terms of Reference of the Advisory Committee are:

• Identification of best practice models within cultural policy internationally that can support the National Cultural Institutions to ensure that women’s stories are appropriately reflected in the presentation of cultural heritage.

• Mapping of key stakeholders at the national, all-island and international level.

• Engaging with stakeholders from a broad set of professional and representative groups and community organisations as part of the further development of the terms of reference.

• Engagement with stakeholders to identify best practice in the representation of women’s stories through cultural experiences, including measures created by and for historically marginalised women (e.g. Traveller women, women with disabilities, women of African or migrant descent and LGBTQI+ women).

• Reference to current and past activity in relation to this area within Ireland.

• Oversight of the establishment of a review of the National Collections to identify gaps in the representation of women and women’s stories, including within the collections. Such a review may reflect diversity on other grounds in addition to gender, in particular on the grounds of race (including ethnicity and national origin), membership of the Traveller community, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation, and socio-economic status.

• Undertaking a review of the results of this review, assessing any gaps and developing proposals to address such omissions. This may include identifying opportunities through acquisitions, exhibitions and educational programmes.

• Examining the opportunity to create a dedicated presentation of women’s stories within the context of the National Cultural Institutions and National Collections, in line with the requirements of the Infrastructure Guidelines.

• Preparing, as appropriate, recommendations to the Minister on actions to support the implementation of the policy advice.

The Advisory Committee is due to report on its work during 2025.

For queries relating to the work of the Advisory Committee on Women’s Stories, please contact womensstories@tcagsm.gov.ie

The members appointed to the Advisory Committee are listed below, with further details available [link broken].

• Dr Sandra Collins (Chair)

• Dr Síobhra Aiken

• Dr Zélie Asava

• Annie Fletcher

• Áine Kerr

• Sara Lammens

• Dr Mary McAuliffe

• Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan

• Colm O'Callaghan

• Orla O'Connor

• Lynn Scarff

• Sinead Copeland

• Jane Ann Duffy

• Oein DeBhairduin

• Rosemary Collier

As part of its work, the Advisory Committee identified the work programme strands below:

• Commission an independent report to identify and review current best practice models of representation within the cultural policy landscape internationally.

• Consult with key stakeholders, including diverse professional, advocacy, representative, and community groups, and other interested parties.

• Support the national cultural institutions in reviewing the national collections to identify where there are gaps in the representation of women’s stories, in all of their diversity. The Chair established a subgroup to examine options for supporting the national cultural institutions in this work. The subgroup members are listed below:

Lynn Scarff (Chair)

Annie Fletcher

Dr Mary McAuliffe

Orlaith McBride

Dr Rosaleen McDonagh

Gina O’Kelly

Eithne Verling

• Examine the feasibility of developing a dedicated presentation of women’s stories, including a women’s museum, in line with the Infrastructure Guidelines published by the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform. The Chair established a subgroup to lead on this element of the work programme. The subgroup members are listed below:

Áine Kerr (Chair)

Dr Mary McAuliffe (Deputy Chair)

Aileesh Carew

Rosemary Collier

Lar Joye

Colm O’Callaghan

Simon O’Connor

• Minutes 8th May 2024
• Minutes 11th June 2024
• Minutes 31st July 2024
• Minutes 6th September 2024
• Minutes 4th October 2024
• Minutes 6th November 2024
• Minutes 29th November 2024
• Minutes 6th December 2024
• Minutes 24th January 2025
• Minutes 7th February 2025
• Minutes 21st February 2025
• Minutes 4th April 2025
• Minutes 23rd May 2025
• Minutes 6th June 2025
• Minutes 27th June 2025
• Minutes 12th September 2025

The Advisory Committee on Women’s Stories presented their report to the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport on 22nd October 2025. This report sets out 31 recommendations to advance the representation of women and women’s stories, with a special focus on under-represented and marginalised groups. Among the recommendations are measures to address policy, funding, and structural inequities across the cultural sector; measures to build supportive partnerships; enhanced supports for the National Cultural Institutions and other collecting and cultural institutions; and development of a permanent women’s museum. The recommendations are organised under 8 broad themes and are intended to be helpful across multiple cultural disciplines, art forms, and collections – nationally, regionally and within local communities. They are underpinned by a wealth of research, consultation, and information-gathering by the Advisory Committee over the past 18 months. The Advisory Committee adopted an inclusive approach throughout this process, grounded in gender-equality principles and the provision of the Equality Acts in Ireland.

Throughout its work, the Advisory Committee placed great importance on evidence-informed recommendations, drawing on the research and analysis gathered through the various work programme strands. The Department appointed CHL & Associates to deliver an independent research report for the Advisory Committee on models of representation within cultural policy. The authors adopted a holistic approach, which reviewed best practice case studies, as well as strategies, policies, programming, and research, in Ireland and internationally.

CHL & Associates considered the role of governments and statutory agencies, as well as various typologies such as 1) pilot projects, 2) co-creative approaches, 3) sector-specific approaches, 4) the role of independent advocacy or research bodies, and 5) top-down approaches, including through legislation. Their report outlined the Irish cultural landscape and structures, to explore interconnections and potential opportunities. CHL & Associates also examined specific institutional and experiential case studies internationally that focused on gender representation and have had positive impacts in terms of quality and longevity. They also sought to understand what has not worked well previously and the reasons for this. The report focused on 6 case studies:

• Glasgow Women’s Library [Scotland];
• Køn Museum [Aarhus,Denmark];
• Kvinnemuseet [Kongsvinger, Norway];
• ‘Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520-1920’ in the Tate Gallery [UK];
• Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum [Washington DC, USA]; and
• ‘Kvinnohistoriska’ - Stockholm Museum of Women’s History [Sweden].

Consultation, including with under-represented and marginalised groups, has been a cornerstone of the Advisory Committee’s work, to facilitate different views and perspectives, particularly the voices of those not represented on the Advisory Committee. One aspect of the consultation process was an open online survey, administered by the Department. This is the report of the open consultation and its findings.

The open consultation highlighted the progress that has already been achieved in representing aspects of women’s stories, experiences, and influence. However, the findings also illustrated that women are not represented equally across the cultural sector and the national collections, and the negative impacts that this has had. The responses identified that there is great potential for expansion of existing efforts and for innovative approaches to build on progress.

Minister Patrick O’Donovan welcomes the report of the Advisory Committee on Women’s Stories.

New focus on women and women’s stories heralded for national cultural collections [27th September 2023]

New advisory committee to focus on women and women’s stories in the national cultural collections [8th March 2024]

First meeting of Advisory Committee on Representation of Women and Women’s Stories in Collections of National Cultural Institutions [8th May 2024]

Public consultation on behalf of the Advisory Committee on the Representation of Women and Women’s Stories (CLOSED) [12th July 2024]