Three quarters of Northern Ireland’s arts funding goes to Belfast

Belfast received almost three times as much arts funding as all the other constituencies in Northern Ireland combined in the last financial year, according to the Belfast Telegraph.

Figures provided by Northern Ireland’s Department for Communities state that during financial year 2023/24 Belfast’s four parliamentary constituencies received a combined £15.3m in arts funding, compared to £5.3m given to projects across the other 14 constituencies.

The funding analysed came from both the Exchequer and National Lottery, which is administered by Arts Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI).

An ACNI spokesperson told the Belfast Telegraph the funding body “offers a broad range of fair, competitive funding schemes open to all eligible organisations and individuals across Northern Ireland and we do not fund on place-based criteria”.

The spokesperson added that arts investment in Northern Ireland often gravitates towards urban areas, but pointed towards ACNI’s Rural Arts Engagement Programme, which awarded an additional £1.2m for rural-based arts programming in 2024/25, as an example of targeted support for other areas.

Government investment in the arts in Northern Ireland has fallen from £14.1m in 2011/12 to £9.7m in 2024/25, the spokesperson said, representing a cut of around 50% when adjusting for inflation. Northern Ireland also has the lowest per capita spend on the arts of the four UK nations, at £5.08.