NIMC Round 2 Grants Awarded 25/26
December 15, 2025Playful Museums Festival
The Northern Ireland Museums Council’s (NIMC) Playful Museum grant scheme aims to support activities that promote playful museum spaces, and programming for children under 5. All grant-funded activities should take place during February 2026 to coincide with the Playful Museums Festival.
NIMC has been able to award over £3000 to the following museums:
- Whitehead Railway Museum – ‘Sensory Steam’.
A series of playful, sensory-based stations where children can explore railway-themed sensory play at their own pace. - NI War Memorial-‘Jeannie’s Adventure to the Countryside’.
Co -creation of new resources for under 5s including story, video and SEND visual story. - Newry & Mourne Museum – ‘Myths & Music’.
Production of a family theatre show combining storytelling, music, and songs based on Irish mythological tales. - Fermanagh County Museum -‘Play Away’.
Provision of an early years workshop and messy play session.
- Ballymoney Museum – ‘Exploring Wild Ireland’.
Multi-sensory early year’s workshop designed to complement the Wild Ireland art exhibition, engaging children under 5 in discovering ancient animals through creative play. - Armagh Robinson Library – ‘Willow’s Curious Cabinet’.
Creation of a session based inspired by migrating birds including topics of heritage and diversity. offered to Arke SureStart, Dad’s group, nurseries and local families. - North Down Museum – ‘Bringing Max’s Story to Life: developing an early year’s programme based on Our Museum book project’.
Collaborative creation of a session aimed at 3-5 year olds based on the Our Museum early years book.
Museum Collections Capital Grant Programme (Round 2)
The NI Museums Council’s Museum Collections Capital Grant Programme is funded through the Department for Communities and administered by NIMC. Museums could apply for £500 – £5,000 per funding application for any equipment and/or minor works to help care for collections or make them more accessible to the public.
NIMC have been able to award over £15,000 to the following museums:
- Tower Museum – ‘Stitched – The Shirt Factory Quilt Project’
Conservation, boxing and cataloguing of shirt factory quilts and related textile items donated to the museum collection, creating the potential for much greater access and engagement with a range of audiences. - Newry & Mourne Museum- ‘Object of the Month Case’
Wall-mounted display case between the museum’s permanent galleries and temporary exhibition space that will be supported and driven by feedback from visitors.
- NI War Memorial -‘HVAC and environmental monitoring system for the NIWM museum archive’
Creation of two climate-controlled storage areas with ideal conditions for long-term archival storage conditions for a mixed collection of paper, metal, and textiles.. - Museum of Policing NI – ‘New Museum of Policing NI Enabling Works’.
Providing critical enabling works for the redevelopment project which will photograph, wrap and relocate over 9000 objects.
Other Grant programmes
The NIMC Collecting for the Future Grant Programme is funded by the Esmé Mitchell Trust and enables accredited museums to apply for up to £1,000 towards the purchase of cultural and artistic objects in partnership with museum users and communities. This is a rolling programme running until 2028, with a total pot of £5,000 per year