Conference

Prior to those roles, she was a member of the executive team at the National Library of Ireland for over a decade, where she lead on the National Library’s partnership with University College Dublin to create the Museum of Literature Ireland, and was project director for the major public-private partnership with the Bank of Ireland to create the award-winning exhibition Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again at the Bank
of Ireland Cultural and Heritage Centre in Dublin city centre. A literature graduate of the University of Galway, she also holds a Masters in Library and Information Studies from UCD, and an MPhil in Digital Humanities from TCD.

 
She was a founding member of the Board of the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI), is a former member of the Governing Authority of the University of Galway and the Board of the National Library of Ireland, and is currently a Board member of the Irish Film Institute.

Virginia took over the post of CEO of the Heritage Council in February 2019. She was elected as a member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2022. A professional archivist and curator, Virginia was appointed University Archivist at UCC, in 1991. In this capacity she established the first University Archives service in the third level sector.

From 2003-2009, Virginia was Director of the Museum, Limerick. The Museum was awarded Irish Museum of the Year during Virginia’s tenure. At the Hunt Museum, Virginia successfully guided the Museum through a Government Commission of Enquiry, arising from allegations made by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre to President McAleese, that the items contained in the Museum’s Collection were looted during the Holocaust.

Prior to taking up position at the Heritage Council, worked as Director of Cultural Projects at University College Cork where she developed several cross-disciplinary cultural projects connecting the University’s research profile with the wider community. Virginia was Executive Producer for the RTÉ/UCC award winning three-part documentary, The Atlas of the Irish Revolution, a major collaboration which brought history and heritage to wide audience.

As a curator, researcher and lecturer, Virginia has lectured and published extensively on art-history a special interest in the Irish Arts and Crafts Movement. She has curated over eighty exhibitions within Ireland, the UK, France, Germany and USA.

Since 2020, she is the artistic director of the Institute of International Visual Arts (iniva), home of the Stuart Hall Library and iniva’s archive. Founded in 1994 under the guidance of Professor Stuart Hall as inaugural Chair, iniva is an evolving visual arts organisation that collaborates with artists, curators, and researchers to challenge dominant narratives and promote underrepresented perspectives in contemporary art.

The Stuart Hall Library (SHL) functions as a critical, creative, and community-centred hub. It supports iniva’s mission to document and disseminate knowledge related to transnational, diasporic, and decolonial visual arts practices, promoting discourse on race, gender, class, identity, and cultural politics. The institution is dedicated to developing rigorous artistic research, radial education practices, collective study, publishing and community led programming that reflects on the social and political impact of globalisation.