The Ark Team & Contact Details

Brian Lavery (Chair)
Appointed 05.09.12.
Brian is the European Managing Director for AccuWeather. He was previously a senior marketer at Twitter, a commercial manager at Vodafone Ireland, and a management consultant with McKinsey & Co. He spent the early part of his career as a journalist, including six years as the Ireland reporter for the New York Times, and an arts critic for various Irish media. He has an MBA from Columbia Business School in New York, a BA in English Literature from Yale University, and a Professional Certificate in Corporate Governance from the Institute of Public Administration. His two daughters are lifelong patrons of The Ark.

Gerard Smyth
Appointed 05.09.12.
Gerry is a poet, critic and journalist. He worked for over 40 years with The Irish Times, writing on cultural matters and as Managing Editor with responsibility for the paper’s literary and arts coverage. His poetry has appeared widely in publications in Ireland, Britain and the United States, since the late 1960s, as well as in translation. His eighth collection, A Song of Elsewhere (Dedalus Press) was published in 2015. He was the 2012 recipient of the O’Shaughnessy Poetry Award from the University of St Thomas in St Paul, Minnesota and is a member of Aosdána . He was co-editor of If Ever You Go: A Map of Dublin in Poetry and Song, Dublin’s 'One City One Book' in 2014. He is also on the board of Rough Magic Theatre Company and served on the board of Poetry Ireland for nine years and on The Irish Times publications board in the 1990s.

Tomm Moore
Appointed 11.05.16
Tomm is Co- founder and Creative Director of Cartoon Saloon, founded in 1999 by Tomm, Nora Twomey and Paul Young, who met whilst studying animation in Ballyfermot Senior College Dublin. Over the company’s history, Tomm has worked as Director, Art Director, Storyboarder, Animator and Illustrator on a range of projects from commercials to service work for feature films and TV series, as well as a number of short film projects. Tomm has directed 2 universally successful feature films; The Secret Of Kells and the spiritual follow-up, Song of the Sea. Both films were nominated for Academy Awards. Tomm also directed the “On Love” segment for The Prophet, a feature animation produced by Salma Hayek based on one of the best-selling books of all times. Currently, Tomm is dividing his time between the development of his latest project Wolf Walkers and pre-production on The Breadwinner, a feature film, based on the bestselling novel by Deborah Ellis. Tomm received the Directors Guild Of Ireland and America Finder’s Series Award in 2008 and European Director of the year at the Cartoon Movie in 2009

Carol Fawsitt
Appointed 08.02.17
Carol is a Solicitor and having established her own niche practice specialising in Employment Law in 1987, she merged her practice with Hayes solicitors in December 2006 becoming a Senior Partner and Head of the Employment Law Department. Carol is currently a Consultant Solicitor. She has combined private practice with appointments to public and private bodies. Carol is a founding member of the Employment Law Association of Ireland (ELAI) and was Chair of the Association from November 2010 to March 2015. She was also a member of the Law Society’s Employment and Equality Law Committee. Among other interests she was a Director of Archways which advanced the Incredible Years Programme and other evidence based programmes to assist children and adolescents with emotional and behavioural difficulties. Carol is currently Chair of AAI - Alcohol Action Ireland –the national charity advocating for measures to reduce the harm caused by alcohol. In 2000 she was appointed by the President of the High Court as a Member of the Disciplinary Tribunal of the High Court for Solicitors and chaired divisions of the Tribunal until 2010. She was Chairman of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal (2004–2007) and a Board Member of ASH Ireland – the lobby group for action on smoking and health (1996-2003) and (2004-2014). She was formerly a Board Member of the Equality Authority and Chairman of the Authority's Legal Committee (1998 - 2007), a Board Member of the National Economic and Social Council (N.E.S.C.) (1995-1997), the former Employment Equality Agency, and Vice-Chairwoman of the National Women's Council of Ireland (1995 -1997) ,in addition to involvements in other bodies earlier in her career. In August 2016 Carol was appointed a Member of the Charity Appeals Tribunal to deal with appeals from the Charity Regulator.

Dr. Anne Looney
Appointed 08.02.17
Anne is the Executive Dean of Dublin City University’s new Institute of Education. A former teacher, from 2001 until 2016 she was the CEO of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, the agency responsible for curriculum and assessment for early years, primary and post-primary education in Ireland.In 2016/17 she was the interim CEO at the Higher Education Authority before moving to DCU. She completed her doctoral studies at the Institute of Education in University College London. In 2014/2015 she was Professorial Research Fellow at the Learning Science Institute Australia, based at Australian Catholic University in Brisbane. Her research interests include assessment policy and practice, curriculum, initial teacher education and professional standards for teachers and teaching. She has also published on religious, moral and civic education, and education policy.

Prof. Anne O’Gara
Appointed Dec 2019
Professor Anne O’Gara was President of Marino Institute of Education (MIE) from 2006 to 2018. She previously worked as a Primary Inspector with the Department of Education and Skills and taught for more than twenty years in schools serving designated areas of disadvantage. In February 2014, she was awarded the title of Adjunct Professor in the School of Education, Trinity College Dublin (TCD) in recognition of her experience and leadership in the field of teacher education in Ireland. She is a ministerial appointee to the Board of Tusla, where she acts as Deputy Chair.

Catherine Cotter
Appointed Dec 2019
In addition to running her own commercial interiors company, Catherine Cotter has worked in the arts and education for over 30 years, including spearheading arts programmes in The Dalkey School Project and Monkstown Educate Together, leading Irish arts festivals in Lisbon, and contributing to organisations such as Children’s Books Ireland, the Irish Writers Centre, Poetry Ireland and the Museum of Literature Ireland.

Lynda Carroll
Appointed Dec 2019
Lynda is a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Advisor. She has over 30 years' experience in financial services at Board and Senior Executive level in the private and public sector, including as Managing Director of De Lage Landen Ireland (part of the global vendor financing arm of Rabobank) and Vice President Global Structured Finance Europe. She has also worked in the Central Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Banks plc.

Shane Hegarty
Appointed 21.04.21
Shane is the author of the bestselling children's series 'Boot' and 'Darkmouth'. Previously a journalist and editor with The Irish Times, he is now a full-time writer, translated into 20 languages. His work has seen him perform events to young audiences at major festivals across Ireland and Britain.

Annie Ó Breacháin
Appointed 21.04.21
Annie is an Assistant Professor in Drama Education in the School of Arts Education and Movement at the Institute of Education, Dublin City University (DCU). She teaches and researches in the area of Drama Education. Before she began working in Initial Teacher Education, Annie worked as a primary school teacher and in teacher in-service, with the Professional Development Service for Teachers (PDST), offering support in the areas of Drama and Gaeilge. She has a particular interest in student-teacher relationships, phenomenological inquiry, children’s participation rights, and Social Justice Education. She is also interested in the practice of teaching, the art of storytelling, curricular integration using Mantle of the Expert, performative pedagogy and visual and embodied research data. Annie was chairperson of the Association for Drama in Education in Ireland (ADEI) from 2017 to 2021.

If you are interested in joining The Ark Board of Directors, please find out more here.