The Ark Team & Contact Details

Please note that if you're not sure who to contact or you have a general inquiry, you should contact boxoffice@ark.ie.

If you are wanting to contact The Ark regarding recruitment, internship, or volunteer opportunities, please take a look here first: https://ark.ie/about/work-at-t...

Carol Fawsitt (Chair)
Appointed February 2017
Carol is a solicitor (now retired) who specialised in employment law. She was a Senior Partner and Head of the Employment Law Dept. at Hayes, following the merger of her specialist practice with them. An NED of several charities in the course of her career, a member of a State Agency and Authority, and a former Chair of A.A.I. and the C.I.C.Tribunal. Currently, she is a Co- Founder of Silent Voices and a member of the Charity Appeals Tribunal, which hears appeals from the Charities Regulator.

Declan Black
Appointed June 2024
Declan is a solicitor and a partner in Mason Hayes & Curran having served as managing partner from 2013 to 2022. He is a qualified mediator and a director of Rethink Ireland, a national charity which supports the most innovative non-profit organisations working in communities across the country through financial grants and non-financial assistance. He is also a council member of the Irish Management Institute, one of Ireland’s leading business education schools.

Elish Bul-Godley
Appointed March 2023
Elish is a marketing consultant who helps brands grow through Content Strategy & Creation, Copywriting, Brand Marketing, Mentoring, Training and Social Media Management. Elish works at Content Plan, the Digital Marketing Agency, Greenedge Dublin, and is a lecturer at the UCD Professional Academy.

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. She now works as an Independent Non-Executive Director in the financial services, state and voluntary sectors.

Catherine Cotter
Appointed Dec 2019
In addition to running her own commercial interiors company, Catherine 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.

Emer Egan
Appointed April 2025
Emer is a former Deputy Chief Inspector in the Department of Education. Emer’s experience encompasses both operational and policy-advice roles across a range of areas, including curriculum, teacher education and the evaluation of early childhood settings and schools. She has represented the Department on State and regulatory boards at both national and European levels.

Dr Lucy Fallon-Byrne
Appointed April 2025
Lucy is currently a partner in STCoaching, a network of qualified and experienced coaches developing potential in leaders and their teams. Her career spans a number of leadership roles in the Civil and Public Service, leading programmes of transformation in a number of key Government Departments and agencies, including the Department of Social Protection, the Central Statistics Office and as Head of Public Service Reform in DPER. In previous roles, she was founding Director of the NCPP, a Government agency leading workplace reform and innovation and prior to that led the development of a new Primary School Curriculum.

Shane Hegarty
Appointed April 2021
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.

Mark Kennedy
Appointed March 2023
Mark Kennedy is a Chartered Accountant, and a member of the Global Executive Committee and Group Giverning Board of Forvis Mazars, the international audit and advisory firm. Since joining the firm in 1995 he has worked primarily with large corporate and government clients, both in Ireland and internationally.

Dr Annie Ó Breacháin
Appointed April 2021
Annie Ó Breacháin is Assistant Professor in Drama Education in the Institute of Education, Dublin City University (DCU). Annie previously worked with the Professional Development Service for Teachers (PDST, now OIDE) and was chair of the Association for Drama in Education in Ireland (ADEI) from 2017 to 2021.

Liam Ryan
Appointed October 2022
Liam Ryan is the Country Manager Ireland at Irish-founded mental health company SilverCloud and has cofounded two tech startups in the digital health industry. Liam studied the French Horn at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and conducted the 90-member symphony orchestra at Trinity College Dublin. Liam currently plays trumpet with Attention Bébé and Stomptown Brass.

Dr Alan Wall
Appointed April 2025
Alan is the Chief Executive Officer of the Higher Education Authority. He began his career with the Department of Education in 1993 where he served in a number of areas, including the Central Policy Unit, the ICT Policy Unit and the Office of the Secretary General. In 2005 he was appointed Deputy Director of the newly formed Teaching Council where he played a lead role in the establishment of that body. He returned to the Department of Education and Skills in 2007 to head up the Teacher Education Section and the ICT Policy Unit. He was appointed Director in January 2011 with responsibility for curriculum reform and then Assistant Secretary General with responsibility for the Planning and Building Unit in November 2014. Before taking up his current role, Dr Wall led the Department of Education’s Research, Reform, Policy and Data Division.

Dr Pádraic Whyte
Appointed April 2022
Pádraic Whyte is associate professor in children's literature and a director of the Children's Literature MPhil programme at the School of English. His current research focuses on Genders and Sexualities in Children's Literature, Children's Cultural Archives and Book Collections, and Irish Children's Literature. He is a former Chair of the KPMG Children's Books Ireland Awards.