Philippa Kirwan

My name is Philippa Kirwan. I am a fourth-year student in IADT studying Business and Arts Management. I am 23 years old. I am from a village in Carlow called Tinryland, I have lived there my whole life until I moved to Dublin for college. In Carlow I have a big family, my parents, two sisters and two brothers. I also have two dogs, one is a Staff and the other is a mixed breed of a Staff and Pitbull. Maeve and Morris are their names. They are the friendliest of dogs, full of energy. I look forward to going home to see them every weekend.

Dublin has opened a lot of doors for me. I have met really creative people and I have also become more independent. My knowledge in music has improved drastically. Music is something I always enjoyed, although I stuck to the charts when I was younger. Now my Spotify has a broad selection of genres. There is music from the 80’s, pop/rock, charts, rap, and the list goes on.

Our class had a music module from first to third year with Michael Murphy and he taught me a lot about music and the industry. In his class we had the opportunity to do any project we wanted. I had an interest in managing bands although I had no experience. I took it as an opportunity to gain experience in managing. In first year, I managed a band called Abi and the Bandit. Michael put me in touch with Geoffrey Perrin. Geoffrey put me in touch with three of his students who recorded and finished the music for us. It was a great experience, although after the music was produced, the project did not go any further. In second year, I did the same project again with a new duo, J and Snow. They were a Rap genre and they had great music. However, this project did not work as well. There were positives to take from this, gaining experience with things not going to plan.

I did my placement at a company called Meetingsbooker.com. I did not enjoy the experience because it did not relate to the arts industry. I did not learn much from my experience there either. My role was to keep client’s profiles up to date on our website. It was tedious because most clients did not want to give the information needed. I was also reaching out to potential clients encouraging them to get registered on the website. Although one thing I learnt was that persistence pays off and that is vital in any business. I plan to gain more experience in different areas of the business and arts sector during my final year.