The new chairman of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland is Prof Brian Walker. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, Prof Walker has been director since 1993 of the Institute of Irish Studies at Queen's University, Belfast, where he lectures in political science. He is a council member and former president of the Belfast Society, and has also served on the Northern Ireland Museums Council. For the last five years the Belfast-born academic has been one of the editors of the Irish Review.
Prof Walker, who formally took up the post on August 1st, succeeds Mr Donnell Deeny QC.