While music fans around the world mourned the loss of artists like David Bowie, Prince and Leonard Cohen, two important local voices were also silenced.
After a career playing alongside figures like Joe Cocker, Paul McCartney and Jimi Hendrix, legendary guitarist Henry McCullough died in June.
Meanwhile, Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits and Van Morrison were among those to pay tribute to Belfast singer-songwriter Bap Kennedy, who succumbed to cancer aged only 54 in November.
Artist Basil Blackshaw also passed away this year and, in December, poet John Montague died in his adopted home of France.
Both had reputations in their respective arts which spread far beyond Northern Ireland.
It was also announced this year that a permanent memorial to another local legend, Rory Gallagher, was planned.
A statue of the great guitarist is to be put up in 2017 outside the Ulster Hall, where Gallagher played regularly throughout the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
There were also a number of notable musical birthdays in 2016.
BBC Radio Ulster's Across the Line, which has always championed local music, celebrated its 30th, while The Undertones marked 40 years together with a special BBC gig.
Despite recent doubts over its future, the Ulster Orchestra celebrated its half century with a special day of 50 concerts across Belfast in September.
After putting it on a more stable financial footing, Sir George Bain stepped down as chair late in the year, replaced by Stephen Peover.
Money worries elsewhere in the arts did not disappear, however.
With the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure (DCAL) abolished, the arts became the responsibility of the Department for Communities (DfC) under a new minister, the DUP's Paul Givan.
The new department subsequently cut their grant to the Arts Council of Northern Ireland by Â£500,000 in July.
As the Arts Council is the main funding body for many arts organisations, this led to more concerns over sustainability for some.
One major artist also announced she would be leaving Northern Ireland early in 2017.
Former Belfast poet laureate Sinead Morrissey announced she was departing the city for a new post at Newcastle University.
She is one of Britain's leading poets having won the world-renowned TS Eliot prize in 2014 for her collection, Parallax, following in the footsteps of both Seamus Heaney and Paul Muldoon.
There were, however, some notable successes on the big and small screen for Northern Ireland linked productions.
In September, Game of Thrones broke the record for the highest number of Emmy Awards won by any fictional series with a total of 38.
However, in August, US broadcaster HBO confirmed that the series would end after its eighth season in 2018.
As it is mainly filmed in Northern Ireland it will leave a big gap, although NI Screen also said it would leave a strong legacy of local expertise in the industry.
Elsewhere, Belfast production company Sixteen South won a children's Bafta, while World War Two drama, My Mother and Other Strangers, which was set and shot locally, was broadcast on a prime Sunday night slot on BBC 1.
At the prestigious Venice film festival in September the red carpet came out for the global premiere of The Journey, written by Bangor's Colin Bateman.
The drama was a fictional account of the relationship between Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness and the late first minister Ian Paisley, starring Colm Meaney and Timothy Spall.
An artistic portrayal of an even more notable figure was unveiled in November.
County Down artist Colin Davidson was present as his portrait of the Queen was unveiled by the monarch in London.
Mr Davidson said that he felt the work was a "symbol" of the Queen's role in advancing a closer relationship between Britain and Ireland.
One art form which has taken Irish culture to the world put on a show at Belfast's Waterfront Hall in November.
Around 1,600 competitors from all over the globe took part in the week-long 2016 All- Ireland Irish Dance Championships, bringing a dash of colour to what had been, at times, a dark year.
In the arts, 2016 has been a year of farewells, in Northern Ireland as across the globe.