Bealtaine Festival 2017
It’s 22 years since Ireland’s national festival of creativity for older people was established, and last year more than 3,000 events were held nationally in association with it.
The Festival celebrates people of every age in coming together each May to underline the importance of creativity throughout our lives.
Organisers throughout the country can register their events online. The deadline for inclusion in the listings of the Bealtaine print brochure is 24 February 2017. It will be possible to continue to upload events for Bealtaine’s online listings right up until mid-April.
This year the Bealtaine Festival theme is Altogether Now!, to celebrate the contribution of older people in Ireland to the concept of ‘people power’, the collective, civic engagement and protest, as well as empathy — the sentiment that generally creates these movements.
The 2017 programme of events already includes new choral works composed by Sean O Doherty of Paula Meehan’s poetry; a public conversation on activism and social justice with a renowned panel of activists; visual arts residencies in Kilkenny and Wexford with artists Vivienne Dick, Kathy Prendergast and Kevin Gaffney, and more.
But it is the local events and local involvement which will underpin the whole national festival.
