Bealtaine Festival events across Dublin

Bealtaine is not just a few nice events dropped into a holiday weekend. It’s Ireland’s national festival of arts and ageing, and in Dublin it opened on Saturday, May 3, with the Big Bealtaine Tea Party at IMMA before rolling into a full month of talks, performances, workshops and exhibitions across the city. The real story is the framing — older creativity is being treated as headline material, not a side room. That shift matters because most arts calendars still talk about ageing as a service issue, not an artistic one. Bealtaine is trying to flip that. (rte.ie) ### What is Bealtaine, exactly? It’s a nationwide festival run by Age & Opportunity, built around the idea that ageing can be a period of energy, reinvention and visibility. The 2026 programme started on May 1 and runs through the month, with events in arts centres, community venues and online, but Dublin is one of the main hubs. This year’s theme is “Lust for Life,” which tells you the mood straight away — not nostalgia, more momentum. (bealtaine.ie) ### Why does Dublin matter so much here? Because Dublin is where the festival’s big public-facing pieces cluster. IMMA hosted the opening Tea Party on May 3, and Project Arts Centre becomes the flagship HQ for a three-day finale from May 28 to 30. That gives the city both the ceremonial launch and the high-profile closing stretch — basically, Dublin is where the festival becomes most visible to a broad audience. (rte.ie) ### What kinds of events are actually on? A wide mix. The obvious draw is performance and conversation — music, film, literature, dance, panel talks. But there are also practical and social events, which is part of the point. The programme includes exhibition tours, memoir and filmmaking workshops, DJ sessions, drumming, architecture talks, po(rte.ie)city-wide invitation to participate. (bealtaine.ie) ### Which names stand out? A few are doing real work as anchors. Miriam O’Callaghan is set to appear in conversation with Susan McKay on May 28 at Project Arts Centre. Paul Cleary of The Blades is booked for a conversation with Tom Dunne on May 29. There’s also “Retired? You Must Be Joking!” with Liz McManus and Mike Hanrahan, plus “Not Dead Yet: Love, Intimacy and Dating in Later Life,” with Rory O’Neill, Le(bealtaine.ie)ller bookings — they signal that the festival wants public conversation, not just polite appreciation. (projectartscentre.ie) ### Is it only for major venues? No — and that’s one of the strongest parts of the Dublin setup. Dublin City Libraries are running their own Bealtaine programme through May, with events like postcard illustration workshops, sewing-machine sessions, and local history talks in branches including Charleville Mall, Drumcondra, Dolphin’s Barn, Coolock and Pembroke. That makes (projectartscentre.ie)itutions. (dublincity.ie) ### So what changed this weekend? The change is that the festival stopped being a programme announcement and became a live city event. RTÉ’s long-weekend guide pointed to the IMMA launch on May 3 as the start of the month-long run, and from there Dublin’s listings begin to fill out into the later-May flagship weekend. In other words — this is the moment the abstract idea turns into places, dates and people you can actually go see. (rte.ie) ### Why frame it around ageing at all? Because the catch with “inclusive arts” language is that it can get vague fast. Bealtaine is more specific. It treats later life as a source of artistic experience, public conversation and cultural authority. The easiest analogy is a festival that moves ageing from the audience to the stage — not excluding anyone else, but making older artists and older perspectives the center of gravity. (bealtaine.ie) ### Bottom line? If you only read Bealtaine as a Dublin weekend listings item, you miss the point. What opened at IMMA on May 3 is a month-long argument that older age belongs in the middle of cultural life — loudly, publicly, and with a packed calendar to prove it. (rte.ie)