Bealtaine is Ireland’s national festival which celebrates the arts and creativity as we age. The festival is run by Age & Opportunity, the leading national development organisation working to enable the best possible quality of life for us all as we age. This year Age & Opportunity unveils an all-new festival theme, ‘Lust for Life’, which reflects a familiar experience for many older people. To celebrate the theme Bealtaine Festival has commissioned a new essay, ‘Lust of Life’, by writer, former Labour TD and Bealtaine Festival ambassador, Liz McManus, which explores the n

This May, DDF shares dance that takes a stand, ditches convention and claims its strength. Dance that embraces the lows, celebrates the highs and welcomes our future. This year, dance demands to be heard. It’s time to DANCE OUT LOUD. The Dublin Dance Festival believes in the power of dance to move, connect and inspire change. With so much of Ireland’s culture tied up in language and the past, dance has a unique power to explore and express what it is to be human, right now.

Sometimes in a gesture, or in a turn of phrase, sometimes in the scent of hairspray, or glimpsed in an old photograph, a person reappears. ​In this evocative and moving show, writer-performer Michelle Read collaborates with composer Brian Keegan, to recreate the experience of remembering her mother, Margaret, through fragments and glimpses of her life. ​‘Keegan’s atmospheric music unspools throughout… full of affection and warmth’ Irish Independent Margaret lived with Alzheimers and loved to walk by the coast. Michelle uses the things she has left of her mum, including pho