Liverpool Irish Festival, the UK’s largest Irish arts and culture led festival, today announces its 2026 dates ahead of a full event release in August.
The annual Festival features 30+ events across (Thurs 15–Sun 25 Oct 2026). Satellite events extend from 1 Oct–2 Nov, with anticipated visits of 7,500–10,000. Highlights include the of Dublin seven-piece Kíla to Liverpool for the first time in eight years (Fri 16 Oct, Liverpool Philharmonic Music Room) and Don Wycherley starring in the award-winning The Life and Times of Paddy Armstrong (Fri 30–Sat 31 Oct, Unity Theatre), inspired by the Guildford Four memoir Life After Life.
This year’s theme, I Am Here, is a declaration of presence. The title serves as an act of arrival. It is a claim on space. Additionally, it speaks to the right to be seen, named and recognised on your own terms. More than fifty artists, musicians, dancers, writers, filmmakers and thinkers ask what it means to arrive, in a city, in a culture, in a life. Much of this year’s work engages with histories that remain painful or contested. This includes An Gorta Mór (the Great Hunger), the Troubles and institutional abuse in Ireland. The Festival approaches these with care. Guided by a Philosophy for Practice, we provide care notices, post-show conversations and signposted support services throughout. New for 2026, access social stories will be available for Festival venues, supporting neurodivergent visitors and those with additional access needs.
Read the Festival’s thematic article here: LINK
Programme Highlights:
Heritage at the heart: The An Gorta Mór vigil (Sun 25 Oct, 10am) retraces the Walk of the Bronze Shoes route from Clarence Dock — entry point for over 1.8 million Irish Famine poor — to St Luke’s Bombed Out Church, leading into the annual An Gorta Mór memorial (1pm). Here, the commissioned song The Ullaloo will be led by the Liverpool Irish Centre choir. Trail work has been supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund. New Liverpool Irish Famine Trail tours (Sat 24 Oct) use our trail app and headsets to help walkers step into the shoes of Liverpool and Irish people 180 years ago, alongside a South Liverpool walking tour (Sun 18 Oct). Shared Lands (Mon 26 Oct, LJMU) shares new research on the Choctaw Nation’s extraordinary 1847 gift to the starving in Ireland.
Theatre spotlight: The Life and Times of Paddy Armstrong (Fri 30–Sat 31 Oct, Unity Theatre) stars Don Wycherley as a man wrongfully convicted fifty years ago, refusing to be defined by injustice. Victoria Fradgley’s High Tea (Sat 17 Oct, Liverpool Irish Centre) serves a sharp, funny and devastating reckoning between two estranged sisters. In Obscured View, Geraldine Moloney Judge reprises her sell-out one-woman show (Wed 21 Oct, Hope Street Theatre), celebrating Liverpool and Ireland’s shared love of football.
Music and tradition: Kíla bring three decades of genre-defying, IFTA award-winning sound to an intimate night at Liverpool Philharmonic Music Room (Fri 16 Oct); Téada, celebrating 25 years on the road, follow in the same room (Fri 23 Oct) presented with Return to London Town and supported by Culture Ireland. I Am Here (Thurs 22 Oct, Sefton Park Palm House) gathers over 50 musicians and dancers from the George Ferguson Irish Dance School and Melody Makers, while The Phogues (Sat 24 Oct, Liverpool Irish Centre) mark 40 years since The Pogues‘ debut album Red Roses for Me.
Literary voices: A full Central Library day (Sat 17 Oct) comprises four free events. First of all, a creative workshop with the Witty Wicklow Writers. Sue Divin presents her border-set novel Runaway Road. Doug Devaney explores inherited diaspora identity through Black Vinyl. Finally, PJ McKeown’s gloriously chaotic punk memoir By Acting the Fool is shared. Historian Sonja Tiernan celebrates Eva Gore-Booth: Irish radical poet, rebel and reformer (Mon 19 Oct).
Family focus: The popular Family Day (Sat 24 Oct, Museum of Liverpool) features The Armagh Rhymers‘ exclusive Liver Bird story. It speaks of how First Nations people helped the Irish during the Great Hunger. The day also features Merseyside dance schools, Melody Makers and Brave Maeve children’s activities. I Am Here (Palm House) and Samhain Céili (Liverpool Irish Centre) are both family events.
Visual arts and film: In the Window: Adam Frew and Maureen Lynch (1–31 Oct, Bluecoat Display Centre) pairs County Derry porcelain with Dún Laoghaire silver. The St Brigid’s Arms (from 2 Oct, Victoria Gallery & Museum) opens a fictional Irish pub created by and for women of Irish heritage in the North of England, with tours and Q&As (20 and 22 Oct). Testimony (Sat 2 Nov, The Bluecoat), Aoife Kelleher’s profoundly moving documentary on survivors of the Magdalene Laundries and Mother and Baby Homes, screens with Fréa’s Renewing Roots programme, followed by conversation.
The Festival has a preview at 6pm on Wed 14 Oct at Liverpool Irish Centre. It features musician Enda McCabe — kidney transplant survivor — a living embodiment of I Am Here.
Programme Information
The full programme will be live by Sept 2026. Search by art form, location or chronologically using the event menu dropdown: https://www.liverpoolirishfestival.com/events/