A unique opportunity to dig deeper into the history of the Bluecoat!
We’re interested to hear your own Bluecoat stories and how you’d like to make use of the archive, including online through our Library.
Explore the history of Liverpool’s oldest city centre building and the UK’s first arts centre, through a selection of photos, slides, posters, programmes, architectural plans, and more.
Part of Heritage Open Days.
Free, drop in
Explore our open studios, meet some of the Bluecoat’s creative community and find out about their practices, which range from painting and photography to jewellery and illustration.
Part of Heritage Open Days.
Free, drop in
Join Liverpool Irish Festival’s John Maguire (also of ArtsGroupie) on a revealing journey through Liverpool city centre.
Spectators will hear about how the Victorian tragedy of the Irish Famine changed Liverpool’s streets. Trail walkers will learn about how locations were used for sanctuary, nourishment and safety. They will also hear and understand the benevolence of Liverpool’s people. Using a new trail app, headsets and recent Walk of the Bronze Shoes experience, your guide will really help you to walk in the shoes of Liverpool and Irish people 180-years ago.
The walks leave at 11am and 12.15pm. Bookers are asked to gather in the 15mins prior at the Pilotage Building (near the Museum of Liverpool), for a tour taking walkers up to Fenwick Street and back. The walk will last approximately 45mins.
Bookings for these tours will close at midday on Fri 23 Oct 2026 to allow time for processing tickets.
Meet at the waterside of the Pilotage Building, near Museum of Liverpool.
Join Liverpool Irish Festival’s John Maguire (also of ArtsGroupie) on an expanded walking tour of several Liverpool Irish Famine Trail sites, including Clarence Dock – the entry way for over 1.8m+ Irish Famine poor – and others in the town centre.
Spectators will hear how The Great Hunger changed Liverpool’s streets, learning how locations were used for sanctuary, nourishment and safety. Along the route, sites of Irish influence will also be marked helping to show the geographic memory of these times. Walkers will also hear about the benevolence of Liverpool’s people and on-going effects on the city today.
Using a new trail app, headsets and recent Walk of the Bronze Shoes experience, your guide will really help you to walk in the shoes of Liverpool and Irish people 180-years ago.
The walk leaves at 2pm. Bookers are asked to gather 15mins prior at the Pilotage Building (near the Museum of Liverpool). The walk will last approximately 120mins.
Bookings for these tours will close at midday on Fri 23 Oct 2026 to allow time for processing tickets.
Meet at the waterside of the Pilotage Building, near Museum of Liverpool ·
The veil between our world and the Other is at its thinnest — and The Armagh Rhymers wouldn’t have it any other way.
As darkness falls on Samhain night, join us for the creepiest ceíli of the season: music to make your bones rattle, games to make your skin crawl, and dancing that might just raise the dead. Bring the little ones in their finest frightful dress-up — or don’t, if they dare to face the spirits plain-faced — and adults, consider yourselves warned: you will be expected to join in.
Children’s gift bags await the first 50 arrivals, and fiercely contested prizes go to the best Samhain costumes. Eye patches, false teeth, masks and props all welcome — shop-bought, homemade, or borrowed from something that goes bump in the night. Grab the face paint, unroll the spider webs, dig out last year’s glitter slime, and practise your most bloodcurdling ‘Woooooo’; the judges will be watching.
Activities are geared for children aged 4–12 (with supervision), though anyone aged 13 to 113 is welcome — children will just need to keep a close eye on their adults. Only pretend broken bones on this dance floor, please.
This event is held in partnership with Liverpool Irish Centre, with support from Comhaltas’s musicians.
The doors of The St Brigid’s Arms are open — a fictional venue created by and for women of Irish heritage living in the North of England.
Inspired by the traditional Irish pub as a place of gathering, connection and storytelling, this unique community exhibition explores experiences of migration, identity, belonging and heritage through art, music, dance and personal stories.
Join us as part of the Liverpool Irish Festival to discover the voices and experiences of Irish women across generations. Through shared memories, traditions and creative responses, the exhibition celebrates the rich untold stories of Irish women.
After exploring the exhibition, stay for a short Q&A with Lydia O’Hara and Rosarie Walsh to hear more about the project’s development, the women who helped bring it to life, the importance of preserving and sharing these stories and what’s next. Come along, make connections and become part of the conversation.
Tour also runs on Tues 20 Oct 2026.
John Mitchel’s GAA club, in partnership with LivIrishFest, hosts this unique event at Liverpool’s only dedicated GAA pitch.
Open to all age groups, whether you’re a keen to play Hurling (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurling) or Camogie (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camogie) or have never heard of the game!
Come along to our ‘give it a go’ Festival session, 2pm-3.30pm.
Lancashire coaches will be there to welcome everyone, offering a great opportunity to find out a bit more about the game and our club; with a chance to meet our members and play a bit of Hurling and Camogie.
This is an outdoor event in October. Please be ready with waterproofs and/or sun cream as needed and know any one of you could get muddy or grass-stained!
For more details on the club follow Facebook @johnmitchelsliverpool and X @JohnMitchelsGAA
Irish people have made homes all over the world, and Liverpool is no exception. It’s known affectionately as East Dublin, East Belfast, and the 33rd county. This year, Liverpool Irish Festival asks what it means to arrive: to cross a threshold, claim a space, and say simply: I am here.
Rooted in that spirit of arrival, the George Ferguson Irish Dance School and Merseyside’s Melody Makers have collaborated to create a programme that celebrates the many ways we come home. Whether home is somewhere new or somewhere long known, being there carries its own weight of anticipation, expectation and nostalgia. This year invited guests will take to the stage (along with some audience members!). Their presence will serve as their own statement of being.
This engaging two-hour programme brings together over 50 musicians and dancers from across Merseyside. They’ll perform in one of Liverpool’s most magnificent settings: the ever-emerald Sefton Park Palm House. A space that has sheltered and sustained living things for over a century feels like the right place to celebrate a community that has done the same.
Liverpool Irish Festival is proud to present this thematic collaboration as part of an ongoing series of bespoke programmes and a performance that is becoming a firm fixture of the Festival calendar. Grab your tickets whilst you can.
♿: We have created spaces for eight wheelchair spaces. These are linked with companion/carer spaces. To purchase one of these, please pick your wheelchair space (highlighted yellow at the point of booking). We will automatically save the seat next to your reserved space for your companion/carer. You will be charged one concession priced ticket for the two spaces on your selected row.
Simple opportunity to come along for a tune. The second seisiún of two in the Festival, the other takes place the prior Fri (16 Oct 2025).
Bring an instrument, your voice and a will to play along. There’ll be Festival friends to help bring the gang together. A fully stocked bar — in one of the most historic and quirkiest pubs in Liverpool — eases you towards the dawn. This event gets busy quickly and sometimes it’s ‘standing room only’. Be prepared to ‘hotch up’ and swap places so everyone can get a piece of the action. This is a night that almost guarantees high kicks ’til dawn.
A Festival-staple and must-see; we invite you to pop-by — or indeed, spend the day with us — at the Museum of Liverpool (Pier Head). There, we’ve a veritable array of activity to entertain kids (and adults) of all ages.
The Armagh Rhymers return with their (exclusive to the Festival) Liver Bird story helping to understand how the First Nations people of North America helped the Irish during The Great Hunger. The Bolger-Cunningham Dance School will give it their all in the morning, before the George Ferguson School for Irish Dance produce junior and senior dance sets, whilst Melody Makers will bring their intergenerational group to play in the space. You’ll also be able to collect a Brave Maeve Tír Na nÓg map. The day puts the Irish of Liverpool at the heart of everything; the programme, the Museum and the city.
Plus there’ll be Brave Maeve activities for all the family.
The Family Day is sponsored by Tourism Ireland and held in partnership with National Museums Liverpool. As part of the Family programme, you might also like the Samhain Céilí (Sun 25 Oct).