Event type: Performance

The Life and Times of Paddy Armstrong

Wooden Bridge Productions brings this retelling of a great historical injustice to Liverpool’s Unity Theatre. The Life and Times of Paddy Armstrong details the story of Paddy Armstrong, who in 1975 was falsely convicted of helping to carry out the Guildford and Woolwich bombings: 

Fifty years after his wrongful conviction, at the age of 74, Paddy is facing into his twilight years and wrestling with a thousand turbulent memories. In Paddy he relives the journey that forever altered his destiny.

A one-man show, starring Don Wycherley as Paddy, the play is inspired by Paddy’s memoir Life After Life, a Guildford Four Memoir (2017). Paddy is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the power of forgiveness, reminding us that the privilege of freedom and love, family and everyday life can restore us and mend the scars of even the most savage injustice.

Don Wycherley brings unflinching honesty, pathos and humour to his portrayal of Paddy, a man failed and scarred by a flawed system yet refusing to be defined by it. Paddy will make you laugh, it will probably make you cry and ultimately you will leave the theatre uplifted by this unforgettable play starring one of Ireland’s most loved actors.

★★★★★ “Don Wycherley is incandescent in this journey from disaster to redemption” – Irish Times 

A note

We recommend that anyone with lived experience of the Troubles — from any community — considers carefully whether this work is right for them at this time. Support services are available before and after the performance and a list of external services will be made available on the night.

Greg Quiery book launch: The Dancing Field

Greg’s third poetry collection continues with familiar themes, including reflections on Liverpool’s turbulent past and stories of the Liverpool Irish community.

Migration, memories of Ireland and the current environment crisis are among other recurring threads. His previous poetic works include A Stray Dog Following (Stairwell Books) and Oglet.

Mandy Coe and Colin Watts will also be reading. Mandy Coe (https://www.mandycoe.org/) is an award-winning author of eight books of poetry, written in her distinctive style, for both adults and children. Colin Watts (https://www.colin-watts-poetry.com/), organiser of Liverpool Dead Good Poets, is an author of plays, poetry and short stories. He’s a regular performer on Radio Merseyside and many local venues for many years.

Books will be available to purchase with cash or bank transfer.

‘This collection will have you dancing, leaning in to listen and returning to ponder’, Mandy Coe.

‘A powerful and wide-ranging reflection on history nature and personal experience’, Colin Watts.

Festival preview and launch feat. Enda McCabe

The Festival begins here.

Join us at Liverpool Irish Centre — the spiritual home of the Irish community in the city — to toast the start of Liverpool Irish Festival 2026. This is an evening for old friends and new faces, for community and conversation, and for raising a glass to everything the Festival stands for. Book ahead to claim your free arrival drink.

This year’s launch is centred on the theme I Am Here and there are few better embodiments of that spirit than our guest musician, Enda McCabe. A Dubliner by birth — who spent 24 years in England before returning to Ireland — Enda is back on the road after receiving a kidney transplant in October 2021, following almost seven years on dialysis. His return to performing is, in itself, a statement of presence; of life claimed back, of music that refused to be silenced. (Links: Dreamers, Folk Folkinoxford)

His show combines songs, music and stories — most based on personal experience — delivered with warmth and craft that have won him audiences across Ireland, Britain, Europe and the United States. On the night, Enda will weave music with reflections on his transplant journey: a story of resilience, compassion and the gift of being here at all.

Guests will also hear from Festival organisers, sponsors and partners. This event is supported and hosted by the Consulate of Ireland who will be present and to whom we offer our thanks.

The Phogues

If you appreciate the music of Shane MacGowan and The Pogues, you cannot miss The Phogues. Keeping alive the very songs that defined the genre ‘Celtic Punk’.

Going way beyond a tribute band The Phogues diligently recreate the way The Pogues tempered Irish Music with subtle influences of Flamenco and Middle Eastern music on some songs.

The Phogues live performances will give you songs penned by one of the best lyricists of our time, Shane MacGowan, played by musicians at the top of their game, commemorating 40 years since the release of the first Pogues album Red Roses for Me.

“A guaranteed good night!” in the words of Shane MacGowan: ‘It’s brilliant’.

We have reserved four wheelchair + respective carer/companion spaces for this event. If all four sell, we will add more. Tickets are unreserved and on a first-come first-served basis, but we will ensure front-of-house space is available for those booking these seats. This is an honour-based system for those who need it. Please use responsibly. If you want to buy tickets for more than this user, please add other general admission tickets when placing your order.

PK’s seisiún

Simple opportunity to come along for a tune. The first seisiún of two in the Festival, the other takes place the following Fri (23 Oct 2026).

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.

Kíla

Some bands fill arenas. Kíla fill the air itself.

For over three decades, this seven-piece Dublin collective have been one of Ireland’s best-kept secrets and greatest musical forces. They are a band that defies genre, rewires tradition, and leaves audiences physically changed by their experience.

Having played some of the world’s most legendary stages, to audiences of thousands, tonight they play to fewer than two hundred. This is that show.

Rooted in the ancient pulse of Irish folk — uilleann pipes, fiddle, bodhrán, bones — yet propelled by djembe, brass, electric guitar and a restless, world-hungry imagination, Kíla’s sound is unlike anything you will hear elsewhere. It is furious and tender, primal and precise. The jigs hit like percussion. The melodies haunt for days. Their IFTA award-winning film scores — for Cartoon Saloon’s Oscar-nominated trilogy The Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea and Wolfwalkers — hint at their cinematic scale. But nothing prepares you for the live experience.

Eight years since their last gig in the city, Kíla return to Liverpool to one of the finest acoustic rooms in the country. Every note will reach you. Every rhythm will find you. Kila’s Gaeilge will transform you.

This is rare. This is intimate. This is a band of genuine, extraordinary talent playing close up.

Resonating with this year’s festival theme, I Am Here, Kíla’s deep Irish roots provide precisely the kind of night that grounds you in identity, purpose and place. Don’t miss it. Truly, you won’t get another chance like this.

Samhain Céilí

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.

Téada

Celebrating 25 years on the road in 2026, Téada are one of Irish traditional music’s most celebrated and hard-working ensembles — described by one American critic as “arguably the most vibrant and hard-working traditional Irish music ensemble in the world today”.

Rooted in the living tradition yet alive to the wider world, the Sligo-based group have headlined major festivals across North America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Australia, performing to audiences of up to 40,000 on their landmark Japanese and Taiwanese tours. Closer to home, they are a familiar and much-loved presence at Ireland’s greatest festivals, from Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann to Temple Bar TradFest.

The band’s current line-up brings together some of Ireland’s finest traditional musicians: Oisín Mac Diarmada on fiddle, Paul Finn on button accordion, Damien Stenson on flute, Seán McElwain on guitar and bouzouki, Tristan Rosenstock on bodhrán and the award-winning step dancer and pianist Samantha Harvey.

Their most recent album on Gael Linn features special guest appearances by Hollywood actor and singer John C. Reilly and the late, great Séamus Begley — a fitting record from a band who carry the tradition with both pride and joy. Don’t miss them!

Presented in partnership by Return to London Town and Liverpool Irish Festival, with support from Culture Ireland. 

Movema céilí with The Saltcutters

Get ready for a joyful, next-generation Céilí.

Movema dance company, in league with live-band The Saltcutters, lead an evening of dance and music born from their experiences as multiple-heritage artists, working with Irish traditional forms in Liverpool, made in response to the Festival’s theme, I am here.

In the spirit of the old meanings of ‘céilí’, ‘neighbour’, ‘visit’ or ‘gathering’, Movema and Saltcutters invite you to come together with your neighbours to celebrate our shared humanity through group dances that connect us to others and celebrate our similarities and our differences. Expect dances and tunes from Ireland, England, Scotland and beyond. Guests will also hear the surprising stories of how music and dance travel, adapt, change and upend what we think we know about identity.

No experience is needed. No partner is required. Everyone’s welcome to dance any role. The evening’s calling is gender-free, so instead of ‘ladies and gents’ you might hear terms like ‘larks and robins’ or ‘ones and twos’. Dance whichever part feels right for you. Ideal for ages 16 and above.

Ticket price includes a hearty Irish stew with vegan and gluten-free options and a bar will be operating serving refreshments.

If you have got any access needs or concerns or want to know more before you come, get in touch: info@movema.co.uk 

High Tea

High Tea is a one act play, written by Victoria Fradgley.

Set against the weight of Irish family history, the play explores how love curdles into resentment, how our memory can betray us, and whether reconciliation is possible when the past refuses to stay buried.

Land is the fault line that has shaped this family’s history — fought over, bled for, and worshipped above all else. With both parents gone, two estranged sisters are forced to face each other once more, drawn back by the land that bound them and broke them. As they battle over ownership, decades of silence give way to long-buried secrets and inherited wounds.

Devotion turns to resentment, love to rivalry, and the past rises up to demand its due.

This is a story of blood ties and boundaries, of what we inherit, and of the cost of putting land before family.

One daughter left, one daughter stayed. Both lives were changed forever.

This is a 3 hander all female cast. One actor’s voice is a memory; two characters remain on stage throughout the play.

Presented by Tús Nua in association with DTFilms. To contact Tús Nua email tusnuatheatre@outlook.com

Care note: High Tea contains some strong language and themes of family estrangement, mental health and pregnancy loss. We encourage attendees to consider carefully whether this work is right for them at this time. Though we don’t anticipate creating significant emotional discomfort, you are the expert in you, so please treat yourself carefully.