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Irish Times
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Have we no more active rights over life, birth and death?
Stephanie O'Connor, a research officer at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, was awarded this year's Hubert Butler Essay Prize in the Parade Tower of Kilkenny Castle on Saturday. John Banville, honorary patron of the prize, said: 'With courage, clarity and subtle discrimination, Stephanie O'Connor addresses fundamental questions that arise, as she writes, 'at the edges of human life', and presents an argument that affirms the dignity and respect that are due to all of us no less in the process of our 'going hence' than at the moment of our 'coming hither'.' This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the publication of Hubert Butler's first essay collection, Escape from the Anthill , which appeared in 1985- the author's 86th year. It was also the first production from Antony Farrell's Lilliput Press. The essay prize, brainchild of Jeremy O'Sullivan, was founded seven years ago and is now an integral part of the Kilkenny Arts Festival. READ MORE This year's essay theme was the question of how far we can and should control our destinies over lif birth and death, instancing Edgar's stoical monition to his despairing father Gloucester in King Lear : 'Men must endure/Their going hence, even as their coming hither.' Historian Roy Foster, who judged the prize with Catriona Crowe, Nicky Grene and Barbara Schwepcke, said the winning essay 'went straight to the point of asking whether we were any the wiser for the increased options available in an age of reproductive technology and end-of-life planning. 'Stephanie O'Connor concentrated on the legal and moral ethics of keeping a brain-dead woman on life-support for the sake of an unborn infant who will almost certainly not survive. She discusses with compassion and empathy the 'uncanny ambiguity where the dead might remain legally ambiguous', and incisively states the need for 'a new ethical framework, shaped by legislation and public debate': medical ethics being 'the scaffolding by which we try to uphold the human spirit in a world increasingly seduced by the procedural and drawn to the utilitarian'. 'The clarity with which she addresses issues described rightly as intimate and harrowing is deeply impressive, and her definition of 'dignity' as a guiding principle strikes a powerful concluding note.' The winning essay is reproduced below. Have we no more active rights over life, birth and death? ' Men must endure / Their going hence, even as their coming hither .' So speaks Edgar to his blind and broken father, Gloucester, in William Shakespeare's King Lear (Act V, Scene 2), reaching for some scrap of consolation amid the wreckage of betrayal, madness, and loss. It is a fantastic line. It is a fatalistic line. This is not hope. His words carry the chill of stoic resignation, a frail attempt to impose meaning on the brute finality of death, a comfort as thin as the wind on the Cliffs of Moher. To accept that birth and death lie beyond our control. I recently witnessed the death of someone I loved very deeply – a moment of quiet surrender, beyond my control, that left an unfathomable gulf in my life. I desperately wanted them to live, and yet, to be there, as they let go, quietly, peacefully, after years of the struggle with ill health, was a profound and beautiful privilege. In that stillness, death felt less like a rupture and more like a final act of grace. And yet, even after witnessing what is called a ' good death ' – peaceful, dignified, and free from suffering – I find myself questioning whether Edgar's words still hold true. Can we really, in our modern world, still accept that we must simply endure our coming and going? In an age of reproductive technology and end-of-life planning, it would appear we have long since moved into an era where such a fatalistic acceptance of our helpless arrival and helpless departure is no longer passive, but shaped by choice, by law, and by technology. The question is: are we wiser for it? I find I cannot consider the question of our active rights over life, birth and death without revisiting the harrowing case of P.P. v. Health Service Executive (2014) , a case that personally gripped me, and I suspect many others, and would echo through Irish legal and ethical discourse for years to come, making me wonder: What if Edgar's lines are no longer merely literary, but legal? What if, in our era, death itself must await constitutional interpretation? And what if the body, in its going hence, becomes hostage to a cause it never chose? In December of that year, a young Irish woman, only 26 years old – daughter, partner, and mother of two – suffered a catastrophic brain injury and was declared clinically dead. She was 14 weeks pregnant at the time. Her heartbroken family, already reeling from the suddenness and irreversibility of her passing, was told that her body would be kept on life support – not for her sake, but to prolong the gestation of her unborn child. For three weeks, the young woman's dead body remained tethered to the apparatus of somatic support, sustained artificially in a state of biological animation, while the medical team monitored the foetus in her abdomen – her heart mechanically pulsing, her organs perfused. Eventually, the High Court permitted what her distressed loved ones had requested from the outset: that the machines be stopped because the woman was dead, and that the treatment was ' unreasonable ', ' experimental ' and therefore unethical. There was, the court found, no realistic prospect that the unborn child would survive, and ' in the best interest of the unborn child ' authorised the withdrawal of ongoing somatic support. She could be allowed, at last, in that long-honoured phrase, to rest in peace. It is worth pausing to consider how we arrived at a point where such a scenario was not only conceivable, but could unfold in reality, and be upheld in law. The answer, in large part, lies in the legacy of Ireland's constitutional recognition of the unborn's right to life. The now-repealed Eighth Amendment, inserted in 1983, was shaped not only by theological conviction but by the moral anxieties of a devout society. It created a legal equivalence between the lives of women and their unborn, and in doing so, an uncanny ambiguity, where the dead might remain legally ambiguous: both people and legally bound vessels burdened by gestational obligations. In practice, creating situations such as P.P. v HSE , where legal obligations forced doctors to override death itself in the interest of potential life. Its repeal, in 2018, returned legislative authority to the Oireachtas, allowing for a new ethical framework shaped by legislation and public debate. However, while progress has been made, the fundamental legal and ethical dilemmas at the heart of P.P. v. HSE remain unsettled, leaving open the possibility that such tragic circumstances could arise again. In a searing editorial at the time, the woman was referred to as a ' cadaveric incubator .' The term is terrible, and its honesty is unmerciful. For what else, legally speaking, was she during those weeks? She was no longer a citizen. No longer a patient. No longer capable of consent. She had become, by a certain line of reasoning, a resource, one whose utility had not yet expired. And yet: this young woman had been someone. Someone who had made choices, who had loves and fears, and who might have left an advance directive had she ever imagined such a grim fate. Her family's grief was compounded not only by her loss but by the State's intrusion into what should have been a sacred and private time of reckoning with death. It brought into sharp focus ethical questions that, while deeply significant, are often approached with caution or even skirted in public discourse – What is life? Who owns death? Who decides its terms? And does the unborn's fragile spark of potential outweigh the dignity owed to the dead? The High Court, to its credit, ruled with sobriety and deference to expert medical consensus that there was no reasonable prospect that the foetus would survive to viability. But it still took weeks of judicial intervention to affirm that a woman who was clinically dead should not be subjected to experimental prolongation. I revisit the case here not to reopen wounds, and indeed, I thought long and hard, hesitant to write at all out of deference to those who lived its reality. But then I recalled something Hubert Butler once said of another historical silence, when atrocities in Yugoslavia went unmentioned because naming them would mean naming our own complicity: '.. silence did not help me ... It became increasingly difficult to be silent .' And so, it is here. We must speak with clarity and compassion about where medicine, law, and human dignity intersect – and where they diverge. In this instance, we were forced to ask ourselves whether a dead woman could be called upon to continue a pregnancy she could no longer consent to, whether she could, as some bioethicists starkly put it, ' be used '. The question was no longer whether the unborn had rights; instead, it was whether the dead had any rights left? It is important to stress here that no argument was presented to diminish the moral status of the unborn. Rather, the arguments were made to try to assert the indivisible dignity and bodily integrity of the already lived life, and the rights of families to mourn without being conscripted into bioethical theatre. In cases such as this, when all evidence points to futility, continuing life support is no longer an act of care – it is an act of fear, driven by legal shadows, not moral light. And it seems, we are no longer mere witnesses to birth and death; we are, increasingly, their stewards. Modern medicine has given us powers that previous generations could never have imagined – the ability to keep bodies functioning after the mind is gone, after death, to intervene in birth and delay death. But these powers have brought with them difficult questions: just because we can act, does it mean we should? In cases such as P.P. v HSE , where a woman declared clinically dead was kept on somatic support for the sake of her unborn child who has no chance of survival, and against her family's wishes, we see how the boundaries between life, death, and duty blur and just how complicated these questions can become. When we ask if we have no more active rights over life, birth and death, but instead are forced to confront the clash between medical possibility, legal obligation, and human dignity. Is this not best answered by opposing principles, but by turning toward the moral terrain where those principles collide: a space requiring not only legal interpretation, but imagination, conscience, and care. This is not a simple clash between religion and secularism, or between tradition and progress. Nor is this tragic paradox in any way confined to Ireland. This case is only one of a number of rare, tragic, high-profile, and contentious medico-legal cases, which have gone before courts around the world in recent years. Some are cases where pregnant women, have been clinically diagnosed as brain-dead but are kept ' alive ' artificially, to preserve the life of the unborn until such time that a Caesarean section can be carried out. In such cases of maternal-foetal conflict , the pregnant woman's interests conflict with the interests of the foetus because clearly, to allow the mother's death would result in the unborn dying because its intensive care support would be withdrawn. Again, I stress that what I write here is in no way a debate about the moral status of the foetus, nor a contest between the right to life and the right to die. It is, instead, an attempt to consider how we act when the old moral frameworks no longer fit – and how we honour the living and the dead when the answers aren't written down. For while P.P. v HSE may bear the peculiar imprimatur of our constitutional and religious legacy, the underlying conflict is something more intimate and harrowing – between technological capacity and moral restraint – the redefinition of the human identity in an age of technical possibility. And across Europe and beyond, similar cases have arisen to highlight the global resonance of these issues and underscore the universality of the dilemma: the collision between medical capability and moral uncertainty, between the language of law and the needs of grief. Instances where medical possibility outpaces ethical consensus, and where law, unsure of its footing, stumbles into the most private regions of life and death. In Texas, the high-profile case of Marlise Muñoz in 2013 echoed with chilling familiarity: a brain-dead woman, pregnant, was kept on life support against her family's wishes due to state laws protecting the unborn. In Germany, the debate continues over how to balance prenatal life with posthumous dignity in the absence of explicit legal directives. Even in secular France, the Vincent Lambert case in 2019, though not involving pregnancy, laid bare the painful entanglements of familial love, legal ambiguity, and medical endurance. These are not the accidents of jurisdiction, but the growing pains of a civilisation increasingly unsure how to interpret the sacred in the age of the mechanical. The principles of medical ethics – autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice – known collectively as the Beauchamp and Childress framework, form the quiet architecture by which medicine seeks to balance power with compassion, and are not merely philosophical ornaments. They are the scaffolding by which we try to uphold the human spirit in a world increasingly seduced by the procedural and drawn to the utilitarian. Each principle carries distinct weight and, when in tension, reveals the intricacy of end-of-life decision-making: Respect for autonomy, in the context of P.P. vs HSE , becomes paradoxical. It affirms the individual's right to have meaningful agency and moral authority over the most fundamental aspects of their existence – how they are born, how they live, and how they die. This includes making decisions about their own body and life, including the choice to refuse life-prolonging treatment or to seek medically assisted death. It means honouring a competent person's wish to die with dignity, even when that wish contradicts societal norms or professional instincts to preserve life using systems that neither knew us nor will mourn us. But the dead have no will – they once had one. Is it beyond our moral imagination to give it voice and let it be heard? Interest Theory allows for the possibility of posthumous rights, including, for example, the right to have one's remains treated with dignity, the right to have one's wishes regarding burial or cremation respected, or the right to protect one's reputation from posthumous defamation. But in the age of technology, has society chosen to limit the principle of posthumous autonomy and posthumous moral and legal rights? The right to die a natural death is supported by the right to respect for autonomy. But many states, including Ireland, invalidate a woman's advance directive if she is pregnant because of the compelling legal right to life of the foetus. Often, irrespective of whether the woman's wishes are known or not, courts will use a best interests test or substituted judgment standard. Some will argue, understandably, that beneficence – our duty to do good – extends most urgently to the vulnerable unborn. But beneficence, if severed from context, becomes blind and can even lead to tyranny. In trying to preserve a hypothetical life, we may violate an actual death. In doing so, we may dishonour both. Regarding non-maleficence, a dead person experiences no physical harm from continued somatic support because they are dead. However, if we consider posthumous rights, it could be argued that somatic support of a decomposing dead body potentially violates the cultural norms of dignity and respect that society confers to dead human bodies. Regarding the principle of (social) justice, intensive somatic support is expensive and it is arguable that the State should not direct such limited resources, for an indefinite time to the care of one dead individual, even when balanced against the costs of caring for a baby for a prolonged time in a neonatal intensive unit care if gestation were not delayed to allow the foetus to mature further in utero. When making decisions, particularly in situations involving maternal-foetal conflict, doctors must balance these ethical principles with professional practice guidelines and responsibilities under the law. But in navigating, we encounter the limits of law in matters that are deeply human. The law may compel action, but there are moments when law, though meticulously reasoned, proves insufficient to capture the full scope of human experience or embody compassion. Yes, legality can codify duties, define rights, and offer structure to our moral instincts. Still, even the most carefully constructed legal frameworks cannot fully account for love, grief, or the emotional, ethical, moral and familial complexity of life-and-death decisions, let alone the unspoken complexities that shape human lives. In cases like P.P. v HSE , and many others, the boundaries of law meet the raw edge of human sorrow. What follows is not merely a legal question but an ethical reckoning with what it means to honour the dead, to protect the unborn, and to listen to the quiet dignity of those who mourn. And where competing rights, such as the sanctity of life or the rights of the unborn, are applied as absolutes, is it possible that they can obscure more than they resolve, especially when they collide with the dignity owed to the dead? It raises the question – when we cling to principles too tightly, do we risk losing sight of the person? As Hubert Butler observed, ' Science has enormously extended the sphere of our responsibilities, while our consciences have remained the same size .' In an age where the dead can be biologically sustained long after meaning has ebbed away, the question is not just what we can do, but what we should do – and why. Is there a point at which the machinery of law must yield to the compassion of humanity, where rigid adherence gives way to moral judgment grounded not in statutes, but in empathy, respect, and care? It is in this space – between what the law allows and what decency demands – that our truest responsibilities begin. Dignity is an elusive but crucial concept. It's not simply the absence of suffering, nor merely the preservation of respect for autonomy. Dignity might serve as a middle path – a humane principle in the absence of consensus, reminding us that medicine is not only a technical craft but also a humane one. In the bleak world of King Lear , mortal lives are at the mercy of fate and indifferent, as Shakespeare's characters are cast from birth to death with little control, their will overwhelmed by storm, folly, despair and madness. Today, medical ethics, biotechnology, and law offer tools that challenge this fatalism. Edgar's stoic call to ' endure ' in King Lear was a balm for despair, but in our modern context, endurance is no longer passive. It is curated, legislated, and medicalised. When endurance means tethering a dead woman to machines for weeks against her family's wishes, it is no longer stoicism – it becomes imposition. In this, perhaps, Edgar's words still hold – not as a declaration of helplessness, but stripped of its fatalism, it becomes a call to humanity. A reminder of the deep humility required at the edges of human life. Yes, men must endure their going hence – but not in silence, not without dignity, and not without the right to be mourned as more than a vessel. Whether we are choosing to end treatment, to intervene in birth, or to withhold the breath of a machine, we are not gods. Our agency is real, but it is bounded by mortality, by ethics, and by love. Yes, men must endure their going hence. But we, the living, must also ensure they may go in peace.
Irish Daily Mirror
4 days ago
- Irish Daily Mirror
'When trad happens the first casualty is the truth - Ed Sheeran wasn't a drill'
Everyone will remember where they were... This was not a drill. Wexford. Known affectionately by people in Wexford as the Model County. Land of the strawberry. Home of celebrities like... like... eh... John Banville. Wexford town. Population 21,525. Famed for having roads that go to both Dublin, and Rosslare. And thus, a town built to accommodate a swift exit. READ MORE: "If you've been trying to contact Galway, sorry about that - Galway's off" But history tells us that events unforeseen can overtake any preparations humanity has put in place. Such was the case on Wednesday, Wexford's 5/8. Wexford woke up to blue skies, a morning like any other - except it wasn't. A fleadh was in progress, people were vigilant. As a nation with a troubled past we are used to dealing with traditional Irish music. But in Wexford on Wednesday the threat level had been raised to severe. Scenes that nobody could have foreseen As people went about their business - growing and selling strawberries and whatnot - notes hung in the air. Notes of the trad kind. Precautions had been taken. Areas were sectioned off - primarily in pubs. This was a noble sacrifice regular drinkers made for the greater good. We will remember them... When a trad festival breaks out, the first casualty is the truth. There's unverified footage of that noisy shoe dancing on wood. You've got to get a handle on this - if you don't, the people who do it might get notions and consider running for the Presidency. But worse, so much more worse, was to come. Around lunchtime, a SUV drove right up to a pub - the footage will be replayed for generations to come. Then the news broke, the news nobody expected. Ed Sheeran had gone into the pub. The man who wrote the line: "Take my hand. Stop. Put Van the Man on the jukebox". Oh the humanity... Unverified photographs show people on the streets, stunned, not knowing which way to run. Profound stories are only emerging now about what happened inside the pub. Bar staff on the frontline were already battling early morning trad... They are the best of us. But even they could not be prepared for Ed Sheeran at lunchtime. The man who had already inflicted Galway Girl on the world. It's too soon for the blame game. In time, we will seek answers. Tribunals and inquiries will take their course. There will be no winners other than those who bank a load of cash. There is a duty on those in power to consult with all those directly affected, and - for future generations - build an appropriate memorial to this event. Meanwhile, we come to terms with the realisation that going to the pub will never be the same again. Is a minute silence too much to ask for? Never forget.
Irish Independent
15-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
When Bono met Harry: U2 star and Point developer Crosbie shake on it at Dalkey Book Festival
The festival, founded by economist David McWilliams and his wife Sian Smyth, has been running since 2010 and continues to attract star Irish and international names to the south county Dublin village. There was a strong interest from U2 band members and associates for a talk by film director Neil Jordan and author John Banville on the life of Roger Casement, the British diplomat who was executed in 1916 for treason after his participation in the Easter Rising. Property developer Harry Crosbie told the Sunday Independent that his job on Friday night was to be 'the driver'. He said he was just there to 'pick up and drop off John Banville'. Spotting Crosbie in his 1967 Mercedes Pagoda, Killiney resident Bono, who had a security team with him, made a bee line for him and shook his long-time friend's hand. Crosbie, who helped develop The Point (now the 3Arena) and Vicar Street music venues, has said he will never write his autobiography because it would be too full of 'name-dropping'. Bono's wife Ali Hewson also attended the same sold-out Casement talk, hosted by broadcaster Caroline Erskine, that took place in a marquee overlooking Dalkey Island. U2 guitarist The Edge was also present at the same talk and was seen entering the marquee after the event began. The festival's programme noted that Casement was described by his hangman in Pentonville prison as 'the bravest man I have ever had the displeasure to walk up the scaffold'. 'From Congo to Peru and back home to Ireland, Casement fought for the rights of dispossessed peoples wherever he saw them,' the programme said. 'A gay, Protestant, Irish revolutionary, a man of contradictions and complexity, he was only recently rehabilitated in Ireland. Is there a more heroic Irish figure than Roger Casement?' ADVERTISEMENT The festival concludes today with talks including one on rugby from former Ireland player Gordon D'Arcy and Paul Howard, journalist and author of the Ross O'Carroll-Kelly books. There is also an event with Charlie Mackesy, the author of The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse.
Irish Times
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Ready to move in: restored Georgian home with basement apartment on Mount Street Upper for €1.5m
Address : 3 Mount Street Upper, Dublin 2 Price : €1,500,000 Agent : Sherry FitzGerald View this property on In his writings, noted Irish author and Booker Prize -winner John Banville notes his aunt's old flat on Upper Mount Street as the inspiration for the setting for his protagonist, Dr Quirke, the fictional pathologist in the crime novels he wrote under the pen name Benjamin Black. He later wrote in the Guardian of the 'dilapidated grandeur' of her flat where 'Yeats's daughter Anne' was a neighbour and Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh was 'a frequenter of the front steps, a vantage from which he could scowl across at the offices of the Dolmen Press, Dublin's leading publishers of poets, though not Kavanagh'. Commenced around 1790, the street was constructed to link the Grand Canal to Merrion Square and Leinster House, and it is noted on the National Built Heritage Service's website that it is 'indicative of [the] piecemeal nature of its construction, that the north side [is] notably less grand than the south'. It also notes that St Stephen's Church provides 'an interesting centrepiece' at the end of the street. Sherry FitzGerald has just launched number 3 Mount Street Upper to the market, which began life back in 1810, having been constructed in a series of four (numbers 1 to 4) residences that sat behind fine cobweb fanlights. Number 3 operated as commercial offices for the past few decades where the likes of accountants, medical services and a language school operated from its 216sq m (2,325sq ft) space. With four floors over a basement, the house has recently been transformed back to a residential unit under the guidance of architect Michael Cullinan of MV Cullinan Architects. READ MORE The property has an impressive cobweb fanlight A kitchen/diningroom on the ground floor The house is well lit thanks to its south-facing aspect Livingroom on the first floor Principal bedroom Its size is important. In comparison to its peers around the corner on Merrion Square, it's a far more manageable space where staff were originally required to run a multitude of rooms in days gone by. Number 3 is three bays wide with a south-facing aspect. 'You [would usually] have to go to the palatial sized homes around the corner to have this feature, so it has all these qualities, but in a much more compact form,' says Cullinan. He describes the staircase that runs over five floors as an 'essential ingredient' to its charm. 'Very few houses in Dublin have a staircase design such as number 3. At the top you have a square stairs, then descending it becomes a helical [curved] stairs ending up as a dog-legged stairs below,' says Cullinan. Kitchen at basement level Now in turnkey condition, all the headaches associated with renovating a protected structure are over, and new technology, such as Gutex insulation, has been fitted, along with lime plaster, to make the house run more efficiently. The house design has incorporated a self-contained apartment at basement level, which could potentially be rented out or used as separate accommodation for a family member. The property now has four bedrooms in total: two on the third floor, the principal on the second and a fourth at basement level. A kitchen and diningroom lie just inside the front hallway with a wonderful well-lit livingroom on the first floor. Thanks to the layout of the returns, the first floor now has a study, while a WC services the kitchen/dining area return. [ Sandymount four-bed with striking sunroom for €2.15m Opens in new window ] Further interest is the fact that the house has three cellars, and these take 'the form of deep arched basements that extend to the middle of the road,' Cullinan says. With vaulted ceilings, one is used as a plant room and one of the others serves as storage for the apartment at basement level. What is on offer here is a medium-sized Georgian residence a stone's throw from Merrion Square that Cullinan describes as 'packing a punch way above its weight' due to its location, three-bay width and, most importantly, its south-facing aspect. Ber-exempt as it is a protected structure, the turnkey house is likely to appeal to those with a love of Georgian architecture in search of a manageable home. Sherry FitzGerald is seeking €1.5 million for the house which has a parking space to the rear and a self-contained basement-level apartment.
RTÉ News
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
10 other arts and music festivals to check out this summer
Whisper it - lest you provoke the weather gods - but with this prolonged period of glorious sunshine we've been having, it's the perfect time to start planning your summer festival schedule. Amidst the big players - the Longitudes and the All Together Nows, the Electric Picnics and the Galway International Arts Festivals - there are plenty of other lesser-known music and arts gems to be appreciated across the coming months. So whether you're not into milling around with tens of thousands of punters or you're simply looking for something a little off the beaten track, here are ten other music and arts festivals to check out. 1. Festival of Writing and Ideas | June 6th - 8th | Borris, Co. Carlow This brilliant festival does exactly what it says on the tin: it gathers together an array of brilliant minds, thinkers, speakers, writers and idea-generators at the picturesque Borris House in County Carlow for an annual shindig. This year's programme includes authors John Banville, Paul Murray, Maggie Armstrong and Sinéad Gleeson, musicians Colin Greenwood and Conor O'Brien, actors Fiona Shaw, Kristin Scott Thomas, Rupert Everett and Eileen Walsh, and many more. 2. Open Ear Festival | May 29th - June 1st | Cork Keep both your ears and your minds open for this gem. Not only is the line-up a stellar showing of some of the most interesting irish acts around - from the Choice-nominated Róis to renowned violinist Caoimhín Ó Ragallaigh and experimental psych-rock artist Elaine Malone - but the novelty of travelling to it by ferry adds to its unique nature. It takes place on Sherkin Island off the coast of Cork, with camping and glamping available on site. 3. In the Meadows | June 7th | Dublin Any opportunity to see the Godfather of Punk, Iggy Pop, is always worth taking. When you add in an array of superb bands - both Irish and international - across a day-long event, it's doubly so. The punk legend will headline and has also curated the bill for the second In the Meadows festival at the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, which includes Gilla Band, Slowdive, Sprints, Lambrini Girls, Muireann Bradley and more. 4. Carlow Arts Festival | June 4th - 8th The organisers of this long-running event have pulled together an impressive programme for 2025, with a nicely-balanced mix of music, theatre, visual arts, spoken word, comedy, workshops and more. Highlights include multi-hyphenate artist SexyTadhg, Emman Idama's comedy show No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish, music by Ye Vagabonds and the community-led Carnival of Collective Joy; who wouldn't want to see such a spectacle? 5. When Next We Meet | June 7th - 8th | Clonmel, Co. Tipperary If a celebration of some of the finest independent acts on the Irish music scene sounds like your kind of thing, this intimate festival is well worth checking out. Now in its fourth year, the 2025 programme takes place at the Raheen House Hotel in Clonmel and will see Villagers, Pillow Queens, Paddy Hanna, Morgana and more entertain the masses. With a capacity for only 800 people max per night, there'll be no shoving required to get to the front at this comparatively cosy gathering. 6. Forest Fest Music & Arts Festival | July 25th - 27th | Emo, Co. Laois For one weekend a year, the village of Emo, Co. Laois plays host to some of the big-hitters from the music world over the last twenty years. With a bias towards indie and rock, this year's excellent line-up includes Manic Street Preachers, Franz Ferdinand, Teenage Fanclub, Travis, The Dandy Warhols and more. If you're an old school raver, however, Orbital will provide the goods, while there's also an Ibiza Rewind stage, a Forest Fleadh area, a family area and much more. 7. Body & Soul: A Wake | August 16th - 18th | Exact location TBC, but Co. Meath After 14 editions, the Body & Soul festival sadly came to an end in 2023 - but that's not quite where the story ends. Although details are scant, it's worth keeping an eye on what this 'wake' might entail. Described as a 'final send-off' for the beloved festival, organisers have stressed that it's "not a festival" - but there is a (loose) dress code and there will no doubt be entertainment at this "intimate gathering rooted in the energy of an Irish Wake". More info will be revealed to those attending closer to the time. 8. West Cork Literary Festival | July 11th - 18th | Bantry, Co. Cork What an outstanding programme awaits in Banty, West Cork this summer - as if you need an excuse to visit such a stunning corner of Ireland. Big hitters like Richard E. Grant, Sarah Moss, Alan Hollinghurst, Neil Jordan and local boy Graham Norton will rub shoulders with various luminaries (Eimear McBride, Claire Kilroy) and newcomers of the Irish literary scene, including Ferdia Lennon, Seán Ronayne, Louise Hegarty and more - with plenty of free events, talks, workshops and even a festival swim in the mix, too. Undoubtedly one of the best literary line-ups of the year. 9. Another Love Story | August 23rd - 24th | Killyon, Co. Meath This festival, which launched in 2014, has established itself as one of the smallest-but-most-perfectly-formed festivals on the Irish circuit, always curating a beautifully well-rounded programme that will appeal to music lovers of all tastes. This year's event includes sets by Spanish DJ/producer John Talabot, singer-songwriter Fionn Regan, Dublin rapper Curtisy, folk duo Dug and more. 10. Night and Day | June 27th - 29th | Boyle, Co. Roscommon It's not just music that's the draw for this festival in Lough Key Forest Park in Co. Roscommon, although there's plenty of interest on that front (from KT Tunstall to Paul Brady, and The Wailers to José González). There's also a family zone and accompanying programme to keep the tiddlers happy, with workshops, dancing, circus skills, lego and more, alongside a wellness area to provide some tranquility away from the hustle and bustle.
