Kenmare | Arts Festival | 2027
KENMARE ARTS FESTIVAL 2027
1 TO 15 AUGUST 2027
The Kenmare Arts Festival 2026 was the most successful yet, engaging over 3,000 people — locals, visitors, artists, writers, poets, musicians and workshop participants — with many travelling from across Ireland and beyond.
Its value lies in what kind of festival it is: gentle, civilised and high-value, disrupting nothing and adding a great deal. It draws the visitor every town wants — curious, respectful, culturally minded — and strengthens Kenmare's identity as a place of culture and creativity.
The fortnight's programme ranged from writing, poetry, pottery and felting workshops to exhibitions, films, classical concerts and literary launches, with Siun Milne's violin concert, Daniel Kramer, and Kate O'Riordan's generous involvement among the highlights. Two publications, Poets Meet Painters 2026 and First Light, drew writers from Ireland, the UK, Australia and the Philippines.
Delivered entirely without public funding, through Mill Cove Gallery's sponsorship and local support, it is a cultural asset worth cherishing and growing.
OUT OF THE QUIET 2027
Out of the Quiet invites submissions from older Irish gay men whose lives, histories, and imaginative work have often been overlooked. This 2027 anthology will feature short fiction and poetry rooted in lived experience — memory, identity, resilience, sexuality, ageing, displacement, community, loss, joy, and belonging.
Submissions close on 30 May 2027
The project will culminate in publication and a public reading event as part of the Kenmare Arts Festival, August 2027.