Kilkenny Arts Festival – announces 2026 programme

From theatre to contemporary dance, from visual arts to music of all genres, literature and so much more, Kilkenny Arts Festival (KAF) presents each August an exciting programme of events of the highest calibre, thrilling audiences of all kinds in some of the loveliest buildings in Kilkenny.

Some highlights of the 2026 programme include: 

The World Premiere of The Curing Line from the thrilling company Straymaker which won the Fedora Prize 
Land of Winter – the Grammy Award-winning work from Donnacha Dennehy, performed by Crash Ensemble with conductor Ryan McAdams
World Premiere of Equal from Dennehy, a new work for two pianos, with festival debuts from David Kaplan and Timo Andres
The Irish Premiere of The Last Tape, a new operatic version of Beckett’s beloved text with Gare St Lazare Ireland
After astonishing festival audiences in 2025 the team behind Secret Byrd returns with the Irish premiere of The Death of Gesualdo
A community and citywide theatrical retelling of the story of the Kilkenny Witch Trials in The Alice Project with Asylum Productions
Anchorpoint  a thrilling aerial performance where the performers use the strength of their hair to bear their body weight.
The Hubert Butler Lecture given by Former President of Ireland Mary Robinson.
Pop up performances in secret gardens around the city.

Speaking of the announcement today (17 June 2026), Festival Director, Olga Barry said: 

‘”We’re thrilled to announce the 53rd Edition of Kilkenny Arts Festival – a programme where bold new work sits front and centre at Kilkenny – where Kilkenny audiences see and hear work first, staged in unique ways, and where major projects are made especially for Kilkenny. With opera, theatre, music and performance all changing the boundaries of artistic expression, Kilkenny Arts Festival welcomes those with curious minds and open hearts -welcoming the blurring of lines and discarding the ‘labels’. This programme brings the celebration of humanity to the fore – we can’t wait to welcome audiences to the Marble City in August”.

See it in Kilkenny first – the world premiere of the winner of the Fedora International Opera Prize

Straymaker in association with  Kilkenny Arts Festival, Miroirs Étendus, Shawn Fitzgerald Ahern and Once Off Productions present the world premiereof The Curing Line winner of the Fedora International Opera Prize, ahead of dates in Paris this autumn. Set in 1990s Ireland, a young woman in a border town inherits an ancestral healing power, but loses her ability to use it, with devastating consequences. This bold new work takes the audience on a journey through the thin veil between sickness and health and asks, do we still have the power to heal? 

With a creative team of Michael Gallen, Annemarie Ní Churreáin, Shawn Fitzgerald Ahern, Clara Baget, Pai Rathava, Simon Cullen and Yukiko Yoshimoto; Cast includes Amy Ní Fhearraigh and Sarah Shine and a stellar chamber ensemble of Romain Bly, Joséphine, Caimin Gilmore, Maria Ryan and Oisín Walsh-Peelo. 

More premiere performances 

Premiere performances of Asylum Productions The Alice Project, is the storyof the Kilkenny Witch Trials in five parts – intimate storytelling in various locations, bookended by two large outdoor spectacles – The Demon Dance on the city’s Parade  (Friday 7th),  and culminating in The Burning, set on the grounds of St Kieran’s College (Saturday 15th). Created with a community cast and with a collective of makers including writer Clare Monnelly, Medb Lambert and Fern Kealy, with directors  Dónal Gallagher and  Janice de Bróite, choreography by Cindy Cummings and music by Dave Holland. 

The Hubert Butler Lecture given by Mary Robinson

The Hubert Butler Annual Lecture, will be given by former President of Ireland Mary Robinson at St Canice’s Cathedral, on 9 Aug, with the title: ‘Where life is fully and consciously lived in our own neighbourhood; Meitheal, community and food sovereignty’.  

Lighting up the Castle walls 

Light Up the Castle has become an annual highlight with a new commission each year – this year Rift created and directed by Jack Phelan, that will light up Kilkenny Castle, an uplifting spectacle to counter the sense of the world being an overwhelming place; produced  in association with OPW, see Kilkenny Castle in a whole new light for a family audience. 

Irish premiere of the rarely seen operatic reworking of Krapp’s Last Tape

The acclaimed international theatre company Gare St Lazare Ireland will bring the rarely seen operatic reworking of Beckett’s classic play Krapp’s Last Tape to the Watergate for its Irish premiere. The Last Tape is directed by Judy Lovett and performed by Conor Lovett and renowned singer Mark Padmore with conductor Elaine Kelly – this will be essential for those who want to experience one of Beckett’s few opera collaborations.

Irish Premiere  – staged performance 

Bill Barclay and The Gesualdo Six, the team behind last year’s highlight event, Secret Byrd return to Kilkenny, this time at St Canice’s Cathedral with the Irish premiere of The Death of Gesualdo. This production comes straight from a sold-out run at St Martin-in-the-Fields in London where the UK Times said” The subject matter may be gruesome, but the singing and acting are divine”. 

Aerial performances 

In a secret location Elaine McCague (Co-Creative Director of Loosey Smokes) and her team will perform Anchorpoint , an aerial performance where the performers use the strength of their hair to bear their body weight. Breathtaking in every sense of the word. 

Grammy award winning work 

Festival ensemble in residence,  Crash Ensemble perform Donnacha Dennehy’s evocative and uplifting Land of Winter (for which he received a Grammy award this year),which explores the changing seasons, months and light of his homeplace. 

Festival debuts and familiar faces return 

Pianists Timo Andres and David Kaplan have their KAF debuts this summer with two programmes at St John’s Priory that explore the work of John Adams, Steve Reich, and Meredith Monk.  Both concerts will feature Equal, the world premiere of a new work from Donnacha Dennehy, which considers the nature of being an immigrant – the emotional space between the new world and the old.  

11 years on from his sold-out organ concert The Art of Fugue at KAF15, James McVinnie returns to St Canice’s Cathedral with a new programme of works for both piano and organ by JS Bach, whose Clavier-Übung III he recently recorded to great acclaim – “McVinnie’s speeds are well-nigh perfect” – Gramophone. Chamber Choir Ireland under conductor Gabriel Crouch, who made his Festival debut with an unforgettable performance of Jóhann Jóhannsson’s Drone Mass in 2024, presents an urgent programme centred on ‘forgotten peoples’ – migrants and the dispossessed. 

The Festival’s orchestra in residence the Irish Chamber Orchestra feature twice – first in a new collaboration with the boundary-blurring Trio of Niall Vallely, Liz Knowles and Niwel Tsumbu in Sun Lines – all three have arranged music for the ICO for a night that promises driving tunes and soulful new music; in their second concert ICO’s Artistic Partner Henning Kraggerud has devised a programme in response to some of the themes from The Alice Project – a journey through the supernatural imagination of Europe – in a programme called, The Devil, The Witch and the Warlock, with music ranging from Hildegarde von Bingen to Mussorgsky. 

Those who love early music will not want to miss the Idrîsî Ensemble who will bring the music of the medieval troubadours of Occitania to The Black Abbey in a new collaboration with the French-Lebanese violinist Layale Chaker and artist in residence, Francesco Turrisi.  

Mark Chambers has curated a special ‘deep dive’ on the music of John Dowland for the 400th anniversary of his death – with four concerts at St John’s Priory from the intimate domestic lute books with beloved masterworks like Flow My Tears, to his extensive travels through Europe featuring works by his contemporaries in Ireland and beyond, in the company of the Earls of Ormond. Featuring Eamon Sweeney, Siobhán Armstrong, Norah O’Leary, Malcolm Proud and more. 

Marble City Sessions / Residencies

In music boundaries continue to become less and less relevant as Martin Hayes has co-curated an exceptional line up this year’s Marble City Sessions which includes Kyle Sanna, Danny O’Mahony,  The Breath with Rioghnach Connolly, Liz Knowles, Aoife Ní Bhriain,  Síle Denvir , and Méav Ní Mhaolchatha; and again crosses over with the residencies of Kate Eliis and Francesco Turrisi – with their guests Rhiannon Giddens, Niwel Tsumbu, Éamonn Cagney, with Lucia McPartlin, Síle Denvir and Linda Buckley, and Francesco Turrisi’s homage to the sounds of childhood home of Sicily – Vuci, live performance with video design by Laura Sheeran, and Kate Ellis gathers a new collective with sean-nós singer and harper Síle Denvir, fiddle player extraordinaire Lucia McPartlin, and composer and electronic artist Linda Buckley. 

The iconic Cate Le Bon takes to the stage at St. Canice’s Cathedral for her only performance in Ireland this year; while other music acts that defy definition that audiences won’t ever forget are the Ukulele Death Squad – ‘the world’s most dangerous ukulele band’ and 64skana a Korean techno dance trio. 

Muiti-disciplinary Performance

Brendan MacEvilly will share his darkly comic essay-performance  musing on the meaning and function of fire in life and art in A Personal History of Pyromania while Luke Casserly’s multi-disciplinary production Distillation will take his audience for an extraordinary journey through the landscape of the Irish bog.

Dance/Music

A gig, but with a difference – where Colin Dunne’s feet are another instrument – festival audiences will have witnessed Dunne’s adventures with technology and live improvisation in recent years, and now  he returns with a new show, with two fine traditional musicians that are new to KAF audiences – this promises to be an intriguing and satisfying evening. 

Film screenings

A screening of acclaimed documentary maker Alan Gilsenan’s most recent film, The Journey of Weather-Exposed Bones (Nozarashi Kikō), written by Andrew Fitzsimons. This  beautiful film explores, among other themes, the life of Japan’s most revered haiku master, Bashō.  Also screening at the Watergate will be Fearghus Ó Conchúir’s dance film All to Play For  – a short film that celebrates former hurling and camogie stars, and uses dance to embody connection, community and determination.  

Talks and Literature

The Parade Tower will once again become the go-to destination for the literature and talks programme. Rosaleen McDonagh will discuss her new novel, Contentious Spaces in the company of Maureen Kennelly; Award-winning journalist Sally Hayden will talk about her newest book, This is Also a Love Story, with historian Catriona Crowe;and poet and writer Andrew Fitzsimon’s talk discusses  the haiku master in Glory’s Aftermath: Translating Bashō. Gillian O’Brien Professor of Public History at Liverpool University will give two fascinating lectures inspired by some of the themes running through the programme – Death Becomes Us –which looks at our own traditions and rituals, and often comic relationship with death, and Selective Memories – where O’Brien looks at Ireland’s history of migration in both directions; and  poet-in-residence Annemarie NÍ Churreáin will close the series with the final event at the Parade Tower on Sunday 16th, in the company of Olivia O’Leary.  

Visual Arts / Craft

The Butler Gallery together with Kilkenny Arts Festival presents Tony and Jane O’Malley – The Shared Studio. This expansive exhibition marks the receipt of the bequest of both artists’ estates to the Butler Gallery where the artists had a long association.

The Festival partners with KCAT Studio in Callan for a retrospective of Diana Chambers work entitled Allday & Everything.  The Design and Crafts Council of Ireland will present a luminous exhibition of work of the Glass Society of Ireland. Of Sand and Ash will showcase the breadth of contemporary Irish Glass practice. The Kilkenny Arts Office presents an exhibition that documents the experience of a serious house fire. Burning Down the House, My House by Kathryn Ashill and curated by Rachel Botha can be seen at The Tea Houses on Bateman Quay. 

Theatre for Children

Barnstorm Theatre presents Stormfest a week of gorgeous plays for children at the Old Bank on The Parade. The Dig, The Fisher and his Wife and Penny and the Far Thing will enchant and enthral all members of the family. 

And the ever popular Secret Garden Music Series will feature artists from across the Festival in the gorgeous gardens of Kilkenny and its environs throughout the Festival. 

Booking opens 12 noon today online at kilkennyarts.ie  / by phone +353 56 775 2175   

From 17th July book in person at the Festival Box Office 76 John Street, Kilkenny  

Kilkenny Arts Festival is grateful for the continued support from funders, particularly its principal funder, the Arts Council; Kilkenny County Council and Fáilte Ireland. 

Kilkenny Arts Festival 

2026 programme,

filled with award winning work, premieres, exclusive Irish performances, new commissions and faces and the return of some festival favourites.

Kilkenny Arts Festival announces its summer programme today  

featuring a spectacular selection of new projects & commissions, exquisite performances, new collaborations, intriguing installations 

and much, much more. 

6th-16th August 2026  

Tickets on sale from 12 noon today from kilkennyarts.ie  and full detailed program.