JAMES CONNOLLY FESTIVAL 2026

This year’s festival runs from Wednesday, May 6th to Sunday 10th with almost all events taking place at Connolly House and The New Theatre. 

The festival kicks off on Wednesday the 6th with an evening of theatre, readings, songs and stories based around the works of James Connolly and his daughter Nora. It will see the first performance of James Connolly’s ‘The Agitator's Wife’. A formerly lost short story discovered in 2019, believed to be written by Connolly in 1894. Found in the Labour Prophet journal, it depicts a Scottish docker's wife taking over leadership of a strike to support her family and community. It likely inspired a lost play of the same name mentioned in his daughter's 1935 memoir. Speaking of Nora Connolly’s memoir ‘Portrait of a Rebel Father’, the evening will also see selected readings from it by actor Leanne Pickerdike. The evening will close with songs

On Thursday the Connolly Books Film Club will screen ‘I Am Cuba’ (Soy Cuba). The film was both a landmark of radical political cinema and one of the most visually ravishing films ever made. A legendary hymn to revolution shimmers across the screen like a fever dream of rebellion. It will be followed by a Q&A.

Friday sees us mark twenty years since the passing of a legendary Irish Communist. ‘Mick O’Riordan: The Man We Knew’ will see the New Theatre host an evening of memories and discussion on Mick’s life with long time stalwart members of the Communist Party of Ireland and author of ‘The Making of an Irish Communist Leader - life and times of Michael O’Riordan 1938-1947’

Saturday will see three events take place across The New Theatre and Connolly House. The day will open with a poetry and spoken word session featuring Anna D, Rachel Lally, Nithy Kasa and Clíodhna Bhreatnach outside in the Connolly Books Courtyard. In the afternoon we will launch Eoghan O’Neills new book 'Breaking Dependency: Ireland's Struggle for Class Power and Sovereignty' in the O’Riordan-Redmond room at Connolly House. Later that evening, the annual ‘James Connolly Memorial Lecture’ will be delivered by Dr Patrick Bresnihan. The title of this year;s lecture is ‘Imperialism, Sovereignty and the spectre of Neutrality

On Sunday the festival closes with the James Connolly Commemoration at Arbour Hill from 3pm. For this year's commemoration we are honoured to welcome Dr Saeb Sha’ath to give the oration. The Gaza-born activist is a well known public speaker and expert on West Asia. He is also well versed on Irish history and affairs. He will address our commemoration on the historic struggle of the Irish and Palestinian people for national freedom and independence. We will also hear from Fionn Wallace of the Communist Party of Ireland.

WHAT IS JAMES CONNOLLY FESTIVAL?

The James Connolly Festival is an annual, week-long series of events in radical arts, culture and politics. It is a community-centred celebration of music, film, discussion and debate that brings together the ideas and thoughts of progressive and radical thinkers and organisations from across Ireland and beyond.

Since the festival’s inception we have sought to promote progressive arts, culture and politics, providing a platform of discussion and debate for those seeking alternatives in a world where the lives of the many are dominated by the few. We challenge societal inequality and the class barriers fraught within the arts, encouraging an inclusive and collective approach to artistic expression. Our annual festival serves as a celebration of the rich working class culture that exists in Ireland and provides a space for the people of our ever-evolving island to express the wealth of their culture and articulate their experience of life.

James Connolly remains Ireland’s foremost working class hero and founder of the Irish trade union movement. In his humble introduction to the 1907 songbook ‘Songs Of Freedom’ he famously remarked that “no revolutionary movement is complete without its poetical expression”. He noted that if a movement caught hold of the imagination of the masses that they would “seek a vent in song for the aspirations, fears and the hopes, the loves and the hatreds engendered by struggle” and that until the movement was “marked by the joyous, defiant, singing of revolutionary songs, it lacks one of the most distinctive marks of a popular revolutionary movement, it is the dogma of a few, and not the faith of the multitude.” It is in this revolutionary spirit, and recognition of the importance of culture to transcend society, that the festival centres its ethos.

For more information on the festival you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter using /ConnollyFest or the hashtag #JCF2026

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