How do I get involved?

The Bealtaine festival is part-funded by the Arts Council.

As an individual

Each year, we produce the Bealtaine Bulletin in April, listing most of the events that will be taking place around the country. We also add any late entries we receive to the listing on the Bealtaine website. A number of local organisers also bring out a brochure for their county, which they make available through local libraries and public places.

Check your local listings on the Bealtaine website for events or call your local library, arts centre or local authority arts office to find out what they are offering during Bealtaine. Participants also tell us about using free travel to go to events on train and bus routes and ‘making a day of it’. Organisers provide phone numbers to help you to check in advance if you can take part in other people’s events. So whether it's singing in Letterkenny, an art tour in Limerick City, a medieval fair in Waterford or some drama in Drogheda, take the chance to travel and try something new.

If you have an idea for an event in your area for next year’s festival but are not involved in any group, perhaps the local library, the county arts officer or another organisation could help you to make that idea a reality. People all over the country have been doing the same since we started the festival in 1996 and now lots of organisations couldn’t imagine May without a host of Bealtaine events in all different art forms. People have made short films, have curated exhibitions, have danced on the professional stage, have shared experiences with people of all ages and from many different cultures. If you can imagine it, Bealtaine is your chance to finally get around to doing it.

Find out about arts funding and support organisations.

As a member of a group

Ní neart go cur le chéile, as they say, and groups all over the country have proved it, by running imaginative, inclusive and engaging events.

So, what is the event to be? Inspiration comes from all corners. Do you want to relive your dancehall days or reminisce about the past for the next generation? Do you want to do something new and daring to shake things up? Do you finally want to finally learn to paint or to sing or to learn about cinema? Do you want to leave a permanent monument behind in sculpture or in poetry? Do you want to share a special day with your grandchildren, nieces or nephews or maybe even get the whole community together for a celebration?

Every year, we are surprised and delighted with the new and ingenious events that we see coming from groups all over the country. Even groups with small numbers can have a very big impact (the Newcestown Friendship Group in Cork being an inspirational example). Check out the Bealtaine Bulletin to see what other groups are doing and then make their ideas your own. Every new group brings a new eye and a new hand to a good idea and we have seen an idea transformed by being ‘redone’. Remember what Picasso said: "Good artists copy. Great artists steal."

Making your idea a reality is the adventure of Bealtaine. Help comes in all different guises. Members of your group may have particular skills or access to them through family members. Library services and the county arts officer may have contacts that can help things along. Other groups who have taken part in Bealtaine in other counties may have some invaluable advice.

Age & Opportunity does not fund the Bealtaine events (apart from particular projects that we have instigated or helped to develop). We can, however, make sure that you are listed in our Bulletin. At the beginning of each year, we ask all organisers to fill out a form that tells us what they have planned for Bealtaine. This information goes in the Bulletin and on the Bealtaine website. We have also developed guidelines on working with older people in the arts, which you may find useful to get you thinking about what you are trying to achieve.

Most groups need to take part in fundraising, so you will know what organisations will support you locally either with funding or with in-kind support like the use of facilities. Contact your local authority about other funding and check the Irish Fundraising Handbook in your local library, produced by Create, the national development agency for collaborative arts.

Find out about arts funding and support organisations.

As an Arts Organiser

Each year, more and more arts organisations get involved with Bealtaine. Some organisations who may have started with a half-day event or workshop are now running a diverse and complex programme that runs across the month of May and leads to other events throughout the year. Older people’s involvement in creativity is not only transforming them; it is also transforming the organisations who engage with them. Bealtaine has provided a context to explore new directions, to build new audiences and to understand, in practical terms what issues like accessibility and inclusion mean to a venue, to a programme and to an approach.

The Age & Opportunity Guidelines for Working with Older People in the Arts (see below) gives organisations an initial idea about what meaningful engagement of older people in an arts experience can look like.

Our Bealtaine office has assisted many arts and cultural institutions to come to a deeper understanding of what it means to cultivate older people as artists, participants and audience and can provide useful insight into how your organisation can achieve this too. 

Find out about arts funding and support organisations.