The inaugural Mise Éire Festival is taking place at a private venue on August 23rd, 2025, adjacent to Castlebar, Co. Mayo, from 2 pm to 11 pm. The exact location will be revealed prior to the event. Fuelled by overwhelming demand, additional online tickets for Mise Éire Festival 2025 sold out in days. A limited number of on-site tickets will be available at the gate.
This will be a family friendly celebration of our beautiful Ireland focusing on its rich cultural tapestry. There will be a variety of live music, talks and workshops including language classes As Gaeilge. Anyone and everyone who wants to celebrate what makes Ireland so wonderful is welcome. This event will take place at the end of the 2025 National Heritage week. The theme of this year’s heritage week is “Exploring Our Foundations” to appreciate the roots and building blocks of Ireland’s traditions and heritage.
Amongst the many speakers at Mise Éire Festival there’ll be a Brehon Law expert and an expert on the Drumcliffe Monastic site (the final resting place of Nobel prize winning poet William Butler Yeats). We also have a story teller who will spin wool while discussing the history of the wool industry in Ireland. Additionally, we have a poet and teacher who will present a class entitled “Three Steps To Peace: Awareness, Communication and Action.” Some of our guest speakers are published authors while others have professional backgrounds in Law and Journalism. All have a wealth of knowledge to share.
It is unfortunate that in recent days and weeks this event has been hijacked by a group of radical far left activists who have engaged in a ruthless and potentially criminal campaign in an effort to mis-represent and derail Mise Éire Festival. This has included persistent online harassment and threats toward the Mise Éire Festival organisers, speakers and venue employees. Shocking illustrations reminiscent of 19th century British anti Irish propaganda have been disseminated depicting Mise Éire Festival organisers as Nazis, and one illustration depicted the original venue’s chairperson with a grenade in his mouth and bombs strapped to his body.
In a live radio interview, one individual propagated several completely false and incendiary assertions which have led to an onslaught of abuse and we believe our safety and that of our families has been compromised. That particular radio station has aired two unreserved public apologies. The individual involved, along with others, spent several days in Drumshanbo, Co. Leitrim, handing out leaflets in which we were named and defamed.
One person involved in this hate campaign has been convicted of assault for throwing a curry powder laced milkshake in the eyes of two individuals, in an unprovoked and premeditated attack. This case has been documented in the media. Despite this, prominent national radio stations have platformed her untrue accusations about Mise Éire Festival and the organisers. Regrettably, they, along with some media publications, ran with these baseless assertions and most did not attempt to contact us or offer a right of reply. Similarly,, some political party County Councillors acted in bad faith, condemning us and Mise Éire Festival wholesale without attempting to reach out.
It is disappointing that these councillors, media outlets and the 600 people who are alleged to have signed an open letter, including Kneecap and Christy Moore, have failed to act responsibly and perform their due diligence, but have instead taken as fact our festival is something other than an Irish music and cultural event. In doing so they have aligned themselves with those who are now being investigated by An Garda Síochána. Furthermore, it is our belief that what was privately sent to the signatories is vastly different to the purported open letter which is too brief and vague to have garnered the support it has allegedly received. We are seeking legal opinion on this matter.
Our event is not and was never intended to be political in nature, however these radical left wing activists, media, high profile artists and politicians tried to make it so by engaging in a cancel culture witch hunt whereby they attempted to clamp down on free speech while hypocritically championing Kneecap’s right to same.
The ringleaders who spearheaded this relentless campaign have sabotaged dozens of other events across the country, costing one event organiser 70,000 euro as a result. A file has been sent to the Department of Public Prosecutions in that case. Their modus operandi is to illegally blackmail vendors and venue owners into cancelling. These individuals feel they get to decide what law abiding adults in Ireland get to say, do or think and they appear to feel entitled to shut down events, political or otherwise, because they personally disagree with the legally expressed views of others, even if a large proportion of the public hold such views.
Credit to : IrishInquiry