First Fortnight Mental Health Arts & Culture Festival launched today featuring Declan O’Rourke, Tolü Makay and more

First Fortnight has launched its 15th annual mental health, arts and culture festival, which is set to run from today and until January 17 and include over 45 events across Ireland.

First Fortnight was first formed 15 years ago by two friends, David Keegan and JP Swain, who, according to Maria Fleming, festival director and CEO of First Fortnight, “sat around the kitchen table in Tallaght one evening,” she told Hot Press. “They had both been impacted, either directly or indirectly, by mental ill health.

“They were concerned, at the time, that they felt there was a mental health crisis in Ireland, and they wanted to see if there was something they could do about it,” she continued. “They were both involved in the arts and, as many people do, including myself, they believed in the power of the arts in terms of offering healing, but also in spreading a message. At the start, it was just a few artistic events that would address the issue of mental ill health, and try and challenge the stigma attached to mental health.

“It was very grassroots – all on a volunteer level to start with, and it was hugely successful. So they built on that year on year, to get to the point now where we're funded through the HSE and through the Arts Council, and we're running over 45 events across the country in all art forms. And we hope there’s something for everyone”

After supporting the festival from its early years, poet Stephen James Smith is joining Fleming as co-curator for the 2026 edition.

Smith started as a volunteer with the festival, and each year has curated the event Therapy Sessions in The Workman’s Club, a mixture of music and spoken word poetry

“Over the few years that I've been here,” Fleming told Hot Press, “Stephen has been a great support to me, reaching out to various artists, so we just started to chat about whether he would like to expand his level of involvement with the festival. It was great to have his institutional knowledge, and also just to see, after so many years, the passion that Stephen has, not just for the festival, but for its mission.”

First Fortnight will take place in Dublin and across the provinces, including regional development partnerships in counties Donegal, Down, Kildare, Wexford, Cork, Kerry and Limerick.

This year’s musical soundscape will feature Declan O’Rourke, Tolü Makay, Limerick’s own Emma Langford, David Costello, RUÁ and Toshín, to name a few.

First Fortnight will also programme an event taking place for the very first time in The Abbey Theatre, In Good Company featuring Declan O’Rourke and Deidre O’Kane in conversation, with music from Toshín.

Inuit and First Nations artists from Alaska and Canada Taqralik Partridge, Melissa Shaginoff, Leslie Kachena McCue will contribute to the festival for the first time. “Stephen has invited three First Nations poets from Canada and Alaska that he worked with in Canada last year,” Fleming explained, “and he found a lot of similarities between the Irish heritage and culture and First Nation heritage and culture.”

First Fortnight, supported by The Arts Council Commission Award, will also present the premiere of Antidote2, performed by WeAreGriot is commissioned especially for the 2026 festival.

Aiming for inclusivity, First Fortnight offers almost 40% of its events for free. “We're very grateful to our funders, which are the Arts Council and the HSE, through the National Office of Suicide Prevention and Dublin City Council,” explained Fleming. “We're obviously a not for profit organisation, and making a profit is not the aim of the festival, but we do at the same time ensure that we pay all artists for their work. So any artist performing in the festival is paid the going rate for their work.

“We are trying to remove the barriers,” Fleming concluded. “Particularly because we're a mental health festival, and secondly because we're a festival that happens in January, we're very aware of the financial barriers and that could be to audience members. And we never want finance to be a barrier to people attending.”

To find out about other live music, dance, visual art and theatre events at First Fortnight, click here.