This website uses cookies to help deliver its services. By using this website, you agree to the use of cookies as outlined in our Privacy Policy.
Kavanagh Weekend 2026 brings Beat poetry, Jazz and international counterculture to Inniskeen County Monaghan The Patrick Kavanagh Centre in association with the Patrick Kavanagh Society, SoFFt Productions and Unreal Cities are delighted to announce Kavanagh Weekend 2026 will take place over three days between Friday Sept 25th and Sunday Sept 27th.
Curated by Unreal Cities, the multidisciplinary arts project founded by actor and director Adrian Dunbar and saxophonist and composer Nick Roth, this year’s festival explores Patrick Kavanagh’s connection with the Beat Generation during the centenary year of American poet Allen Ginsberg’s birth.
The three-day programme will place Kavanagh’s work in dialogue with jazz, spoken word, folk traditions, spirituality and counterculture. Featured performers and participants include legendary American poet Anne Waldman, comedian and broadcaster Tommy Tiernan, actor Jean-Marc Barr, musician and performer Jinx Lennon, novelist and playwright Liz Nugent, The Armagh Rhymers and The Master Musicians of Jajouka led by Bachir Attar.
The festival will unfold across the Patrick Kavanagh Centre, the Round Tower Church, Brehon Brewhouse, and the landscape surrounding Inniskeen, combining major performances and live conversations with workshops, readings, traditional music, guided tours and long-standing community events.
Kavanagh Weekend kicks off with the traditional keynote address and Kavanagh Poetry Award announcement. These will take place in the very special Round Tower Church venue by the beautiful River Fane. This will be followed by the annual Procession of Light through the village and evening concert Kavanagh and The Beats.
Kavanagh Weekend will open on Friday 25th September with the annual Kavanagh Poetry Award and Festival Keynote at the Round Tower Church. This year’s keynote will be delivered by Anne Waldman and Adrian Dunbar, followed by a live conversation between the two artists. Later that evening Unreal Cities will present the first of three concerts, Kavanagh and the Beats a late-night performance bringing poetry and improvisation together at the speed of jazz.
A major focus of Saturday’s programme is Brehon Lore, a five-hour multidisciplinary performance at Brehon Brewhouse exploring spoken language, ritual, music, memory and collective experience.
Anne Waldman’s lifelong engagement with chant and performative poetry will meet the Sufi trance rhythms of The Master Musicians of Jajouka led by Bachir Attar, whose musical tradition has been passed between generations in the village of Jaujouka in Morocco’s Rif Mountains. Other performers include actor Jean Marc Barr (Big Sur, The Big Blue), Jinx Lennon, Emer Mayock and Donal Siggins, alongside Tate Swindell and many others. Adrian Dunbar will direct the performance, supported by an eight-piece ensemble led by Nick Roth.
The Round Tower Church will host readings connected with the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award, while the Patrick Kavanagh Centre will screen the 1968 documentary Rocky Road to Dublin by Irish-born journalist Peter Lennon and French cinematographer Raoul Coutard.
On Saturday evening, Tommy Tiernan will join Anne Waldman, Adrian Dunbar and Nick Roth for a live conversation exploring poetry, performance, humour, artistic freedom and counterculture. Saturday will conclude with a free late-night traditional music session presented by Dublin’s Cobblestone pub at McNello’s in Inniskeen.
Sunday’s programme will explore the landscape, spirituality and literary legacy that shaped Patrick Kavanagh’s work, bringing together contemporary poetry, visual art, books and conversation.
As ever audiences are invited to immerse themselves in the landscape of Inniskeen with the hugely popular Kavanagh Country Guided Bus Tour (10am, 1pm).
Karl Parkinson will lead a Beat Poetry Workshop “Howl, Jazz, Buddha, blues, while Nell Regan Poet, translator and non-fiction writer will lead an outdoor poetry workshop love’s doorway to life taking place in Shancoduff. Participants will gather images and observations on “the triangular hill”, described as Kavanagh’s outdoor library, while considering the modernist writers he was reading during the early 1930s.
Unreal Cities presents: KYRIE for Kavanagh will explore the spiritual dimensions of Kavanagh’s writing through poetry, recital and song. Inspired by Tom Stack’s No Earthly Estate: The Religious Poetry of Patrick Kavanagh, the performance will consider themes of reconciliation, redemption and Kavanagh’s belief in poetry as a mystical experience.
The Round Tower Church will host the festival Book Fair, bringing publishers, booksellers, artists, poets and readers together. The programme will also feature an exhibition and live conversation with artist Dara Vallely of the Armagh Rhymers, poetry readings and ruminations on Beat Poetry.
The festival’s long-standing Graveside Commemoration will bring artists, audiences and the local community together in remembrance of the poet, before Victoria Kennefick joins bestselling novelist and playwright Liz Nugent for a live conversation on writing, creativity and literary life. The festival will conclude on Sunday evening with a special closing concert, details soon.
