Support St. Patrick's Festival
At St. Patrick’s Festival we are dedicated to showcasing the best possible representation of Ireland and Irishness on the streets of Dublin every March. As a global community of more than 80 million people, we take immense pride in our sense of ‘Irishness’ - of the culture and shared heritage that makes us unique. St. Patrick’s Festival is our way of celebrating that sense of Irishness, and an invitation to people all over the world to join us in those celebrations.
But we don’t just celebrate and showcase the best of who we are and what we do on March 17th – throughout the year, we support and invest in the diverse range of people and communities that create and sustain this rich tapestry. Through our St. Patrick's Festival Community Arts Projects in the National Parade on St. Patrick’s Day, and through our programme of events in Festival Quarter and citywide, we are investing in creativity and bringing communities together all across Ireland.
Donate To Create is a new initiative inviting everyone to fund our St. Patrick's Festival Community Arts Projects. All of the funds raised this year after costs will go directly to our St. Patrick's Festival Community Arts Projects and to the production of this year’s Community Arts Pageant for our national parade. The funding will be spread over a huge range of activities – everything from pageant-making, costume design and choreography, to rehearsal spaces, transport, hospitality and the performers at the parade. Your support can help us to grow, to foster creativity in every corner of our island and to shine a light on the absolute best of us.
Whether you donate €2, or €200 to St. Patrick’s Festival, you are supporting creativity, artistic participation and bringing communities together around Dublin, and Ireland.
Be Part of It!
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Investing in Creativity
In the many months that it takes to prepare and produce our National Parade, we work with artists, performers, and community-based pageant producers all around the country as part of our St. Patrick's Festival Community Arts Projects. Along with directly creating employment in those communities, working with community-based producers fosters a creative community space, allowing for the transfer of new skills from industry professionals to aspiring amateurs.
As we say in Ireland ‘Mol an Óige agus tiocfaigh siad’ - which translates roughly as ‘Praise the youth, and they will flourish’. We believe in investing in the youth of today, through supporting youth programming initiatives, commissioning of youth specific projects, directly engaging youth communities in creative practice. In 2023 we are working directly with Junk Couture – the sustainable youth fashion competition – to design and produce upcycled high end costumes for Parade performers.
Supporting St. Patrick’s Festival means supporting the arts and investing in creativity.
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Bringing Communities Together
As part of our St. Patrick's Festival Community Arts Projects, we work with communities in Ireland, that have come from all over the globe, bringing colour and diversity right through from rooms and rehearsal halls all the way to the streets of Dublin. Through the many months it takes to bring the spectacle to life, our Community Arts Pageant and creative community projects help to bring people of many different nationalities, cultures & backgrounds together to form one creative community, culminating in real bonds that are sustained all year round.
One of the most spectacular examples of our St. Patrick's Festival Community Arts Projects is the Community Arts Pageant. We work directly with a range of community groups on the spectacular and colourful performances that will this year open our National St. Patrick’s Day Parade. The rehearsals for these performances take place in school halls and community hubs, and our participants engage in everything from pageant making and design, costume design and choreography and much more. The project requires rehearsal spaces, transport and hospitality, meaning that areas of the community that are not directly involved in performing still benefit from the investment creative community participation.
Supporting St. Patrick’s Festival means investing in creative community projects, helping us to bring communities together, as one.
