Brigid the Bard Festival 2026 | Opening Night
Waverly Library, 32-48 Denison Street, Bondi Junction, NSW, 2022 Australia (map)
Friday 30 January 2026
6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Brigid Bacchanale 2026
This celebration of Irish Australian female creativity promises to offer attendees wonderful live music in a great venue.
We will also provide tasty pizza during the evening which will include vegetarian & non vegetarian options (no other dietaries). The bar of Woollahra Golf Club will be open for the purchase of drinks at club prices. Participants should feel encouraged to shine and enjoy the evening’s ‘craic’ in the creative spirit of the Goddess Brigid by wearing some Brigid bling &/or showcasing their own creativity.
Heroic Horizons: Diasporas of Celtic immigrants to Australia
Sat 31 Jan 3pm – 5pm AEDT
Waverley Library, Bondi Junction NSW, Australia
Heroic Horizons brings together four women poets whose work interrogates the cultural, emotional, and historical legacies of Irish and Scottish migration to Australia. Through poetry and performance, this event traces diasporic journeys shaped by displacement, endurance, inheritance, and imagination, situating Celtic migration within the broader context of colonial Australian history.
Drawing on archival research, family histories, folklore, and lived experience, poets Linda Adair, Anne Casey, Annemaree Daziel, and Melita Rowston explore how language, land, memory, and identity are carried across oceans and generations. Their works reflect on what is preserved, what is transformed, and what is lost in the process of settlement, while also acknowledging the complex realities of colonial presence on unceded Aboriginal lands.
The program foregrounds poetry and art as a critical and creative method — a means of questioning inherited narratives of heroism, survival, and belonging, while opening space for nuance, ambiguity, and dialogue. Performance elements further animate the spoken word, offering audiences an embodied encounter with history that is both personal and collective.
Presented as part of the Brigid the Bard Festival, Heroic Horizons invites audiences to listen deeply to stories shaped by migration and to consider how diasporic Celtic identities continue to influence contemporary Australian culture. This event is both a celebration of poetic craft and a thoughtful examination of the cultural horizons that emerge when histories intersect.
The event is to be hosted by Angela Stretch, Poetry Sydney.
For more details, including artist statements and to book tickets, go to https://events.humanitix.com/heroic-horizons-diasporas-of-celtic-immigrants-to-australia
Cross making workshop & sunset ceremonial
Sunday 1 February 2026 5 pm – 7pm
At the Irish Monument, Waverley Cemetery, Trafalgar Street Bronte, NSW, (map)
Brigid the Bard in Katoomba
Enjoy a relaxed late afternoon celebration of Irish Australian female creativity in the Carrington Hotel’s beautiful Baroque Room where the Prankqueans will transport you to ancient Ireland and beyond. Brigid, Ireland’s matriarchal saint and ancient Celtic Goddess of Poetry, will inspire beautiful contributions in song, poetry and music to move and sooth the spirit. Ancient Irish culture and mysticism of a distinctly Australian flavour will be the focus of this entertaining and enlightening afternoon with the Prankqueans.
Get tickets https://events.humanitix.com/https-prankqueans-com
Rochford Street Review 