27 & 28 May | Limerick Gathering @ The Lime Tree Theatre
For over two decades, our annual Gathering has been a landmark event in the performing arts calendar. In 2025, we’re on our way to The Lime Tree Theatre Limerick for two days of conversation, provocation, and inspiration.
Tickets are available on this link. Your ticket includes access to day sessions, a bespoke artistic programme, lunch on both days, and an evening dinner.
We completely sold out last year so early booking is advised.
On this page you’ll be able to
-
- Book your ticket
- Have a look at hotel deals
- Apply for Independent artists and arts workers bursaries
- Find out more about accessibility at The Gathering
- Making your way – travel info
We are delighted to announce that Julie Kelleher will curate the Tuesday programme at The Gathering this year. Julie brings a wealth of expertise and a visionary approach to her work in the performing arts and we are excited to see how her creative vision will shape this year’s Gathering.
More information about Julie at the bottom of this page. A note from Julie Kelleher on her Tuesday afternoon curation:
DO NOT PANIC | ORGANISE
BUILDING COMMUNITY, TO WHAT END?
‘At last year’s Gathering, there was a powerful sense of solidarity as we named our dissatisfaction, identifying the issues that have been troubling us in the performing arts: exclusion, precarity, funding, gig economy, burnout, AI, sustaining careers as artists and arts workers, political censorship, dysfunctional leadership in government. Since then, we have seen significant political change, locally, nationally, globally, and seen some issues grow even more troubling.
In her text responding to the 2024 event, Róisín Stack reminds us that “consensus, which assumes a single solution for all challenges, is not the goal” and that unities-in-difference and idealism are ever more necessary in difficult times.
With that in mind, this year we’ve invited a range of colleagues – artists and arts workers – from across the sector and around the country to outline a vision for their desired future of the performing arts. We know we can organise, we’re getting better and better at it, through the work of Performing Arts Forum and other resource orgs, through our unions and through the work of the NCFA.
The question now is what is the vision that we’re working towards? What does change look like?
We invite YOU to join us to consider these visions, to collectively participate in a genuine imagining of what we want, as the community of people putting Irish-made performing arts out into the world and identify our first next steps towards change and a better future for us all.’
—- Julie Kelleher
Book your ticket
We’re delighted to be partnering with Ticketsolve to sell our tickets this year. You can still purchase tickets on this link.
Your ticket includes day sessions, artistic programme, bespoke walking tour, lunch on both days and evening dinner.
Ticket prices:
- Non-member – Early Bird* €280 / Full Price €300
- Organisation member – Early Bird* €140 / Full Price €150
- Freelance artists/arts worker – Early Bird* €100 / Full Price €110
*Early Bird prices close at 5pm on Tuesday 18th March
What’s the format?
- The event runs over two days (from lunchtime Tuesday 27 to late afternoon Wednesday 28 May). Your ticket includes day sessions, artistic programme, lunch on both days and evening dinner. More information on the programme soon, and the loose schedule can be found below:
Schedule Tuesday 27 May
12:00 – 13:45 Lunch & Registration
Slí, TARA Building
13:45 Plenary part 1
Lime Tree Theatre
15:15 – 15:45 Coffee break
Slí, TARA Building
15:45 – 17:45 Plenary part 2
Lime Tree Theatre
18:00 Artistic Programme commences
19:30 to late Dinner
Join us at Dolans for evening food, a DJ, and chats. Please use the entrance on St Alphonsus Street.
Schedule Wednesday 28 May
09:45 – 11:00 Audience Insights Session
Lime Tree Theatre
11:00 – 12:00 Parallel Sessions
Arts Centres
Festivals
Independent Artists & Arts Workers
Producer/Production Companies
12:00 – 12:20 Coffee break
Slí, TARA Building
12:20 – 13:40 Closing Plenary
Lime Tree Theatre
13:40 Lunch
Canteen at Mary I
Your Stay in Limerick
For more information on accommodation deals please see our list here
Accessibility
Theatre Venue
The Lime Tree Theatre is fully accessible: If you wish to avail of any of their following facilities : Wheelchair spaces, Loop Systems, Changing Places Facilities or Guide/Assistance Dogs – please contact paul@performingartsforum.ie.
Accommodation
For individual hotels accessibility facilities please see notes on our accommodation page here
Bursaries for independent artists and arts workers
You can view the available list of bursaries on this link.
Getting There
By train: There are direct train services from Dublin (Hueston Station – change at Limerick Junction), Cork & Galway to Limerick: See Irish Rail for full details.
By bus: There are direct services to Limerick from Dublin, Cork, Galway, and Waterford: See Bus Eireann for full details, as well as connecting travel nationwide.
By car: For those wishing to travel by car, we have set up a carpool for this event. Either log your interest in availing of a lift or that you have a car and willing to take passengers interested in attending
Parking: For individual hotel parking, please see hotel notes on accommodation page
For multi-connecting travel, over the border travel routes and directions try Rome2Rio website for options, pricings and booking
This page was updated Wednesday 20th March
The Limerick Gathering 2025
Julie Kelleher
Julie is a Theatre Director and Producer. She holds a BA and an MA in Drama & Theatre Studies from UCC and was the 2022/23 Jerome Hynes Clore Leadership Fellow. Current projects include the redevelopment of Evening Train, a musical by Mick Flannery.
Directing credits include: Found by Aideen Wylde (BrokenCrow/Cork Midsummer Festival), The Lonesome West by Martin McDonagh (The Everyman), Bluetooth by Rachel Thornton (The Everyman), Autumn Royal by Kevin Barry (The Everyman, associate director for remount), Dancing At Lughnasa by Brian Friel (The Everyman), The Factory Girls by Frank McGuinness (The Everyman), The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart by David Greig (The Everyman), Lovers by Brian Friel (The Everyman), Mantle by Ronan FitzGibbon (BrokenCrow).
Producing credits include the world premiere of Mick Flannery’s Evening Train musical (2019), the world premiere of Asking for It by Louise O’Neill (Landmark Productions and The Everyman, 2018), the world premiere of Autumn Royal by Kevin Barry (The Everyman, 2017) and the Irish premiere of Futureproof by Lynda Radley (The Everyman, 2017), and The Scarlet Letter, devised by Conflicted Theatre Company after Nathaniel Hawthorne (2013).
She was Artistic Director/CEO at Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray from 2020 – 2024 and Artistic Director of The Everyman, Cork from 2014 to 2020. She has a professional background in performance (acting and singing) and worked as an actor, director & producer with numerous Irish arts organisations and companies, including Painted Bird, Conflicted, BrokenCrow, Kinsale Arts Week, Cork Midsummer Festival, Hammergrin, Corcadorca, Meridian, Dublin Theatre Festival, Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre, The Performance Corporation, Gare St. Lazare, Once Off Productions, Landmark Productions, and Siren Productions. Most recently, Julie completed MAKE an artist development programme presented by Cork Midsummer, Dublin Fringe Festival and Project Arts Centre.
Julie joined the board of Graffiti Theatre Company in September 2017 and is the current chair. She sits on the Irish Playography Panel at Irish Theatre Institute and served on the board of Theatre Forum from 2016 to 2022, taking on the role of Chair in the final three years of her term.