New solstice festival for the Lingaun Valley in Kilkenny and Tipperary
Something ancient is stirring in the Lingaun Valley
This June, for the first time, the Lingaun Valley will come alive with story, light, music and community as the inaugural Lingaun Valley Solstice Festival unfolds across Kilkenny and Tipperary from June 14 to 21, culminating in a major solstice gathering at the historic Ormond Castle on the longest day of the year.
Rooted in the landscape, heritage and community of one of Ireland's most distinctive river valleys, the festival is a week-long cultural journey toward the summer solstice — drawing together local communities, artists, storytellers and visitors in a shared celebration of place, light and the turning of the year.
The festival's central theme — Where Light Meets the Land — speaks to something older than the calendar: the relationship between landscape, memory and the moment when light is at its most generous.
A Week of Story, Making and Gathering
Festival week will include:
- Community storytelling events featuring some of Ireland's finest traditional and contemporary storytellers
- Participatory light lantern workshops for adults, families and children
- Creative stone and slate heritage initiatives rooted in the valley's industrial memory
- Landscape-led gatherings across the valley
- A raw and elemental prelude event at the Slatequarry in the Lingaun Valley on Saturday June 20
- A large-scale finale at the courtyard of Ormond Castle on Sunday June 21
The closing night at Ormond Castle will unfold as a three-part audience experience — The Gathering, The Solstice Moment and The Celebration — bringing together performance, music and the communal energy of midsummer.
The Lingaun Valley Solstice Festival has been developed as a genuinely place-led cultural event — not a festival imposed on a landscape, but one grown from it. The programme draws on the valley's layered heritage: early Christian sites, medieval castles, the slate quarrying tradition, and the living communities that have shaped this region across generations.
The vision is to create a distinctive annual gathering that serves local communities while also building a compelling cultural tourism experience for the wider region over time.