"Mental health is something that is very dear to my heart - I've been very open about my own experiences with it," says singer Mary Coughlan, marking the beginning of the First Fortnight Mental Health Art & Culture Festival 2025, which starts today.
The annual event began back in 2010, when two friends set up the festival in Dublin, hoping to break new ground for open and honest conversations around mental health issues.
The friends, David Keegan and JP Swaine - each of whom had had their own personal experiences of suicide, self-harm, and schizophrenia - decided to organise the festival as a creative way to explore the stigmas that affected so many at struggling with mental health issues at the time.
"Fourteen years later, the festival has grown and grown, and is now a popular fixture in the annual arts and culture calendar, like Shaws - taking place almost nationwide," Maria Fleming, CEO First Fortnight, said, laughing as she described the festival’s development.
Starting from today, the two-week programme will feature more than 65 events, including stage, dance, music, poetry, visual arts, film and discussion panels.
It kicks off in Dublin, with events also hosted in counties Kildare, Donegal, Limerick, Wexford, Kerry, Cork, and Down.
First Fortnight’s purpose is to challenge mental health stigma and promote mental health wellbeing through art and culture and for Ms Coughlan, the festival is signicant "as it takes place on January, a hard month for people".
Ms Coughlan will be joining acclaimed poet Paula Meehan for a special performance for Nollaig na mBan in Whelan’s in Dublin as part of the festival programme.
Ms Coughlan, said that she had her first experience of mental health difficulties when she was 16.
She added: "I was in Ballinasloe, and it was obviously not a happy time for me, but it’s amazing the change.
"They used to lock people up and throw away the key, but now mental health issues are openly discussed and it’s so much better nowadays."
Poet Paula Meehan said: "It’s important the festival is on in January, as it’s dark out and I find it hard myself to get out of the bed, do having something positive like this festival is so welcome."
Music is at the heart of the festival and the organisers say they are keen to keep adapting and growing the festival’s programme, so this year, they took to the road and commissioned composer and musician Norah Walsh to create a new choral piece inspired by the charity’s mission.
Ms Walsh worked with five choirs involving 200 singers in workshops across the country and the new choral composition will be performed as part of the ‘The Art Of Mental Health’ concert, which the organisers describe as a "a joy filled event celebrating the positive effects of group singing".
Another participant in the festival is singer and musician Emma Langford.
She believes that artists themselves benefit from this event as "it's kind of like it’s by artists for artists".
Ms Langford explained her view that the "artistic life isn’t easy and to be creative is often to be a little troubled, so I think the festival is a really great opportunity to be talking about all that too".
Ms Langford will be taking part in an event called ‘Cistin’ (kitchen) featuring music and poetry at St Patrick's Mental Health Services in the heart of Dublin.
She will join Luke Clerkin and Dafe Orugbo on stage and is enthusiastic about their plans for the evening.
First Fortnight is a charity and during the year, it runs a Centre for Creative Therapies which provides creative therapies (art, music, drama) to the homeless, or those at risk of experiencing homelessness.
They say that in 2021 First Fortnight opened its CACTUS service, providing creative therapies for children and adolescents, which aims to "harness the power of creativity and art by providing a professional, regulated art psychotherapy service".
Some of the other events on offer during the festival too include the docu-film ‘The No Show’ which was created by Catherine O’Halloran and Grace Dyas over two years, as they worked with young men to devise a trauma-informed contemporary art film.
‘The No show’ is a film inspired by working-class men known "not to turn up", and it tells the story of trauma experienced by working-class families across the generations. It will have its first screening in Limerick on 13 January.
An Grianán Theatre, in Donegal meanwhile will host a fun evening called ‘Laugher is the best medicine’ on 9 January.
In the Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin, actor and writer Peter Gowen’s new play ‘Declan’s got talent’ will run from 9th to 11 January.
"Why not grab a few friends and go to a show, an exhibition or a gig? It’s a great time of year to be going to positive things," Ms Fleming said.
The festival starts today and runs until Friday 18 January.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
