During the school summer holidays, from June to August, we ran an expanded programme of workshops for children, families and young people, alongside our regular activities for adults.
With our summer programmes we wanted to increase opportunities for cultural engagement for children and young people, ensuring that all activities were accessible and inclusive.
Our summer programmes were varied, and included history talks and workshops, drama, dance, singing, drumming, art workshops, gardening and biodiversity, poetry yoga, and a range of creative workshops at our Summer Solstice Fair. Over 232 creative and cultural workshops were delivered from the beginning of June to the end of August.
We provided a variety of different ways to access the programmes, delivering both drop-in activities and pre-bookable workshops and camps. We devised tailored workshops for youth and community groups, when required, with our team of artists and creative facilitators who are highly trained and experienced in accessible and inclusive facilitation. We also delivered workshops beyond Richmond Barracks with community partnerships.
“I really enjoyed being able to be very creative during the process. After you finish one you start to get the hang of it and then get to do whatever you want. The teacher was also just very nice and great.”
- Young participant feedback, August 2026
Throughout the summer we worked in partnership with 13 schools, youth and community organisations to provide tailored creative and cultural workshops and projects at Richmond Barracks. The groups took part in a variety of activities including visits to Inchicore Library, gardening and biodiversity workshops, electronics and making workshops, and art and craft workshops.
"It was very age appropriate. The kids were playing and moving and interacting, they really enjoyed it."
- Partner feedback, August 2026
We partnered with the City of Dublin FET Foundations Project, delivering three days of workshops for families experiencing homelessness. We also worked with Inchicore For All to provide spaces on some of our summer camps for young people living in direct provision and Spirasi, an organisation that works with survivors of torture, to run singing workshops with their clients and volunteers to support them to set up their own choir.
In the Richmond Barracks garden, we worked with our neighbours in Hollybrook Lodge Nursing Home to provide Move and Grow movement and biodiversity workshops. Our Eco-Gardener also provided a tailored workshop for Chapelizod Scouts and a series of eco-gardening workshops for WALK, who have a plot in the community garden.
We hope to welcome these participants back to Richmond Barracks to take part in our year-round Culture Connects programme and continue to try out new things and build cultural confidence.
In July, we partnered with Solas Hospital School to develop and deliver a Summer Programme of cultural and creative workshops for children at Solas Hospital School, Crumlin Hospital. Six Culture Connects artists facilitated 26 workshops over 11 days, with 94 children taking part. We provided a broad range of different cultural options, including eco-gardening and biodiversity, electronics and making, visual arts, music and movement, crafts, and animation.
The programme aimed to facilitate opportunities for children who were patients in the hospital to experience a range of cultural and creative workshops. It provided a varied range of creative experiences, from music and visual arts to making, animation, sensory play, comics and zines. This variety allowed children to encounter different creative approaches and find ways of engaging that suited them and also gave children opportunities to make choices, experiment with different materials and skills, and engage at a level that suited their individual circumstances.
The workshops created opportunities for children to relax, build confidence and express their personalities in an environment where they were listened to and supported.
It was particularly valuable to see the participants finish a workshop smiling, feeling proud of what they have created, and happy to have explored, learned or accomplished something new.
“I liked the wool. It was such a nice break from hospital chaos."
- Summer Programme participant, Solas Hospital School
“I really liked the whishhhhh. I really liked how everything was explained and I just had a really good time. Thank u!”
- Summer Programme participant, Solas Hospital School
We want to open up ways for people to experiment with all kinds of culture. Culture Connects is our year-round programme that invites people in Dublin to try out new things. We offer ways for people to make and create together, to share ideas and connect through culture and conversation.
See our What’s On page for our full programme of activities.
Posted 30 Meán Fómhair 2026
Tagged with: News