The Neuro Pride Ireland festival is set to take place from August 8 to 9 for the fifth year in a row. The event will include both online meet-ups and in-person picnics held in Kilkenny, Dublin, Waterford, and Wexford.
Lightning talks and soapbox rants are slated to return to the festival and organisers put out a call for anyone who would like to participate in either. Both offer community members the opportunity to share their experiences as cross-neurodivergent individuals, vocalise their struggles with stigmatisation, or celebrate their identity. This can be done through speeches, storytelling, or music. For those who are not interested in public speaking or performance, the Neuro Pride festival is also looking for art submissions and other forms of community celebration.
“(We’re) looking forward to catching up with you all – it’s been an eventful year for most of us but hopefully this year’s festival will give us a chance to reconnect and reinvigorate to continue to build our community together,” said event organisers in a written statement.
The Zoom schedule for the festival’s online events was released on Monday, July 28, and can be found on Neuro Pride Ireland’s Instagram page. On Friday, August 8, a crafting hangout will take place from 5:30pm to 6:30pm, followed by a community book club from 7pm to 8pm, and a self care community space open from 8:30pm to 9:30pm.
On Saturday, August 9, an hour long games session will commence at 3pm, preceding lightning talks from 5:30pm to 7:30pm, and finally an LGBTQ+ hangout and neurodivergent parents talk coinciding at 8:30pm to 10pm. All of these events will be held virtually.
More details on the celebration including specific times and locations for meetups on August 8 and 9 will be shared on Instagram in the coming days.
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The festival was founded in 2021 as a space for neurodivergent people in Ireland to connect with peers and allies, as well as a way to raise awareness on how community members face marginalisation. Neuro Pride Ireland is the only cross-neurodivergent Disabled Persons Organisation in the country and serves individuals with one or multiple neurodivergent identities, whether that be autism, ADHD, dyspraxia, dyslexia, or another.
While the August festivities are Neuro Pride Ireland’s biggest event of the year, the organisation also puts on social events and peer support groups throughout the year for its more than 1,000 members in addition to providing educational materials to the general public.
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