About the Festival

Earagail Arts Festival (County Donegal, established 1988) is northwest Ireland’s signature, multi-lingual multi-disciplinary arts festival and a core and sustainable element of Ireland’s national festival infrastructure.

Operating in one of Ireland’s most economically deprived areas across 4000 km² to a dispersed population of 167,000, our mission is to present a multi-lingual arts festival that is artistically ambitious, innovative, socially inclusive, and representative of Donegal’s distinctive and diverse character.

We do this by supporting artists to create and present work in diverse locations that reflect the beauty and complexity of Donegal’s culture and traditions, its landscape, natural environment and the community structures that characterise our county.

We engage with the public through our artistic programming and projects that are co-designed with communities in Donegal, and investing in people and expertise to allow us to focus strategically on public engagement and serving audiences, creating more and better access for citizens to the arts and fostering a sense of wellbeing, confidence, joy, and pride of place.

We embrace and celebrate the rich diversity of both established and new approaches to creating and enjoying arts and culture in Donegal and ensuring that every aspect of our organisation and our work reflects the increasingly diverse character of county Donegal.

We promote high-quality arts experiences to help position Donegal as a creative, inclusive, welcoming place, working with public agencies, community groups, artists and others to promote Donegal accurately and sensitively as a cultural tourism destination.

We evaluate, manage, develop and evolve our organisation so that we have:

(a) sustainable work policies and practices implemented across the spectrum of our work, including inclusivity and impact on the environment

(b) effective and adequately resourced people, structures and systems in place to help us perform effectively

(c) robust and clear governance arrangements in place and constantly under review

(d) a realistic and sustainable funding model that acknowledges the complex economic blend of public service and commercial interest that underpins EAF as a significant regional festival.