Welcome to Tread Softly 2026

Tread Softly is a biennial festival programming new work from artists living in the North West of Ireland. For this festival we have commissioned exhibitions, an installation, a live art event, a series of podcasts and talks, and two public engagement events.

Festival highlights include:

Basin of Attraction, an exhibition by Rebecca Jobson, delves into layers of County Sligo's monumental landscape through painting, print, installations and textiles. Stone, Sky, Syllable is a series of talks with Pádraig Meehan and guests Isolde Carmody, Conchubhar Ó Crualaoich & Leo Enright. Battle of Moytirra, a live art event, by artist, storyteller and illustrator Wayne O’Connor is in City Hall, from Monday to Friday during the festival.

Commissioned by the festival in 2024, Monk, a film by Bettina Seitz exploring the monastic settlements on Innismurray Island will be shown at The Old Schoolhouse, Mullaghmore; Holy Hill Hermitage, Skreen and Abhainn Studio, Enniscrone. Professor Sean Golden continues his series of podcasts, Shifting Borders of Memory, interviewing Cathy Jordan, Harry Keaney, Gregory Daly & Heather Laird. Constellation, an installation by Walker and Walker, can be experienced at Sligo Youth Theatre on Quay Street.

Our two public engagement projects are Imprints with sculptors Barra Cassidy, Seamus Dunbar & Bettina Seitz; and Meitheal, a large-scale event depicting a 5600-year-old stone carving found in a passage tomb in Carrowkeel. For information and to sign-up please go to the event (below).

We hope you enjoy

CONSTELLATION

Exhibition | Walker and Walker
Sat 22—Sat 29 Aug | 10am—5pm
Sligo Youth Theatre

In Constellation, the meteorite is the exhibition's central trope, drawn from Seamus Heaney's Exposure: an ‘alien’ object he longs to encounter on a rain-soaked landscape to grant his words authority otherwise lacking. A single LED sign poetically challenges Heaney's conceit, accompanied by a group of text-based works examining the artist's role today.

EARTHLY BASIN OF ATTRACTION

Exhibition | Rebecca Jobson
Opening: Sat 22 Aug 3pm
Mon—Sat|10am—5pm until Sat 19 Sept
Hamilton Gallery

Sligo artist Rebecca Jobson explores the geographical and metaphysical layers of County Sligo's passage tomb landscape through painting, print, installations and textiles. In framing this ancient region and its tombs as a ‘basin of attraction’ that draws in and cradles life, her work captures a deep cycle of life and lore rooted in the land for millennia.

MONK

Film | Bettina Seitz
Sat 22 Aug 7:30pm The Old School House, Mullaghmore
Tues 25 Aug 7pm Holy Hill Hermitage, Skreen
Thurs 27 Aug 8pm Abhainn Studio, Enniscrone
Free/Booking advisable

Produced by Tread Softly in 2024, Bettina Seitz’s film Monk reflects on the rituals of early Christian monks living in the isolated, monastic settlement on Innismurray Island from the 6th century. Monk will be presented at three locations along the Sligo coastline, the Old School House Mullaghmore, Holy Hill Hermitage, Skreen and Abhainn Studio, Enniscrone.

SHIFTING BORDERS OF MEMORY

Pocasts | Sean Golden: Cathy Jordan, Harry Keaney, Gregory Daly & Heather Laird
Sun 23 Aug (from) 10am Cathy Jordan
Tues 25 Aug (from) 10am Harry Keaney
Thur 27 Aug (from) 10am Gregory Daly
Sat 29 Aug (from) 10am Heather Laird
Podcasts can be located on the Tread Softly homepage

Shifting Borders of Memory explores the fate of the small farmer and small farming culture in rural Ireland from the squaring of the land, the Famine and the land wars through the creameries to their legacy today. Fleshing out the bare bones of history, they consider how things were and what they have become in and around Sligo. The importance of remembering and understanding the past as an inspiration for solving the problems of the present.

IMPRINTS

Public Engagement Event | Sculptors: Barra Cassidy, Seamus Dunbar & Bettina Seitz
Sun 23 Aug

Imprints is one of two public engagement projects taking place during the festival. Following on from previous Tread Softly sand sculpture events – Nine Queens and the Sand Drawing series - artists Barra Cassidy, Seamus Dunbar & Bettina Seitz will work with participants to create temporary sand sculptures on the County Sligo shoreline.

Places are limited for this event, if you would like to take part please sign up using the button below.

STONE, SKY, SYLLABLE

Talks│Pádraig Meehan: Isolde Carmody, Conchubhar Ó Crualaoich & Leo Enright

Sun 23 Aug│8pm Talk I│Isolde Carmody
Wed 26 Aug│8pm Talk II│Conchubhar Ó Crualaoich
Fri 28 Aug│8pm Talk III │ Leo Enright
The Factory Performance Space
€10/Booking advisable

A series of talks/interviews with Pádraig Meehan and guests centred on the Sligo megalithic landscape; a world both strange and familiar, of transformation and translation. 

BATTLE OF MOYTIRRA

Live Art | Wayne O’Connor
Mon 24—Fri 28 Aug
10am—1pm|2pm—5pm
Town Hall

Wayne O’Connor draws his inspiration from myths and legends, and for this live art event from the second Battle of Moytirra; the legendary conflict in Irish mythology fought between the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Formorians.

TREAD SOFTLY WALKS

Mon 24 Aug 11am | Streedagh Beach | Eddie O’Gorman
Tues 25 Aug 11am | Doorly Park | Michael Bell
Wed 26 Aug 11am | Aughris | Jacinta Gormley
Thur 27 Aug 11am | Hazelwood | Beatrice MacDonald
Fri 28 Aug 11am | Knocknarea | Robert Hensey
Free/Booking advisable

A series of guided walks through Sligo’s physical and mythological landscape.

MEITHEAL

Public Engagement Event| Sun 30 August

A unique large-scale public engagement event with participants recreating a 5600-year-old stone carving discovered in 2018 on Cairn B of the Carrowkeel megalithic site in the Bricklieve Mountains of County Sligo.

Places are limited for this event, if you would like to take part please sign up using the button below.