What's On in Meath

Ablefest bills itself as Ireland’s first and largest music and arts festival for people with additional needs, and in its sixth year it has become a fixture of the Meath summer. Founded by two dads who wanted festival days their own families could actually enjoy, the non-profit event is built around accessibility from the ground up: wheelchair matting and ramps, sensory rooms and calm-space pods, accessible toilets with hoists and changing benches, and trained, Garda-vetted volunteers throughout the site.

The programme at Fairyhouse Racecourse runs from drumming workshops, art areas and horse therapy to sensory spaces, sports cars, science experiences, traditional music, holistic therapies and plenty of food, alongside live music and an open mic for performers of all abilities.

Gates open at 11am with the festival running from midday to 6pm each day. Everyone is welcome — the whole point is a festival where no one in the family is left at the gate — and tickets are sold through the organiser’s website.

For over half a century the small village of Moynalty, near Kells, has staged one of Ireland’s best-loved vintage gatherings. The Steam Threshing Festival recreates the sounds and sights of a bygone era of Irish farming, with working steam engines threshing the harvest the way it was done for generations, set in the grounds of the Moynalty Steam Threshing Museum and its parkland in the heart of the village.

The 51st festival takes place on Sunday 9 August 2026, the main day of displays and demonstrations, with a vintage tractor run on the Saturday beforehand getting the weekend under way. The museum itself is part of the attraction, and is accessible, with a lift to its upper exhibits.

It is an easy, good-natured family day out — the kind of event where three generations wander the field together. Booking details and tickets are on the festival website.

John Boyle O’Reilly — poet, journalist and Fenian, born at Dowth in the Boyne Valley — was transported to Australia for his part in the Fenian movement, escaped, and went on to become one of the great voices of Irish America as editor of the Boston Pilot. Every August the community around Dowth and Slane remembers him with a festival of music, history and art spread over four days.

The 2026 festival runs from 13 to 16 August, with events centred on Dolly’s Bar at Balfeddock, near Slane, and the O’Reilly memorial at Dowth. Live music in the festival marquee includes Coscán and Poitín on the Friday night and The Highstool Prophets on the Saturday, alongside talks and commemorative events through the weekend.

It is a small, local festival rather than a big-ticket production, which is much of its appeal — and Dowth sits within the Brú na Bóinne World Heritage landscape, so the festival pairs naturally with a day at Newgrange and Knowth. Tickets for the marquee gigs are available locally; general queries to johnboyleoreillyfestival@gmail.com.

Racing “on the Hill” at Bellewstown is one of the small pleasures of the Irish summer. The course sits in a spectacular hill-top setting in east Meath, a tight left-handed circuit of a mile and a furlong that stages both flat and hurdle racing, and its evening meetings are known for a friendly, unhurried atmosphere a long way from the big-festival crush.

The August meeting runs over two evenings, Tuesday 25 and Wednesday 26 August 2026. It is one of nine race days Bellewstown holds across the year; after the summer, racing returns to the Hill on 30 September and 1 October, so there is a second chance in the autumn if you miss it. Fixture dates remain subject to final confirmation by Horse Racing Ireland, so check the website before travelling.

General admission and hospitality tickets are sold through the racecourse website, and an evening on the Hill pairs well with a day exploring the nearby Boyne Valley.

The Royal Meath Show is the county’s traditional agricultural show, held at Porchfield on the edge of Trim on Sunday 6 September 2026. Like the best Irish shows it is really a county gathering: livestock and equestrian classes at its core, ringed by trade stands, food and family entertainment, with cookery demonstrations among the attractions in recent years.

Porchfield’s setting is hard to beat — an open green space in the shadow of Trim’s medieval town — and the show makes an easy pairing with a visit to Trim Castle, the largest Anglo-Norman castle in Ireland, a short walk away.

It is a one-day event and draws people from all over Meath and beyond, so expect the town to be lively. Entry and competition details are published on the show’s website in the run-up to the day, and the organisers can be reached at royalmeathshow@gmail.com with queries.

Laytown occupies a unique position in the Irish and British racing calendar: it is the only race event run on a beach under the rules of the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board. For one afternoon a year the strand on Meath’s short stretch of coast becomes a racecourse, with horses thundering along the sand in front of the dunes — a spectacle that has been drawing crowds since the first recorded meeting in 1868, when races were run in conjunction with the Boyne Regatta.

The 2026 meeting is on Thursday 10 September. Gates open at 2.30pm with the first race expected around 4.30pm, though the exact time is confirmed nearer the day — racing on a beach keeps the schedule at the mercy of the sea.

It is a genuine one-off and popular well beyond Meath, so buy tickets in advance through the official website, where they are sold online ahead of the meeting.

Púca celebrates Halloween in the place that claims to have invented it: the festival runs across two sites in Trim and Athboy, the latter the birthplace of the ancient Samhain tradition from which the modern holiday grew. Over four nights the towns fill with folklore, food, myth and music, from the Púca Procession and the Lighting of the Samhain Fire to fire spectacles from The Pyro Collective and projections washing over the walls of Trim Castle.

Alongside the free street spectacle there is a ticketed programme of music, comedy, cabaret and theatre. The 2026 line-up includes Glen Hansard, The Coronas with Róisín O, Hothouse Flowers and Jerry Fish’s Electric Slideshow Cabaret, plus comedy nights.

The free events are the heart of it and need no booking, but the headline concerts sell through the festival website — book those ahead. Púca is the flagship of Meath’s wider Spirits of Meath Halloween programme, so expect plenty happening in the surrounding towns the same week.

The Navan Racing Festival, back for its fourth year, is the high point of the racing calendar at the racecourse just outside Navan town. Across Saturday and Sunday the card features three of the track’s best-known contests — the Troytown Chase, the Fortria Chase and the Lismullen Hurdle — making it a proper early-season weekend for National Hunt fans as the winter campaigns take shape.

Around the racing, the festival pitches itself as a celebration of sport, style, entertainment and community spirit, with hospitality options ranging from trackside packages to the Final Fence Marquee, and admission bundles that add food, drink, a racecard and a betting voucher to the basic ticket.

Gates open at 10am both days and general admission starts from €20. A shuttle bus runs from Navan town to the racecourse with several pick-up points, which saves worrying about parking on the busiest days.

Billed as Ireland’s biggest and most popular winter racing weekend, the Fairyhouse Winter Festival brings top-class National Hunt action to Ratoath over the last weekend of November. The two-day card is headed by a pair of Grade 1 contests — the Hatton’s Grace Hurdle and the Drinmore Novice Chase — alongside the Grade 2 Royal Bond Novice Hurdle, so it reliably draws many of the leading stables as the jumps season builds towards Christmas.

Tickets are sold for either day or as a weekend pass, and the Real Deal bundle from €25 includes admission, a racecard, a drink, a food voucher and a €5 Tote bet; groups of six or more get 15% off, and the Bobbyjo Bistro offers a full hospitality package. Fairyhouse’s other great gathering, the Easter Festival and Irish Grand National, follows in spring.

Gates open at 10am each day. Ratoath is an easy run from Dublin, but the festival is popular, so booking tickets ahead through the racecourse website is wise.

On the mornings around the winter solstice, the rising sun enters the roof-box above the entrance to Newgrange and a beam of light creeps along the passage into the central chamber, illuminating it for roughly seventeen minutes. The 5,000-year-old monument was built to do exactly this, and standing inside as it happens is one of the rarest experiences in Ireland.

Places inside the chamber for the 2026 solstice mornings of 19–23 December are allocated by the Office of Public Works’ annual lottery. Entry is by online application at solsticelottery.ie only, and applications must be in before midnight on 30 September 2026; each winner may bring one guest, everyone attending must be over ten, and photo ID is required at the visitor centre on the morning. The draw typically attracts around 30,000 entries, so treat winning as a long shot.

Even without a lottery place, Brú na Bóinne and its visitor centre remain well worth a midwinter visit, and solstice week has a particular atmosphere in the Boyne Valley.