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festivals · Thursday 2 July 2026 · Various 
Ennis Street Arts Festival 2026
At Ennis Market Building and town streets · Market Place, Ennis, Co. Clare
At Ennis Market Building and town streets · Market Place, Ennis, Co. Clare
Every July, Ennis turns its medieval streets into a stage. The Ennis Street Arts Festival is a week-long celebration of outdoor performance, community craft and live street events that takes over the town centre from 2 to 8 July 2026. Now in its 13th year, the festival draws families, curious visitors and locals alike - and because the great majority of events are free, it is one of the most accessible arts events in the west of Ireland. This year’s theme is Urban Wildlife, a nod to the creatures that quietly share the town’s habitat: bees, bats and hedgehogs alongside the humans.
The festival runs across the town streets and is anchored at the Ennis Market Building on Market Place, which serves as the festival hub throughout the week. Workshops run from Monday to Friday, including open lantern-making sessions led by the Lantern Company, where visitors of all ages build Urban Wildlife lanterns for the closing parade. Expect live street performance, sculpture workshops, creative painting sessions and collaborative community art projects woven through the town centre.
One of the ticketed highlights is “Me & My Bee” by ThisEgg - a multi-award-winning theatre company from Cambridge. The show blends storytelling, clowning, original live music and audience interaction to explore bee ecology in a way that is genuinely engaging for children while landing with adults too. It plays at glór on Saturday 7 July (2pm and 4pm); tickets are available at the glór box office.
The festival builds toward a street parade that brings the Urban Wildlife theme to life across the town, with the lanterns, performers and community creations all coming together. It is the kind of event where you can wander in with no plan and still have a full afternoon.
Ennis is well connected. By road it sits on the M18 motorway, roughly 30 minutes from Shannon Airport and about 65 km from Galway. Bus Eireann runs regular services from Limerick, Galway and Shannon, with the bus and train station on Station Road a short walk from the town centre. If you are driving, there are several pay car parks close to Market Place - arrive early on parade days as the town gets busy.
Ennis is a compact medieval town with good cafes, traditional music sessions in the pubs most evenings, and the Clonmacnoise-carved friars of Ennis Friary a few minutes’ walk from the festival hub. There is more to see in Ennis and across Co. Clare.
Heading to Ennis Market Building and town streets in Ennis? Clare has plenty more to see. Read the Ennis area guide, find what else is on, and explore the towns and villages nearby.