Image: Irish Museum of Modern Art, New York
The Irish Museum of Modern Art has launched ‘Summer at IMMA’, a June-to-August 2026 programme that brings together free events for all ages across the Royal Hospital Kilmainham site in Dublin. The season includes exhibitions, live performances, screenings, talks, workshops, tours, music and community-led activities, with many events open to drop-in visitors and others requiring advance booking.
IMMA says the summer line-up is designed to use the museum’s grounds, courtyards, studios and indoor spaces as platforms for a broad public programme. The institution frames the season as a mix of artistic making, performance and discussion, with strands that include Art and Ecology, Sound and Listening, Drawing and Stitching, and Art and Wellbeing. Returning favourites such as Music in the Courtyard, yoga sessions, biodiversity tours, family workshops and evening screenings sit alongside one-off events.
Among the headline presentations is ‘RESET’ by Alberta Whittle with choreographer and performer Mele Broomes, and ‘Salarium’ by Ruth E Lyons, which combines an outdoor screening of Lyons’ film ‘The Sea Inside Us’ with a live performance of the film’s score. IMMA also highlights an expanded Pride programme in June and July, including an Irish dancing and céilí workshop and a queer zine-making session. A separate citywide initiative, Dublin by Dusk, also appears in the programme, bringing late-evening events to the museum on the last Thursday of the month.
The talks strand is built around questions of collective practice, self-organisation and curatorial history. IMMA says the series will offer critical insight into Irish and international artist-led infrastructures and their role in shaping art practice, discourse and publishing. July’s schedule includes ‘Listening to Intervals’, described as an artist’s response to Tarek Atoui’s exhibition, and a discussion on the power of performance to bring trans stories to life, presented with ShoutOut and building on earlier editions of Trans Joy and Trans Imaginings. In August, the programme turns toward the museum gardens with a walking talk led by Mary Condon, OPW Head Gardener at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham.
The workshops programme spans family activities and artist-led sessions for adults and children. ‘Mornings at the Museum’ runs on Wednesday mornings from 1 July to 19 August, while ‘Explorer Family Art Workshops’ take place on Sundays in the Matheson Creativity Hub. Among the booked workshops are ‘Drawing with Thread: Free Motion Embroidery’ with Ciara O’Connor on 25 and 26 July, ‘The Reparative Stitch’ with O’Connor on 1 August, ‘Gelli Plate Monoprinting for Kids’ on 5 August, and ‘Painting into Collage: Reworking Image and Material’ on three Fridays in August. IMMA also lists a deep listening workshop combining sound bath and creative response, along with zine-making and food-memory projects later in the month.
The summer calendar extends into tours and music. ‘Music in the Courtyard’ runs on Sunday afternoons in July and August, with performances by The Dawson Chorus, The Kevin Brady Trio, Vicka, The Flanagans and Roots in Tune. Other regular activities include daily drop-in exhibition tours, guided tours as Gaeilge, parent-and-baby gallery tours, quiet sessions for neurodivergent visitors, biodiversity walks across the 48-acre IMMA and RHK site, and Azure dementia-inclusive tours. On 19 July, ‘Salarium’ brings together an outdoor screening of ‘The Sea Inside Us’ on the Front Lawn, a family workshop in the People’s Pavilion and a live score performance by Doimnic Mac Giolla Bhríde, Aodhán Gavigan and Daniel Bodwell.
