Thursday 01 May, Sat 10 May & Sun 25 May 2025, 2–3pm.
Main Reception
Free, booking required. Register your place here.

Join us for a Biodiversity tour exploring the flora and fauna of the formal gardens and meadows of the IMMA and RHK site.

This tour is led by Sandra Murphy, a member of IMMA’s Visitor Engagement Team and an amateur wildlife photographer and Birder. This easy one-hour walking tour will explore part of the 48-acre IMMA and RHK site which includes the Meadows and Formal Gardens, to observe the birds, plants, and pollinating insects. Hand lenses and magnifying glasses will be provided.

Sandra is the author of five blogs for the IMMA magazine, discussing the biodiversity of birds, butterflies and wild flowers found on our 48 acre site.

After this tour, participants can return to IMMA for coffee and relaxed discussion.

Saturday 10 May 2025, 11–1pm
Location: IMMA, Royal Hospital, Military Road, Kilmainham, Dublin 8
Meeting point: Matheson Creativity Hub
Free, booking required. Register your place here.

Join Barry Kehoe, historian and member of IMMA’s Visitor Engagement Team, for a bespoke exploration of IMMA and the Royal Hospital Kilmainham in search of the lost Priory of the Knights Hospitallers. Barry will take you on a historical journey unveiling the morphology of the hill terrace of Kilmainham from the earliest bronze age settlement, through to its monastic settlement and Viking Occupation. He will discuss the occupation by the crusading Knights Hospitallers before the re-engineering of the land to accommodate the baroque neo-classical Royal Hospital.

National Drawing Day drawing session for adults with Renata Pękowska

Saturday, 17 May 2025, 2–3pm
Location: Studio 10, IMMA
Free, booking required. Register your place here.

Join visual artist and researcher Renata Pękowska for this drawing session which will focus on using mark making as a way of locating oneself in a space and delineating the physical dimensions and particular features of the body.

Renata Pękowska is a visual artist and researcher based in Dublin. She is currently a Research Ireland scholar PhD researcher at the School of Media of TU Dublin. Her current project interrogates expanded drawing workshop formats as research and artistic practice.

All levels welcome, no experience necessary.

Booking is essential as places are limited.

Saturday, 3 & 17 May 2025, 11am. 
Free, booking required. Register your place here.

Tuesday, 6, 13, 20, & 27 May 2025, 11–1pm.
Location: Matheson Creativity Hub
Free, booking required. Register your place here.

Thursday,15 May 2025
Meeting point For Artcycle: Portobello bridge at 11am.
Slow art Tour at IMMA: 12- 1pm
Meeting point for Slow Art Tour at IMMA : reception
Free, booking required. Register your place here.

As part of Bealtaine and Bike week 2025, Dublin city council DCC and IMMA are joining forces to combine the joy of cycling with the benefits of arts engagement. This event explores the connection between active aging and cultural access, highlighting how both physical activity and arts participation can enhance the wellbeing of our communities.

Artcycle is a community friendly, age inclusive bike ride to IMMA led by DCC’s cycling and walking officer Lucy Hayes.

Saturday, 10 May 2025, 1–4pm.
Location: Matheson Creativity Hub at IMMA
Free, drop in.

Can Artificial Intelligence (AI) shape a more age-friendly future? Join the conversation at the ‘Age-Friendly AI’ showcase at IMMA this May.

The ‘Age-Friendly AI’ initiative is a conversation around ageing and the impact that AI can have in our lives as we grow older. Join us at this interactive showcase in the Matheson Creativity Hub at IMMA on Saturday 10 May 2025 between 11.00 – 16.00 to celebrate creativity and active ageing as part of the Bealtaine Festival at IMMA.

This interactive showcase event highlights the potential of Artificial Intelligence for an age-friendly future, inviting you to imagine the possibilities and contribute to the conversation. Participate in open workshops, consider current AI dilemmas and connect with researchers and artists over coffee and conversation. Explore the ways in which AI, memory and imagination can intersect and discover how creative activities can empower active ageing and shape our understanding of emerging technologies through a unique blend of interactive exhibits, thought-provoking pop-up talks and engaging discussions.

All are welcome to this free drop in event and you don’t need any prior experience with Artificial Intelligence to participate.

A workshop for Bealtaine and Dublin Bike Week with Michelle Browne.
Saturday, 17 May 2025, 12–2:30pm
Matheson Creativity Hub
Free, booking required. Reserve your place here.

Listening to the City is a series of audio guides developed by artist and curator Michelle Browne to create insight and empathy into the way different city users experience the city. Join us for Listening to the City III, where you the public, are invited to create your own audio description of the city. What routes do you cycle, walk, or scoot? How do you experience these routes: what sights, sounds or smells are part of your everyday experiences of moving through Dublin and its suburbs? Together we will create an online audio map to share our experiences of the city with the wider public.

For Listening to the City III, we will open out this creative experience to a wider audience. The public are invited to join us to create their own audio description of their cycling, walking, scooting route through their neighbourhood, exploring what everyday experiences Dubliners have of the city.

Participants will first select and map the route they wish to describe. We will then look at the most striking physical features of the place, what it feels like to move through this space, and what kinds of sounds or emotions are experienced along the way. We will then draft a short script for each location.

Participants will then record the script using equipment provided. The artist and their assistant will then use echoes xyz a spatial mapping tool that works with GPS location mapping to place the audio in the desired location of the participants.

The artist has used this software in a number of projects, such as Cycles for Carlow Arts Festival 2024 and Fringe Was Here for Dublin Fringe Festival 2024. This audio will then be available to the wider public to listen to through the echoes app. Together we will create a resource that can be used far beyond the confines of the workshop timeframe.