Birthday Party is a social event hosted by artist Áine O’Hara accessible for disabled and chronically ill people, as part of TULCA Festival of Visual Art 2023. Birthday Party will include games, party favours, cake, a DJ and dancing in the O'Donoghue Centre in October 2023. Birthday Party is a response to the isolation and exclusion disabled people still face in the ongoing pandemic and is a celebration and memorial for the sick disabled D/deaf, chronically ill, neurodiverse people.

There will be online and in person versions. The event will be hosted in a physically accessible seminar room in the O'Donoghue Centre, with seating, masks, HEPA filters, an ISL interpreter, audio describer and noise cancelling headphones. We will publicise the event on our social media platforms and connect with NUIG Disabled Student Services and Disability Society. Participants would sign up in advance and be sent out an invite in the post/through email.The event will be produced by TULCA curator Iarlaith Ni Fheorais and producer David Finn, and the team will be joined by a support worker during the event.

As the pandemic continues, disabled communities are increasingly isolated from one another and cultural life, and Birthday Party will be a safe way to access joy, community and pleasure. It will be a space to recontextualise what it means to be disabled in Ireland and to celebrate disabled communities. A space to dream about the future and give thanks to those who came before us.

Please note that the details of events listed above are provided by the relevant Local Authorities.