Host of celebrities including U2 legend to speak at Kinsale festival

Celebrities including Adam Clayton, Darina Allen and Jeremy Irons are among the list of speakers at the Fashion & Farming Festival in Kinsale this May.

The three-day event brings together native and international creative minds, change-makers and entrepreneurs, and aims to find fresh ideas to help mend the farm-to-fabric cycles, which have been damaged in recent decades.

The 2025 Fashion and Farming Festival will host conversations from advocates including musician Adam Clayton and Darina Allen of the Ballymaloe Organic Farm School in Cork.

Also on the programme are designer Alison Gault; actors and environmentalists Jeremy Irons and Sinead Cusack; former European Commissioner Mairead McGuinness; Irish Linen manufacturer Helen Keyes; French fashion entrepreneur Coco Baraer Panazza and The Eden Project’s Tim Smit, as well as other experts in fashion, farming and sustainability.

Fashion & Farming Festival was founded by Mareta Doyle, who also founded the Kinsale Arts Festival – she teamed up with magazine editor, Ciara Hunt, and writer and journalist, Gemma Tipton to curate the festival.

Ms Doyle said that they aim to improve on current practices of farming and fashion: “Once inextricably linked, fashion and farming are part of our domestic and social fabric, but how we farm and how we create fashion are killing us in today’s world.

“We believe it’s time to make it better. The Fashion & Farming Festival aims to help unify the two worlds of fashion and farming to explore ideas on how to farm sustainably, create new fabrics and learn new things from older ways of making.

“Looking at what we eat, wear and the earth we share, we invite you to join us for a weekend of conversation, provocation, good food, great ideas and intriguing fun in the West Cork coastal town of Kinsale, where fresh ideas take root.” 

Ms Hunt added: “Clothing is part of the fabric of life, and fashion is one of our primary sources of self-expression. It gives us warmth, safety and joy.

“The world’s fashion and textiles industries are now causing huge environmental damage. Less than 1% of clothing is recycled into new clothing and 73% of the materials used are landfilled or burned.” 

The festival takes place from 9 to 11 May, and tickets are available on Eventbrite at: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/fashion-farming-tickets-1200401275529