Your essential guide to the packed schedule of Laois festivals in 2024

Property auctioneers know location is everything and Laois is proof, successfully hosting Ireland's biggest gatherings; Electric Picnic and the National Ploughing Championships year after year.

Laois packs a punch with lots of other festivals. Choose from fine art and live music, to farming, heritage, rallying and rural community days out. Here is your roundup for 2024.

In early May, The streets of Portlaoise will be alive with the sounds and sights of trad music, song and dance with the second annual Portlaoise Tradfest over the May Bank Holiday weekend, May 4, 5 and 6.

It offers 35 trad music sessions across nine venues, including a new Trad Battle of the Bands for teens with a cash prize of €500. You can try your hand at an instrument with music workshops in the Laois Music Centre.

Also this weekend, the Slieve Bloom Walking Festival is offering seven guided walks of different paces and lengths, in beautiful locations throughout the county on woodland, mountain, bog, canal and road trails. 

Vikings will be invading Laois again on June 1 and 2, welcomed in by the organisers of the Timahoe Heritage Festival. This year it will launch a book about a colourful local character, Edmund Harpur, and also have a talk on the 425th anniversary of the famed Laois battle Passing of Plumes. The community festival around its stunning round tower will also offer family fun, a funfair and a 5km road race. 

The Gordon Bennett Classic Car Run is a fun jaunt for owners of cars 30 years and older that follows the route of a famed 1903 breakneck car race. Now taking a gentler pace, it runs over the June Bank Holiday weekend from Friday May 31 to Monday June 3, headquartered at Treacy’s Bar in The Heath. The race route goes through Laois, Carlow and Kildare stopping at places like the Japanese Gardens. 

Entrants are encouraged to wear tweed and vintage clothes, and the eyecatching race ends in style with a gala dinner and barbecue. 

Then on June 9, Laois Garden Festival, Buds and Blossoms, will return in Spink Community grounds.  This year's lineup features renowned gardening personalities, including Frances Tophill, presenter of BBC's Gardeners' World, and Karl Wright, the visionary creator behind Caher Bridge Gardens in Co Clare. Adding a local flair to the event is John Jones, Master My Garden, from Crettyard, Co Laois.

Rounding off the end of June with a huge street party is the Old Fort Quarter Festival in Portlaoise town centre. Acts will include Smash Hits, Transmitter, Tumbling Paddies and Whistling Donkeys. A Comic Con will run alongside the festival in the Dunamaise Arts Centre, with family fun, heritage celebrations and a street market. It runs from June 27 to 30.

Fun at the Portlaoise Old Fort Quarter Festival.

On the weekend of July 5 and 6, Cullohill in south Laois will host its community run Folly Festival, described as Ireland’s first gender balanced festival, with equal billing for male and female comedians and musicians. Taking place at the foot of Cullohill castle and hill, it is family friendly with previous acts such as Hermitage Green and Wyvern Lingo. Weekend tickets start at €64.20.

In July, Forest Fest returns Emo village in Laois on the weekend of July 19, 20 and 21. It offers the whole boutique festival vibe with camping options, food and a plethora of music, from 80s and 90s legends like The Cult, The Human League and EMF, to Irish acts The Divine Comedy, Paul Brady, DJ Jenny Greene and HamsandwicH, with lots of local input too. Tickets still on sale.

In late July into the August Bank Holiday weekend, the fun filled Durrow Scarecrow Festival will have the crowds flocking to the pretty town, with a free trail, a scarecrow village filled with family fun, and the All Ireland Scarecrow Championships with big prizes. It takes place from July 28 to August 5.

The Durrow Scarecrow Festival.

All roads lead to Stradbally in August. First for the Stradbally Steam Rally 60th Anniversary festival on the Bank Holiday weekend, August 4 and 5. It is the premier event in the calendar of steam and vintage shows throughout Ireland. 

Then earlier than usual this year, Electric Picnic takes place from August 16 to 18 in its Stradbally home. With 75,000 expected, and headed by Kylie, Calvin Harris and Noah Kahan, it is sure to once again be the highlight of Ireland’s festivals, never mind Laois! 

A rural festival that made a huge comeback last year is expected to be held again in mid August. Rosenallis Festival on the Mountain is full of tradition, with prizes for a bonny baby, glamorous granny, king and queen of the mountain, a dog show, vintage machines, food and games.

In late August, Laois gets arty, with the return of the Twin Trees festival in beautiful Ballinakill village and Heywood Gardens, from August 22 to 25. The festival includes a three day tutored En Plein Air workshop for artists of all levels, culminating in an exhibition of their work. There is outdoor yoga in the Lutyens designed Heywood Gardens and a fishing competition in the town lake.

The National Ploughing Championships will return to Ratheniska for the third successive year in 2024, taking place from September 17 to 19. The largest outdoor agricultural show in Europe will welcome some 250,000 people over the three days, offering not just international ploughing competitions, but a city of trade stands, music, dance, food and machinery demonstrations, animal displays and horse events, and just possibly some mud so wellies advised. 

At the end of September into early October comes Applefest in Abbeyleix. A one day festival it features demonstrations of apple pressing and sells the juice, bring your own bottles. A wood fired oven in Abbeyleix Community Garden will be ready to bake your homemade pizzas.