{"id":581385,"date":"2026-08-03T07:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T07:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/581385\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T07:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T07:16:09","slug":"all-together-now-2026-highs-and-lows-glen-hansard-tributes-an-appearance-from-greta-thunberg-but-few-female-headliners-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/581385\/","title":{"rendered":"All Together Now 2026 highs and lows: Glen Hansard tributes, an appearance from Greta Thunberg but few female headliners \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

HIGHS<\/p>\n

The weather<\/p>\n

Ireland has just come off a run of hot weather, and while that did not hold up for the entire August bank holiday, getting through a weekend of outdoor music in Waterford with only a handful of showers felt like a win. <\/p>\n

\"NiallNiall Valerio from Crossmolina and Niamh Howe from Cong, Co Mayo at All Together Now. Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill <\/p>\n

Mayo winning the Sam Maguire the week before <\/p>\n

Mayo\u2019s historic win over Kerry in the All-Ireland football final the week before is hardly something the festival organisers can take credit for, but the jubilant mood rolled over from one weekend to the next and was celebrated by Mayo and non-Mayo fans alike. <\/p>\n

Moving Glen Hansard tributes<\/p>\n

Just a few days after the death of Glen Hansard<\/a>, thousands of music lovers and Irish musicians gathered in their droves; so naturally there were tributes to the late Frames frontman. Among them were David Keenan\u2019s emotional Thursday night performance at the fiery steampunk Arcadia stage and Christy Moore\u2019s rousing Auld Triangle<\/a> singalong. <\/p>\n

Christy Moore pays tribute to Glen Hansard at All Together Now as fans sing The Auld Triangle <\/p>\n

The number (and quality) of Irish artists<\/p>\n

It\u2019s great to see Irish artists take the world stage by storm, but it is even nicer to see them do so well domestically. From the top down, the All Together Now<\/a> line-up featured a plethora of Irish talent. Among them were Saturday night headliners Kneecap<\/a>; trad super group BIIRD; critical darlings Gilla Band<\/a>; national treasure Christy Moore<\/a>, Louth punk-trad group The Mary Wallopers and DJ Annie Mac. <\/p>\n

Kneecap\u2019s Irish Goodbye <\/p>\n

Delivering one of only a handful of Irish dates this summer, the rap group showed they are more than tongue-in-cheek provocateurs but can also be deeply moving artists. Naoise \u00d3 Caireall\u00e1in made a stunning tribute to his late mother Irish-language activist Aoife N\u00ed Riain, which saw guest appearance from English performer Kae Tempest, BIIRD musicians Lisa Canny and Niamh Hinchy and sibling duo Caoimhe and Seamus \u00d3 Flaharta.<\/p>\n

Kate Nash\u2019s tin whistle <\/p>\n

The Foundations singer gave a nod to her Irish heritage with an excellent cover of Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Connor\u2019s Famine featuring a tin whistle solo. <\/p>\n

Greta Thunberg\u2019s appearance<\/p>\n

The Swedish climate activist surprised attendees with an impromptu appearance on Saturday morning, delivering a sombre message: \u201cMaybe because I\u2019m autistic and I cannot pretend, I cannot pretend to be hopeful, to feel hope in this world, when I\u2019m too heartbroken about the state of the world, everything is falling apart.\u201d It was a heavy speech, but the opportunity to hear her in person was exceptional. <\/p>\n

LOWS\"DelwynDelwyn Ledingham from Belfast at All Together Now. Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill <\/p>\n

Expensive food <\/p>\n

Festival food is generally known as a byword for expensive grub, but some of the weekend\u2019s prices were eye-watering. Earlier this year we were taken aback by \u20ac9 curry chips at Beyond the Pale, but All Together Now went further with \u20ac11 curry chips, and \u20ac12 cheese toasties. <\/p>\n

\"UpUp to 35,000 people attended the festival at Curraghmore Estate in Co Waterford. Photograph: Enda O’Dowd <\/p>\n

The rolling hills of Curraghmore <\/p>\n

One of the glorious aspects of All Together Now is that the main stage sits at the bottom of a hill, which means no matter where you are in the crowd you are promised an eyeful of the headlining artist. The hilly site, however, was challenging for people of different fitness levels and abilities, and the camping was located on top of the hillside, which meant the evenings in the tent were chilly. <\/p>\n

Sunday night techno billing <\/p>\n

The schedulers generally did well keeping everyone happy and made sure that artists with similar fan bases didn\u2019t clash. But it seems a shame \u2013 for those who needed to get away early Monday morning \u2013 that the biggest head-banging set of the weekend, electronic duo Disclosure, were billed for midnight on Sunday evening. Perhaps this is the complaint of an older person.<\/p>\n

The strain on the facilities<\/p>\n

The crowd increased from 30,000 to 35,000 at this year\u2019s festival and there seemed to be never-ending queues for the portaloos. <\/p>\n

Christy Moore not playing main stage <\/p>\n

Whether by his own design or the festival organisers\u2019 choosing, the Something Kind of Wonderful stage was dwarfed by the enormous crowd that piled in and spilt over to see the Kildare singer-songwriter perform. There is no question that he could have played the main stage and brought a substantial crowd while doing so. <\/p>\n

\"DryDry Cleaning front woman, Florence Shaw, at All Together Now. Photograph: Enda O’Dowd <\/p>\n

Where were the women? <\/p>\n

Of the festival\u2019s top 14 billed artists, only two acts featured women (Self Esteem and Mary Wallopers). There was plenty of women further down the billing, but it would have been nice to see female talent celebrated at every stage of the line up. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HIGHS The weather Ireland has just come off a run of hot weather, and while that did not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":581386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[99309,12486,93,109247,3406,61,60,10366,6513],"class_list":["post-581385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-all-together-now-festival","tag-christy-moore","tag-entertainment","tag-glen-hansard","tag-greta-thunberg","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kneecap","tag-waterford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=581385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/581386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}