Mother Tongues Festival: Fascinating voyage through languages and civilization

THE 7th Mother Tongues Festival is inviting you to Tallaght on February 16 and 17 for a fascinating voyage through languages and civilizations, reports Ryan Butler.

This year’s festival is a delight for the inquisitive, providing a variety of narrative experiences, live performances, and interactive family activities in many languages!

Director Francesca La Morgia started the festival because she “wanted to have a gathering to celebrate” UNESCO International Mother Language Day.

She started to look into all the initiatives that were promoting languages and slowly built a programme that has been growing ever since.

The festival started in 2018 and has become an annual event ever since, usually being planned a year in advance.

Work has been a busy process for those involved, as there is currently a team of three people working on different aspects of the festival.

The 2025 festival is already being planned, with discussions on “what to keep and what to improve” taking place after the festival is over.

Francesca also wishes to include artists and companies from other countries in next year’s festival.

For helping with the festival, Francesca would like to thank the Arts Council and South Dublin County Council Arts Office for their funding, as well as Rua Red, the Civic, and Tallaght Library for providing spaces, publicity, and staff time.