Circus Picnic for Cruinniú na nÓg 2025

L-R: Marketing Meg, Cllr Dan Boyle Cork City Lord Mayor 2024 - 2025, Kate Mitchell, Mia Smiddy at Circus Factory Cork for Cruinniú na nÓg 2025

Cruinniú na nÓg at Circus Factory is always a great time, and why wouldn’t it be? It’s a free day of circus!

What is Cruinniú na nÓg?

Cruinniú na nÓg is a free day of play for children and young people under 18 years old. There are events across Ireland that put creativity and young people right at the centre, and financial barriers to entry are eliminated making creative events easier to join. And would you believe that Ireland is the first and only country is the world to have a national day of free play? Go Ireland!

Cruinniú na nÓg at Circus Factory

At Circus Factory, Cruinniú na nÓg is not just a workshop or two to celebrate, it’s an entire day of youth activities, including workshops, performances, and last year we even previewed a circus film made by the youth programme. At Circus Factory, I like to refer to Cruinniú na nÓg as a day-long youth festival; the amount of effort and marketing put into it certainly mimics one!

In 2025, Circus Factory’s Cruinniú na nÓg event was a day-long circus picnic that took place at Circus Factory itself. The day was treated like a structured menu with a starter, a main, and a dessert. For starters, two circus workshops were held targeting ages 7+. For mains, it was our youth circus that took the stage with a show and tell renegade. For dessert, we hosted a super special screening of the circus film made by the youth ensemble programme. And of course, there was popcorn, and a special interactive circus persona to serve it.

The day was a big success with all events being fully booked. Additional spaces were even added to the workshops on the morning of to accommodate every child who wanted to discover the joy of circus on Cruinniú na nÓg.