dlr Refugee Week Opens with Focus on Courage, Compassion and Connection

The dlr Refugee Week programme is coordinated by the dlr Local Authority Integration Team and ‘Courage’ is the theme for this year’s festival. Through a collective programme of community events, art exhibitions, music and dance performances, food, panel events and gatherings, dlr Refugee Week brings people from different backgrounds together to foster a deeper understanding of why people are displaced and the challenges they face when seeking safety, as well as celebrating communities who welcome them.
 
Speaking at the event, Cllr Saul said:
 

“I am delighted to launch the dlr Refugee Week events and especially the dlr Refugee Week Exhibitions hosted by dlr LexIcon Library and curated by UCD, dlr Volunteer Centre, Dalkey Inter Church Migrant Support Group and Southside Partnership DLR.  All the events taking place during dlr Refugee Week are an opportunity to experience and celebrate the diversity of cultures living in our county. 
 
All events are free of charge, everyone is welcome and dlr Refugee Week helps foster and promote unity, community, inclusion, integration, friendship and celebration. Please tell your friends and families to visit these very powerful and personal stories of ‘Courage’ and to take part in dlr Refugee Week events running until Friday 19 June”.

 
Frank Curran, Chief Executive, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council said:
 

“I am proud to support dlr Refugee Week, which highlights the importance of inclusion, understanding and community connection across Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. This year’s theme of ‘Courage’ is reflected in the powerful exhibitions and events taking place, sharing the lived experiences, creativity and resilience of people who have made Ireland their home.
 
The work of the dlr Local Authority Integration Team, in collaboration with community partners, continues to create opportunities for people to come together, learn from one another and build a more welcoming and inclusive county for all.”

 
The UCD ‘Objects of War and Memory in Ireland, Past & Present’ exhibition showcases some of the precious things that refugees have brought with them to Ireland and the moving stories of courage, resilience, love, and hope that these objects have to tell. Alongside objects from Kilmainham Goal’s collections, these objects reveal resonances between the experiences of refugees today and experiences of war, oppression, and loss in Ireland’s recent past.
 
The dlr Volunteer Centre’s exhibition ‘Collage of Courage’ was guided by artist and designer Misha Zehra Abbas from the Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design + Technology (IADT).  Participants created a large-scale collage together exploring what courage looks and feels like through symbols, words, shapes and patterns, symbolising both migration and home as well as celebrating connection, belonging, movement and shared community.  Also included in the exhibition are some of the crafted items created under the dlr Volunteer Centre’s Community Volunteers Arts & Integration Project, including blankets that are used for premature babies in the National Maternity Hospital and made by volunteers from Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown and from around the world.
 
The Dalkey Inter Church Migrant Support Group ‘Courage Ezine Arts & Integration Project’ is a striking collection of images and poetry portraying individual and group courage, adversity, resilience and strength.  Twenty participants took part in 4 creative workshops held in May and June with funding provided by the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council Arts Office and Local Authority Integration Team.  The project brought together residents from Dalkey and new arrivals from many nations guided by artist facilitators Rema Hamid and Lauryn Creamer Nwadike. 
 
The Southside Partnership DLR Exhibition as part of dlr Refugee Week entitled ‘Where We Are Now’ brings together photographs created by a group of young Ukrainians living in Ireland. Working with artists and facilitators Donal Talbot and Tara Nixon O’Neill, in collaboration with Southside Partnership and Photo Museum Ireland, the young photographers formed their own visual perspectives on the places, people, and everyday moments that shape their lives. The exhibition presents a series of personal and individual observations that reflect the courage it takes to come and start life anew in Ireland, the curiosity of new surroundings, creativity, and an emerging sense of belonging in their new home.
 
The dlr Refugee Week Exhibitions in dlr LexIcon, Dún Laoghaire will be on display on Floor 3 and Floor 4 until Sunday 28 June.
Other events as part of dlr Refugee Week continue until Friday 19 June, including :
 

• dlr Refugee Week Panel Discussion ‘Stories of our journeys – Courage & Hope’ organised by Dún Laoghaire Welcomes, Monday 15 June, Eblana Club, Dún Laoghaire, A96 DX74, 7p.m.
• Online Rainbow Refugees Awareness Session from 12:00-1:00pm, Wednesday 17 June hosted by LGBT Ireland.
• Southside Partnership DLR Women's Programme & women4womenNetwork, Refugee Week Ireland Multi Cultural Women's Breakfast, Thursday 18 June, Studio Theatre, dlr LexIcon Library, Dún Laoghaire, A96 H283, 10-1p.m
• dlr Integration Forum & dlr Local Authority Integration Team Film Screening of ‘The Swimmers’, Studio Theatre, dlr LexIcon Library, Dún Laoghaire, A96 H283, Friday 19 June 6.30p.m. 

 
For all information, see https://www.dlrcoco.ie/dlr-events/event/refugee-week-2026 or contact the dlr Local Authority Integration Team at 01 205 4893 / integration@dlrcoco.ie
 
The dlr Refugee Week events are funded by the Department of Justice, Home Affairs & Migration, the dlr Creative Ireland Programme & the dlr Social Inclusion Unit.