2025 regional drama festivals

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The Finalists

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2025 Events

KEVIN BAKHURST

As Ireland’s national public-service media organisation, RTÉ is committed to supporting creativity among the young and not so young from a diverse range of backgrounds. RTÉ delivers this support on a daily basis across our services and through a range of initiatives and partnerships, including the wonderful celebration of amateur drama across Ireland that is the RTÉ All Ireland Drama Festival. Across the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards, the RTÉ Choice Music Prize, 2FM Rising, Other Voices, Culture Night, This is Art!, and so much more, RTÉ provides an important platform to emerging and established artists, musicians and performers, of all ages and all abilities to share their stories, develop their creativity and ensure their voices are heard.

RTÉ supported 178 arts and cultural events all over the island of Ireland in 2024. This represents an 82% increase over the ten years since the scheme was re-launched in 2014, when 98 events were supported by RTÉ. The renowned scheme – which won the Business to Arts Special Recognition Award in 2018 – also increased the number of supported events year-on-year, from 170 in 2023 to 178 in 2024. The RTÉ Supporting the Arts scheme aims to promote attendance at arts events nationwide, and supports the full range of genres, from dance to opera, visual arts to children’s events, literary festivals, film and Irish-language events. In 2023, RTÉ delivered a 30% increase year-on-year in the annual number of campaigns supporting Ireland’s rich and vibrant cultural landscape. The scheme offers dedicated promotion on RTÉ’s television, radio and digital services, and extensive support across RTÉ’s social channels. With production services provided by RTÉ, in addition to promotional airtime, the RTÉ Supporting the Arts scheme is a lifeline to Ireland’s creative and cultural sectors.

For more than 20 years that we have supported the AIDF, RTÉ’s commitment to communities has strengthened as we have continued to recognise the vital role this festival plays in keeping our local communities alive. We are proud to work with the RTÉ All Ireland Drama Festival to foster creativity and acting talent through drama, and to bring the excitement and tension of this exceptional festival to audiences all over Ireland, through the partnership with RTÉ lyric fm, through RTÉ.ie and our social channels, and through RTÉ Radio 1.

Walker Ewart ADA

Walker Ewart is a native of Castledawson, south Derry in N. Ireland and is living currently in Bangor Co. Down.
As an adjudicator, he works mainly throughout Ireland and Scotland, and occasionally in England. He has adjudicated the British One-Act Finals three times; the three All-Ireland Finals (Open Full-length in Athlone and One-Acts twice, Confined Full-length three times), the Ulster Drama Finals and the Scottish Finals once. He will adjudicate the All-Ireland Open Full-length Festival in Athlone for the third time.
A graduate of the University of Southampton, followed by a Masters from the University of Ulster, he was a teacher of Modern Languages for 25 years. He then became a member of the Education and Training Inspectorate for 15 years. He was awarded an O.B.E. for ‘services to education’ in 2012 on his retirement.
His lasting interest in amateur drama began at the age of 14, when he was cast as Sir Oliver Surface in Sheridan’s ‘School for Scandal’ and felt the magic of making an audience laugh. He has been involved with the amateur drama circuit since teacher-training college in 1975 as an actor, director and administrator. He had the privilege of being Secretary and Chairman of both Bangor Drama Club and Bangor Drama Festival. A particular honour was becoming the Chairman of the Association of Ulster Drama Festivals (AUDF).
He has appeared as an actor in the All-Ireland Finals in Athlone in ‘Amadeus’ with Holywood Players, and in ‘A Doll’s House’ with Bangor Drama Club. He has appeared as both an actor and director in the Ulster Drama Festival on several occasions, most notably with the winners ‘Hay Fever’ (director) and ‘Observe the Sons of Ulster …’ (actor).
Having been a Bangor Drama Festival tea-maker, secretary and Chairman, he is fully aware of the efforts made by the huge team of volunteers in any production, in any festival. He has basked in, and suffered, adjudications as an actor and director and understands the sensitivities of groups who have been preparing their work for many months.
He is currently a volunteer French teacher for the University of the Third Age, a voluntary organisation for retired learners. He is also the Chair of the Panel which adjudicates new Irish play-writing by amateurs organised jointly by the Drama League of Ireland and the Amateur Drama Council of Ireland and sponsored by the Ramor Theatre, Virginia, Cavan.
He deems it an honour to adjudicate his peers in any festival. It is, however, a particular honour, and an awesome responsibility, to adjudicate Athlone.