According to BBC News, “The Irish government has signed a contract for the use of the site at Stradbally. The site will house 750 people for the duration of the six-week contract, the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY) has said.” 

The department expects that the site will operate at full capacity just 2 days after welcoming refugees.

The Electric Picnic Festival site will provide hot meals and water, as well as hot shower facilities, toilets and an on-site paramedic.

Electric Picnic is an arts and music festival occurring annually since 2004. Every year, (excluding 2020 and 2021 due to the Coronavirus pandemic) Electric Picnic offers a vast selection of music, art, theatre and comedy acts, as well as food and holistic health merchandise. With an average of 70,000 attendees each year, Electric Picnic is Ireland’s biggest music festival, making it the perfect place to host a large number of refugees and those in need. The 2023 lineup included acts such as Billie Eilish, The Killers and Irish-born Niall Horan.

Well, that’s a wrap everyone!

Thank you all for an incredible weekend. See you again next year! #EP23 #EP24 #ElectricPicnic pic.twitter.com/lr94WpvTEU

— Electric Picnic (@EPfestival) September 4, 2023

The Irish government has provided housing to over 92,400 refugees since February 2021. 69,518 of these being people seeking refuge after fleeing the war in Ukraine.

A department spokesperson told BBC News “The summer months have seen an increase in the number of arrivals from Ukraine, with more than 10,000 people fleeing here since 1 May, an average of around 650 people per week”.

The Irish government has also gathered additional accommodation from local student housing and the tourism sector, however, these housing options are already at capacity. It is due to this, that tented accommodation is now going to be the first option for new arrivals from Ukraine and anyone seeking asylum in Ireland.

“A small number of new arrivals have already been placed in tents, and this will increase as new locations for tented facilities come on stream. Vulnerable arrivals will be prioritised for any non-tented accommodation available.” – BBC News

In addition to the Electric Picnic festival site, Croke Park, the Aviva Stadium, Dublin Airport and various ex-military camps are also being used to accommodate refugees that have arrived in Ireland over the past year.

Tickets for Electric Picnic 2024 will be available for purchase on September 8th at 9am on their official website.

The singer and television personality has told the BBC that this year’s event is “so much more than a competition“, adding that “It’s very important. We feel that sense of responsibility, to do it with joy, love“.

Dixon will host this year’s Eurovision Song Contest alongside actress Hannah Waddingham, perhaps best known for her role in the comedy series Ted Lasso, and Julia Sanina, front woman of Ukrainian alternative rock band The Hardkiss, with the trio set to be joined by television presenter Graham Norton for the final.

Sanina has also stressed the competition’s importance, telling the BBC, “Even last year, when people were watching Eurovision from bomb shelters, lots of them were still voting and wanted to win“.

Waddingham added, “We have to always balance the joy and the love with what Julia just said. People voting from the bomb shelters hits me more than anything and there’s the reason I wanted to get involved“.

The competition was originally supposed to be hosted by Ukraine, given that the country, represented by rap group Kalush, won the event last year with the song “Stefania“, receiving the most amount of votes the competition has seen in its history. Organisers decided, however, that it was too dangerous to host this year’s event in the war-torn country following the Russian invasion, and Liverpool has stepped in to play host.

Watch Kalush in the 2022 Winner’s Performance below:

This motto for this year’s contest, ‘United by Music’, encompasses fully what responsibility the event has for the country, and indeed for the people, of Ukraine. Staunchly anti-war and a vehicle of peaceful protest, the contest is set to be a proud example of what the world of music can do in the face of injustice and indiscriminate violence, standing tall for the values of peace and prosperity and upright and strong with Ukraine in the face of hostile adversity.

Watch the video for Mae Muller’s “I Wrote a Song“, the official UK entry to the Eurovision Song Contest 2023, below:

The competition is set to commence on May 9th with the first of the semi-finals, with the other being on May 11th. The final will then be held on May 13th. Full coverage of the event will be provided by the BBC. See here for a full breakdown of all the songs that will be performed.