The full bill for Spike Island at 2026's Electric Picnic has been unveiled. Spike Island is the home of folk, trad, a little americana, slip-jigs, and Delta blues at Ireland's largest music and arts festival. Happening in Stradbally, Co. Laois, #EP2026 takes place from 28 - 30 August.
Spike Island is an elevated swamp-hut that squats in the marshlands, cloven from drift-wood, with a defensive shell of hedgehog spines camouflaged by pond-weed, ditch-vines, elephant grass and soupy leech-sludge - and the only way into this shack-on-stilts is the raised walkway across the bog land.
Inside is for huddling around the music - folk, trad, a little americana, slip-jigs, Delta blues chants, beardy men playing paradiddle on a piccolo snare, and the odd stray bit of electronica. Those fond of a jig may jig; those who just want to lean in closer to the smell of the mandolin-man can do so too. Dublin’s infamous Cobblestone Pub brings the very best of folk trad and roots music - along with that hallmark Mulligan Family hospitality - to Electric Picnic.
ISPÍNÍ NA HÉIREANN - MEGATRAD - CAOIMHÍN - CIARAN MORAN - KK LEWIS - BURNCHURCH - THE LABOURERS - SALTAIRE - AL BAKER - THE LEN COLLECTIVE - FADA - FRIENDS OF THE RELICS - HELLO LEN - ISPÍNÍ AGUS CÁIS - KETTLEBOILERS - LAURA JO - MÉABH & EVA- NÓINÍNÍ - SHRUNK JUMPER - THE LINES - THE SPUDGUNS - TRAD FOLKIN RAPS – TULUA
After dark, you'll likely find Old Boy Meaney setting a match to the barrel-fires outside, and starting a bit of a song, and, inside, the best of Irish trad musicians drop in for a seisiún, anchored by a handful of players with a fondness for spontaneity.
THE COBBLESTONE SESSION - THE DUDLEY'S PUB SESSION
THE DARKEY KELLYS SESSION
Spike Island: Escape from all the bleeping noise back to a time when wonky-eyed neighbours chicken-danced across old floorboards.
BERLINHAUS
Only a few hundred people ever gain access to the most secret venue in the whole festival - BerlinHaus. Its location is never fully revealed; nor has any footage materialised. But it will be there again.
For German techno aficionados, gaining access down a steep, dark tunnel into a clandestine subterranean club - in which only DJs (doing incognito nixers) from Berlin's infamous Berghain or Tresor take to the decks - this should be on your bucket-list for the small hours.
So if, while wandering in the forest this year, you suddenly feel the ground vibrate underfoot with a hypnotic thumping kickdrum, or catch a flicker of strobe emerge from an access cavity in the ground, or glimpse the dim neon that carries its name over the mossy abandoned bunker entrance - and if you can slither your way past the selective Deutsche bouncer - you might suddenly find yourself in a below-ground East German safe-house that has been commandeered.
Sometimes 4am is not bedtime.
Inside is for huddling around the music - folk, trad, a little americana, slip-jigs, Delta blues chants, beardy men playing paradiddle on a piccolo snare, and the odd stray bit of electronica. Those fond of a jig may jig; those who just want to lean in closer to the smell of the mandolin-man can do so too. Dublin’s infamous Cobblestone Pub brings the very best of folk trad and roots music - along with that hallmark Mulligan Family hospitality - to Electric Picnic.
ISPÍNÍ NA HÉIREANN - MEGATRAD - CAOIMHÍN - CIARAN MORAN - KK LEWIS - BURNCHURCH - THE LABOURERS - SALTAIRE - AL BAKER - THE LEN COLLECTIVE - FADA - FRIENDS OF THE RELICS - HELLO LEN - ISPÍNÍ AGUS CÁIS - KETTLEBOILERS - LAURA JO - MÉABH & EVA- NÓINÍNÍ - SHRUNK JUMPER - THE LINES - THE SPUDGUNS - TRAD FOLKIN RAPS – TULUA
After dark, you'll likely find Old Boy Meaney setting a match to the barrel-fires outside, and starting a bit of a song, and, inside, the best of Irish trad musicians drop in for a seisiún, anchored by a handful of players with a fondness for spontaneity.
THE COBBLESTONE SESSION - THE DUDLEY'S PUB SESSION
THE DARKEY KELLYS SESSION
Spike Island: Escape from all the bleeping noise back to a time when wonky-eyed neighbours chicken-danced across old floorboards.
BERLINHAUS
Only a few hundred people ever gain access to the most secret venue in the whole festival - BerlinHaus. Its location is never fully revealed; nor has any footage materialised. But it will be there again.
For German techno aficionados, gaining access down a steep, dark tunnel into a clandestine subterranean club - in which only DJs (doing incognito nixers) from Berlin's infamous Berghain or Tresor take to the decks - this should be on your bucket-list for the small hours.
So if, while wandering in the forest this year, you suddenly feel the ground vibrate underfoot with a hypnotic thumping kickdrum, or catch a flicker of strobe emerge from an access cavity in the ground, or glimpse the dim neon that carries its name over the mossy abandoned bunker entrance - and if you can slither your way past the selective Deutsche bouncer - you might suddenly find yourself in a below-ground East German safe-house that has been commandeered.
Sometimes 4am is not bedtime.
