18/08/2026
AKWETE COMES TO IRELAND 🇳🇬🇮🇪
ROOTED IN CULTURE, UNITED IN COMMUNITY
As we prepare to celebrate 10 years of Ada Igbo & Okpara Igbo Ireland, we are proud to introduce something very special to this year's celebration: The Akwete International Showcase.
Akwete is more than fabric.
It is art. It is history. It is skill passed from one generation to another. It is the story of women, families and communities who have kept an important part of our heritage alive through their hands.
We are particularly delighted to bring Akwete into this year's programme in recognition of the work of Her Excellency Mrs Priscilla Chidimma Otti, First Lady of Abia State, who has placed renewed attention on Akwete, its artisans and the importance of preserving and promoting this remarkable Abia heritage.
On 5 September, we will take that story beyond Abia and beyond Nigeria and place it before an international audience here in Ireland.
And that, for us, is what Ada Igbo has always been about.
We do not believe that integration means forgetting where you come from.
We believe you can carry your culture proudly and still embrace the community you now call home.
That is why Akwete will share the same celebration where our young people will bring **Igbo, Gaeilge and English** together. Children growing up in Ireland can embrace the Irish language and Irish culture while still knowing the language, traditions and heritage of their parents.
One does not have to replace the other.
After ten years, perhaps that is one of the most important stories Ada Igbo Ireland has to tell.
Our culture is the vehicle. Belonging, integration and community are the wider outcome.
This year, we are inviting people responsible for Ireland's cities, communities, migration, equality and children, alongside leaders and dignitaries from Nigeria, to come and see what ten years of integration in practice can look like.
Not integration that asks us to lose ourselves.
Integration that allows us to bring something to the table.
Akwete is part of what we are bringing to that table.
And this will not end on 5 September. We want the promotion and international showcasing of Akwete and our wider cultural heritage to become part of what we continue to do through the Ada Igbo & Okpara Igbo platform.
Ten years on, we remain proudly rooted in our culture and firmly united in our community.
ROOTED IN CULTURE, UNITED IN COMMUNITY
Preserving Heritage While Building a Shared Future.
Ada Igbo & Okpara Igbo Ireland 10th Anniversary
5 September 2026
Crowne Plaza Dublin Blanchardstown
