Welcome
Madpride Ireland welcomes you to its website. Where we hope you will come to realise how perfectly normal it is to be mad. Our function within Mad Pride is to give you space to engage with us through laughter and fun so that we can together defeat stigma.
Why not join our social network pages here:
Things You Can Do To Make A Difference
Find hope in yourself
Give hope to others
Hug someone you love
Hug a stranger when introduced
The more love you give to others the more love will grow in you.
To be rich in love you must be bankrupt in love; you must give more love then you get;
Labels mark us like scars, internally.
Madness is such a normal thing
Stigma is fear and ignorance.
Friendship is great medication
Stop being someone’s voice for a moment be their ear!
Listen to the silent screaming voices of the voiceless locked away not because they are criminals but they are emotional.
Look to the positive side; madness brings MUSIC, POETRY, LITERATURE, ART, all come from those on the emotional edge and we are punished for the gift.
Glorious Sunshine Helps Make Mad Pride Day Tullamore A Hit - 3500 Attend Tullamore Event
Mad Pride Family Fun Day Tullamore saw close to 3500 people enjoy the fun, music, and glorious sun at the Lloyd Town Park, Tullamore on Sunday August 15th. This was the second such event held in the Midlands, the first in Tullamore, and organisers say it was a massive success and are looking forward to returning to the venue next year.
Mad Pride Family Fun Day Cork An Enormous Success – Over 12,000 Attend The Event
Mad Pride Family Fun Day Cork saw over 12,000 people enjoy the fun, music, food and sun in Fitzgerald’s Park, Cork on Sunday June 6th last. This was the third such event held in Cork and organisers say it was the biggest and best yet.
Founder of Mad Pride Ireland and organiser of the Family Fun Day events John Mc Carthy said, “What can I say about Sunday except WOW the Park started to fill at noon and people just kept coming. The sun was shining, the food was cooking and most importantly the crowd was laughing, singing and simply enjoying each other’s company, our slogan is ‘Celebrate Difference, Stop Loneliness’ and we got to spread that to over 12,000 people in one place on Sunday. Mad Pride Day lifted my heart, we have arrived, and the people of Cork spoke with their feet, stigma around the normality of madness, consigned to the past. We now look forward to next year, with pride in our hearts, bring it on, yeah.”
The focus of Mad Pride Family Fun Days is to engage the community through fun and laughter and thereby break down stigma and increase awareness and understanding of the normality of madness. Visitors to these fully free events are entertained by musical acts, street performers, clowns and food stalls. Since the first event in Cork, in 2008 over 36,000 people have enjoyed the free Fun Days in Cork, Portlaoise, Killarney and even Mbula Uganda, we are also in discussions to host an event in Tullamore later this summer for more information on Mad Pride Ireland log on to www.madprideireland.ie
We were delighted to have had Corks No.1 band, Fred play at Mad Pride, Cork on Sunday June 6th at Fitzgeralds Park. See our programme page for more info...
May 22nd was a great success for Mad Pride in Killarney. Everyone had a fabulous day.....
Mad Pride Family Fun Day Killarney saw close to 3000 people enjoy the fun, music, food and sun at the Killarney National Park on Saturday May 22nd. This was the first such event held in Killarney and organisers say it was a great success.
Founder of Mad Pride Ireland and organiser of the Family Fun Day events John Mc Carthy said, “When we got the offer to host our event to mark best practice in the fight against stigma by the HSE how could we refuse. And today proves our point, we have nearly 3000 people from all parts of the community both mad and not together enjoying each other’s company without fear or prejudice, that is what we are about. The weather helped a lot it is hard to be unhappy when the sun is shining and you are surrounded by laughter and music.”
The focus of Mad Pride Family Fun Days is to engage the community through fun and laughter and thereby break down stigma and increase awareness and understanding of the normality of madness. Visitors at this fully free event will be entertained by musical acts, street performers, clowns and food stalls. Since the first event in Cork, in 2008 over 20,000 people have enjoyed the free Fun Days in Cork, Portlaoise and even Mbula Uganda.
Summer 2009 was a great success
Mad Pride Cork, Fitzgerald's Park, June 7th 2009 was even bigger than last year with over 10,000 people attending and we're now just back from Portlaoise where we had a great day, despite the rain, on Sunday 12th July.
We also collected some videos about the day.
Click HERE to see them..
"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..." Jack Kerouac
