16th Oct 2025

Insurer comes on board as Associate Access Partner, funding €5 tickets for community groups

Thursday, 16th October 2025: The Abbey Theatre has today announced details of a new partnership with Vhi, which sees the company join as the inaugural corporate funder of the National Theatre of Ireland’s Theatre For All initiative. The support of Vhi ensures community groups and schools can continue to witness the best of Irish theatre and storytelling, by offering access to €5 tickets for all performances. The partnership speaks to the value and importance of local community for both organisations.

Theatre For All is open to community groups and DEIS schools, ensuring that people who might not otherwise experience the magic of theatre can do so at the National Theatre of Ireland, encouraging a continued and widespread appreciation of the arts in Ireland. To date, the Abbey has welcomed Fatima Groups United, BeLonGTo, Saint Matthews Family Resource Centre, Louth Volunteer Centre, Belmayne Educate Together, Newpark Comprehensive School and many others through its doors thanks to the €5 tickets scheme. Vhs involvement means 500 subsidised tickets are available to these and similar groups over the next year. Community groups can avail of €5 tickets via Theatre for All by contacting info@abbeytheatre.ie.

Commenting, Co-Director of the Abbey Theatre, Executive Director Mark O’Brien said: “A central ambition of the Abbey Theatre Strategy 2025-2030 is to ignite new audiences and expand the range of access points to the Abbey, to ensure the widest range of people feel  invited to, and welcomed at, the National Theatre of Ireland. Our Theatre For All initiative, and the availability of €5 tickets to community groups specifically, is a direct line to realising this. The Abbey Theatre has long offered €5 tickets, and we are delighted to welcome Vhi – an organisation that is well known across Ireland for being embedded in community and local life – on board as a partner, and thank them for their generous support of this initiative.”

Brian Walsh, CEO, Vhi Group said: “The Abbey Theatre is not only a cultural cornerstone but also our neighbour on Abbey Street, and we’re very proud to become the inaugural partner of its Theatre For All initiative. By investing in community-based programmes like this, we’re helping to foster a more inclusive and sustainable future—one where everyone has the opportunity to experience the transformative power of the arts.”

ENDS 

 About the Abbey Theatre: As Ireland’s national theatre, the Abbey Theatre’s ambition is to enrich the cultural lives of everyone with a curiosity for and interest in Irish theatre, stories, artists and culture. Courage and imagination are at the heart of our storytelling, while inclusivity, diversity and equality are at the core of our thinking. Led by Co-Director’s Caitríona McLaughlin (Artistic Director) and Mark O’Brien (Executive Director), the Abbey Theatre celebrates both the rich canon of Irish dramatic writing and the potential of future generations of Irish theatre artists.      

Ireland has a rich history of theatre and playwriting and extraordinary actors, designers and directors. Artists are at the heart of our organisation, with Marina Carr and Conor McPherson as Senior Associate Playwrights and Caroline Byrne as Associate Director.    

Our stories teach us what it is to belong, what it is to be excluded and to exclude. Artistically our programme is built on twin impulses, and around two questions: “who we were, and who are we now?” We interrogate our classical canon with an urgency about what makes it speak to this moment. On our stages we find and champion new voices and new ways of seeing, our purpose - to identify combinations of characters we are yet to meet, having conversations we are yet to hear.   

About Vhi:

 With more than 1.2 million members, Vhi is the market leader in health insurance and continues to evolve as a healthcare provider. Its services span hospital and daycare cover, dental insurance, urgent care, medical screening, occupational health, employee assistance programmes, and hospital-in-the-home care — all designed to support its members live longer, stronger, healthier lives.