Insights into Dementia: Informing and Empowering Family Carers

What to Expect

Insights into Dementia is a weekly Monday morning training programme for family carers, held at the Woodford Dolmen Hotel on the Kilkenny Road in Carlow Town. Sessions run from 10:30am to 1:00pm and the programme is built around informing and empowering the people doing the caring at home rather than professional staff. Courses of this type work through what dementia actually does over time, practical communication and daily-living strategies, managing behaviour that carers find hardest, and the supports and entitlements available locally.

The value of the format is as much the room as the content. Family carers are one of the more isolated groups in any county, and a weekly morning session with the same faces builds the informal support network that a one-off information evening cannot. The hotel’s own event calendar carries the programme as a standing Monday fixture across several weeks, with confirmed dates on 31 August, 7, 14, 21 and 28 September and sessions continuing into October to 12 October 2026. The Woodford Dolmen also hosts weekly Thursday social dancing and periodic community fundraisers, so it functions as a general-purpose community venue for the town alongside its hotel business.

Good to Know

• Mondays, 10:30am to 1:00pm, at the Woodford Dolmen Hotel, Kilkenny Road, Carlow Town.
• This listing is dated to Monday 31 August 2026, the next confirmed session.
• Confirmed dates include 31 August, 7, 14, 21 and 28 September and onward into October to 12 October 2026.
• Aimed at family carers of people living with dementia.
• The cost is not published on the hotel calendar, so phone the Woodford Dolmen on 059 914 2002 to confirm the fee and how to register.
• Free parking on site.
• Refreshments and hotel facilities are available before and after the session.

Getting There

The Woodford Dolmen Hotel is on the Kilkenny Road (R448) on the south side of Carlow Town, around fifteen minutes on foot from Tullow Street or five minutes by car. There is a large free car park on site. Carlow railway station on the Dublin Heuston to Waterford line is about 2km away, and town buses and coach services stop in the town centre a short distance from the hotel.