Inside Irreecha, the Thanksgiving of the Oromos of Ethiopia

Irreecha is the thanksgiving ceremony of the Oromo people, Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group. Every October, when the long rainy season called Ganna retreats and the sky clears, millions of Oromo gather at sacred lakes across Oromia to thank Waaqa, the creator, for the blessings and mercies of the year that has passed, and to carry the new season’s light forward with prayers for peace, health and harvest. The ceremony at Hora Arsadi in Bishoftu and, since 2019, at Hora Finfinne in Addis Ababa, are the largest gatherings.

In 2026, Irreecha was held on 3 October at Hora Finfinne in Addis Ababa under the theme ‘Irreecha for National Renaissance’, and on 4 October at Hora Arsadi in Bishoftu, the crater lake approximately 45 kilometres south-east of the capital that has been the ceremony’s principal site for generations. Thousands of festival-goers gathered at the lake’s edge in traditional dress, carrying grass and flowers to the water. At both locations, the Abbaa Gadaa, the elected leader of the Gadaa system, led the prayers and blessings that open the ceremony to the crowd.

What Waaqa Means in Oromo Life

Photo: Metti Clothing/Facebook.

Irreecha is rooted in Waaqeffanna, the monotheistic Oromo spiritual system whose central figure is Waaqa, the supreme creator and sustainer of all existence. In Waaqeffanna, Waaqa is not distant or abstract. Waaqa is present in water, in rivers and lakes, in trees, in the movements of the sky. The sacred lakes at which Irreecha is celebrated are not chosen as scenic venues. They are sites where Waaqa’s presence is understood to be concentrated and where giving thanks at the water’s edge carries its fullest meaning.

The ceremony’s ritual elements speak to this relationship between the human and natural worlds as expressions of Waaqa’s creation. The participants bring fresh-cut green grass and wildflowers, the Adey flowers of Birraa, to the lake. The Abbaa Gadaa lifts a branch of grass over the water, dips it in, and sprinkles drops over the assembled crowd. The water that touches the skin is not symbolic. It is the blessing itself, direct, physical and immediate. The crowd receives it as rainfall: something given rather than taken.

Nagaa, the Oromo concept of peace, and Araara, reconciliation, are the qualities Irreecha prays for as the new season begins. They are prayed for among individuals, among communities and between humans and Waaqa. The ceremony carries political and social meaning alongside its spiritual dimension: Irreecha is the moment when differences are set down, and people in conflict through the rainy season are called back to the shared ground of gratitude and peace.

The Gadaa System and Who Leads the Ceremony

Irreecha’s ceremonial structure is inseparable from the Gadaa system, the Oromo’s indigenous system of self-government in which leaders are elected for eight-year terms by their age-grade peers. The Abbaa Gadaa, who leads the Irreecha ceremony, is not a priest or a religious official in any conventional sense. He is an elected civic and spiritual leader whose role encompasses governance, justice, conflict resolution, and maintaining the community’s relationship with Waaqa. The union of Oromo Abbaa Gadaa leaders sets the dates for Irreecha each year, using the Ethiopian calendar rather than the Gregorian one.

UNESCO inscribed the Gadaa system on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2016, recognising its significance as a system of community knowledge, leadership and social organisation. Irreecha, as a ceremony whose timing, leadership and meaning are organised through the Gadaa system, carries that heritage with it. The sycamore fig tree, which UNESCO specifically describes as the symbol of the Gadaa system, is a tree under which Gadaa ceremonies and meetings have been held for generations. It appears at many Irreecha sites.

The Gadaa system’s eight-year cycle means leadership changes within a structured framework, not at the outgoing leader’s discretion. This democratising impulse is ancient, and it means Irreecha’s ceremonial leadership is never a single family’s possession but a rotating community responsibility. The ceremony belongs to the people who attend it, not to the officials who lead it.

The Two Lakes: Hora Finfinne and Hora Arsadi

Hora Arsadi in Bishoftu, also known as Hora Harsadi or Hora Harsade, is a crater lake formed in the caldera of a dormant volcano. The lake’s surface is still in a way that a river cannot be, and the reflections it carries of the sky above and the assembled crowd at its edge create the specific atmosphere of the Bishoftu gathering. Bishoftu is built around a chain of crater lakes, each with its own character, but Hora Arsadi draws the Irreecha crowd to its shores in October.

Hora Finfinne in Addis Ababa was added as an Irreecha site in 2019. Finfinne is the Oromo name for Addis Ababa, the city whose founding and expansion through the 19th and 20th centuries displaced Oromo communities from land they had used for generations. Restoring Irreecha to Finfinne, at the Hora Finfinne site within the capital, carries a specific meaning about the relationship between the Oromo people and the city that bears a different name in the official record. The celebration at Hora Finfinne the day before Bishoftu has grown rapidly since 2019.

Together, the two sites shape the modern Irreecha observance: the Addis Ababa ceremony on Saturday and the Bishoftu ceremony on Sunday. People who attend both experience Irreecha as a two-day movement from the capital to the lake town, with the Bishoftu gathering at Hora Arsadi remaining the ceremony’s emotional and spiritual centre.

What You See at the Lake

On Irreecha Day, the approach to Hora Arsadi is a river of people moving in the same direction. The dress tells you what the ceremony is: white cotton garments with coloured embroidery at the borders, beaded headbands and necklaces in the Oromo tradition, and traditional ornaments that vary by the wearer’s community of origin. People carry green grass tied with flowers. Some carry the Adey flowers specifically, the yellow blossoms that signal Birraa’s arrival. The crowd at the lake’s edge is white and green, the colours of the season’s turn.

At the water, the Abbaa Gadaa leads the prayers. The prayers are in the Oromo language, and Afaan Oromoo, and they call out the names of what Irreecha thanks Waaqa for: life, health, and rain that came and rain that now recedes. The elders lift the green grass over the water and sprinkle it across the crowd in arching movements. The crowd receives the water as a blessing, and the sound of hundreds of thousands of people responding to the prayers’ call-and-response rhythm defines Irreecha at the lake.

For visitors from abroad, Irreecha offers an encounter with Oromo cultural life at its most communal and ceremonially precise. The food and hospitality that extend through the day at Bishoftu, the music and dance, and the family gatherings around the lake’s edge are all part of what the day contains beyond the ceremony itself. This is not a festival constructed for tourism. It is a ceremony that has absorbed tourism without being defined by it, and the difference in experience that distinction produces is significant for anyone who has attended events built the other way around.

A Ceremony That Was Suppressed and Restored

Photo: Sara Tadesse/Facebook.

During periods of centralised rule in Ethiopia’s 20th century, Oromo cultural practices, including Irreecha, were discouraged and, at times, banned. The ceremony’s survival through those decades depended on community practice at the local level, at smaller water sites across Oromia where suppression was less visible than at the Bishoftu gathering. The restoration of Irreecha as a publicly celebrated national-level ceremony, with the head of state acknowledging the occasion and the ceremony broadcast across Ethiopian media, is a recent development.

The scale of the current Bishoftu gathering, described in multiple sources as one of Africa’s largest annual cultural assemblies, reflects a community that maintained its ceremonial practice despite institutional opposition and then restored it when the space opened. That history gives Irreecha a layer of meaning that uninterrupted ceremonies do not carry. The people at Hora Arsadi in October are not simply celebrating the season’s turn. They are celebrating that the ceremony still exists.

Planning Your Visit

Irreecha falls in early October each year, timed to the end of the rainy season according to the Ethiopian calendar and set by the union of Abbaa Gadaa leaders. The 2026 celebration was on 3 October in Addis Ababa and 4 October in Bishoftu. The Gadaa leadership will announce the 2027 dates as the season approaches.

Bishoftu is approximately 45 to 48 kilometres south-east of Addis Ababa, about a two-hour drive in normal traffic. On Irreecha day, the road to Bishoftu carries heavy traffic from early morning, and the journey can take much longer. Many visitors take buses or minibuses from Addis Ababa or stay in Bishoftu the night before. The town has accommodation ranging from guesthouses to mid-range hotels, all of which fill up in the days before the ceremony.

Dress in white if you have it, or in muted, respectful colours. White cotton is what the ceremony’s participants wear, and matching that register is not a requirement but a signal of engagement with what the ceremony is rather than what it looks like from outside. Carry green grass if you can cut some. Approach the elders and the ceremonial space with the patience that a ceremony this old and this large requires of observers. The ceremony is for the people who practise it. A visitor’s role is to watch and receive, not to direct.

QUICK FACTS

What it is: Oromo thanksgiving ceremony; gratitude to Waaqa for the year’s blessings; prayers for peace and harvest

When: Early October each year; set by the union of Abbaa Gadaa leaders using the Ethiopian calendar

2026 dates: 3 October at Hora Finfinne, Addis Ababa; 4 October at Hora Arsadi, Bishoftu

Primary site: Hora Arsadi (Hora Harsadi), a crater lake in Bishoftu, 45–48 km southeast of Addis Ababa

Led by: The Abbaa Gadaa, elected leader of the Oromo Gadaa system

Dress: White cotton with coloured embroidery; beaded headbands and necklaces; carry green grass and Adey flowers

UNESCO: The Gadaa system, within which Irreecha is organised, was inscribed on the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list in 2016

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is Irreecha?

Irreecha is the annual thanksgiving ceremony of the Oromo people of Ethiopia, held at sacred lakes across Oromia when the rainy season (Ganna) ends and the bright harvest season (Birraa) begins. Participants thank Waaqa, the Oromo creator, for the blessings and mercies of the past year and pray for Nagaa (peace) and Araara (reconciliation) in the season ahead. The principal gatherings are at Hora Finfinne in Addis Ababa and Hora Arsadi in Bishoftu.

When is Irreecha?

Irreecha falls in early October each year, timed to the end of the rainy season according to the Ethiopian calendar. The union of Oromo Abbaa Gadaa leaders sets the exact dates each year. In 2026, the celebrations were on Saturday, 3 October at Hora Finfinne in Addis Ababa and Sunday, 4 October, at Hora Arsadi in Bishoftu. In 2025, the celebrations were on 4 October in Addis Ababa and 5 October in Bishoftu.

Where is Irreecha celebrated?

The main sites are Hora Finfinne in Addis Ababa and Hora Arsadi (also called Hora Harsadi or Hora Harsade) in Bishoftu, a crater lake approximately 45 to 48 kilometres south-east of Addis Ababa. The Bishoftu site at Hora Arsadi is the ceremony’s principal and oldest gathering point. Smaller Irreecha celebrations are also held at rivers and lakes across Oromia.

What is the Gadaa system, and what does it have to do with Irreecha?

The Gadaa system is the Oromo’s indigenous system of self-government, in which community leaders called Abbaa Gadaa are elected for eight-year terms. It organises Oromo civic, judicial and spiritual life. UNESCO inscribed the Gadaa system on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2016. Irreecha’s dates are set by the union of Abbaa Gadaa leaders, and its ceremonies are led by the Abbaa Gadaa. The festival’s structure and meaning are inseparable from the Gadaa system’s governance framework.

Can visitors attend Irreecha?

Yes. Irreecha is an open public gathering, and visitors attend each year. The ceremony is not a tourist event, and the community that practises it defines the experience of attending. Visitors are welcomed as observers when they approach with respect. Dressing in white or muted colours, carrying green grass, arriving with patience, and following the crowd’s lead rather than directing the experience are the behaviours the ceremony asks of first-time attendees.

What do participants wear at Irreecha?

Participants in the Irreecha ceremony traditionally wear white cotton garments with coloured embroidery at the borders and hems. Beaded headbands, necklaces and other traditional Oromo ornaments are common. The white clothing represents purity and peace. Participants carry fresh green grass and Adey flowers, the yellow wildflowers whose bloom signals the arrival of Birraa. The assembled crowd at the lake’s edge is predominantly white and green.

How do I get to Bishoftu for Irreecha?

Bishoftu is approximately 45 to 48 kilometres south-east of Addis Ababa on the main road toward Nazret (Adama). On Irreecha day, traffic on the road to Bishoftu is extremely heavy from early morning. The journey that takes under two hours in normal conditions can take significantly longer on the day of the ceremony. Buses and minibuses operate from Addis Ababa. Accommodation in Bishoftu fills up in the days before Irreecha; booking in advance or staying in Addis Ababa and travelling early on the day are both practical approaches.

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