For the Dublin Quays Festival five live music venues near the Liffey came together and will run a total of 35 gigs over a four day period (Thursday-Sunday) from 17-20 August. Admission to all gigs/events is free and I have a good few of them listed separately in this Dublin Event Guide.

I was not able to include them all and I couldn’t find a comprehensive list that I could copy in here, so instead, the schedule is provided as a jpg picture here: www.dublineventguide.com/media/DublinQuaysFestival2017.jpg

Looks like a really interesting festival with some great performers!

The Green Door Market is a new indoor food/Farmer’s Market that takes place just a few doors down from the Dublin Food Co-op at Newmarket in Dublin 8. Admission is free.

Opening hours are Thu-Fri 12:00-19:00 and Sat 09:30-16:00.

GirlCrew is a platform for women to make new friends. Find other women that are in a similar situation and find a gang to go to concerts, on travels etc.

GirlCrew is launching a new smart phone app this week and they are celebrating this with 19 events (many are free) over four days from 17-20 August.

The free events are a Creatives/Freelancers Lunch, Afternoon Tea, Mother & Baby Morning, Business Networking Lunch, Entrepreneurs Event, Saturday+Sunday Brunch, Photography Walk and Tech Talks.

Admission is free to them and there are a few more where an admission charge is indicated. Most events require booking.

To find the full list and all other details, follow the link below.

The Magazine Fort in Phoenix Park is unusually neglected and at the same time unusually rich in history. Many have seen it as a barred off concrete fortress in a corner of Phoenix Park and even more don’t even know or have forgotten that it exists. The old Phoenix House, the home of the British Viceroy, was on the site where the fort was built from the early 17th century and then in 1734 the Fort was built and extended in 1801.

In 1916 the Fort was raided by the rebels who expected to find a lot of explosives there, but found the Fort nearly empty. In 1939 the IRA raided the Fort and stole more than a million rounds of ammunition, but most of it was recovered over the following weeks.

Since 1988, the Irish Army doesn’t use the Fort anymore and gave it back to the Office of Public Works (OPW), but not much good has happened to the Fort in the last 28 years (!!) and there were numerous speculations about the reasons for that.

Finally since last year, guided tours were provided and were meant to run for three months until end of October 2016. But the interest was so great that the OPW decided to continue the tours with a reduced schedule over the winter. And since 02 April there will be tours again every Friday and Sunday at 10:00, 12:00, 14:00 + 15:00 and only 20 places are available on each tour.

Tickets are available at the Phoenix Park Visitor Centre on a first come, first served basis and can not be pre-booked. A shuttle bus will bring the ticket holders to the Fort.

Dublin City Hall has a museum/exhibition in the basement, called “The Story of the Capital”, it is an exhibition that you should definitely check out at some stage.

To celebrate the Easter Rising Anniversary, admission to that exhibititon was free in 2016, but lucky for us, Dublin City decided to also waive the admission charge for 2017.

Opening hours are Monday-Saturday 10:00-17:15.

Six times this year the “People’s Art 2017″ exhibition will take place. It is an art exhibition on the rails/fence of St. Stephen’s Green.

(If you want to exhibit at one of the events in the future, check the website for cost and conditions.)

Visiting the People’s Art Exhibition is free and you will be able to admire (and buy) a huge amount of great art works from the artists themselves. The event starts close to 11:00 and typically finishes around 17:00, it runs from Friday until Sunday with the main activity on Saturday and Sunday.

People’s Art Dublin is a voluntary, part time, non profit making group, brought together by Dublin City Council to promote the visual arts to the public of Dublin. A huge variety of art/paintings are displayed and if the weather is nice it is a great art-filled stroll around Stephen’s Green. Definitely recommended!

The National Gallery has an extensive programme of free talks, public tours and Art Documentary screenings every day of the week. Currently there is at least one free tour every day. Check their website for details. Some special events will be listed separately.

Admission to the gallery and to most events is free.

As part of the current “Sound Check” exhibition in the Science Gallery you can rent out a bike to experience Dublin in a completely different way:

Ya slip ta bang is an interactive composition mapped over the streets of Dublin that will unfold for you as you ride ‘sonic bikes’ along specific routes of the city. Accompanied by electronic music, the composition tells the story of recovering he roin addict Lucy Dolan as she returns to the city, revisiting important places in her life.

The sonic bike is a bicycle with frame-mounted speakers that plays different sounds and music dependent on where the cyclist goes and how fast they ride, via a mounted location-sensitive system.

The bikes can be rented for free for up to 1 hour on Fridays, Saturday and Sunday between 12:30 and 16:00. The rules and conditions are on the website below and that is also where you book the bikes.

This is a short and informal pop-up talk in front of Jan van Kessel’s “The Dam at Amsterdam” with Caomhán Mac Con Iomaire.

Admission is free and meeting is in front of the painting in Room 37.

A Garden Walking Tour with Carmel Duignan will take place on Friday.

Admission is free and meeting point is at the walled garden.

The five venues Sin É, The Grand Social, The Workmans Club, The Sound House and Baggots Hutton came together and have created the new Dublin Quays Festival from 18-20 September.

The line up for the Liquor Rooms is

+ Friday 18 Aug: Fiona Harte
+ Saturday 19 Aug: Cowboy Diplomacy (Blues Rock Band from Texas)

Admission is free.

The five venues Sin É, The Grand Social, The Workmans Club, The Sound House and Baggots Hutton came together and have created the new Dublin Quays Festival from 18-20 September.

The line up for Sin É is

+ Friday 18 Aug: Leila Jane & The Healers
+ Saturday 19 Aug: Square Head / Joolz Jones
+ Sunday 20 Aug: Des Hopkins Dixieland Jazz Band

Admission is free.

“Gavin Povey and The Fabulous Oke She Moke She Pops” will play New Orleans style Piano Rhythm & Blues, Boogie Woogie and Rock’n’ Roll. Gavin Povey has played piano with Van Morrison, Finbar Wright, Kirsty MacColl, Steve Cropper, Shakin’ Stevens and many more.

Admission is free.

Supafreak are a Funk/Disco band bringing you the very best in Chic, Prince, Curtis Mayfield & Bootsy Collins.

Admission is free.

RobotRock, the 4 piece band that plays all the classic dance tracks from the last 30 years live: There will be Daft Punk, Gorillaz, Prodigy and more.

Admission is free.

A weekly car boot sale, one of less than a handful that is still reliably taking place, has up to 200 cars/sellers. The stadium is just a few minutes walk from the Red LUAS line stop and numerous bus stops. For traders the Car Boot Sale opens at 06:30 for buyers from 08:00. If you are interested in selling, check the details and register on their website.

For the Dublin Quays Festival five live music venues near the Liffey came together and will run a total of 35 gigs over a four day period (Thursday-Sunday) from 17-20 August. Admission to all gigs/events is free and I have a good few of them listed separately in this Dublin Event Guide.

I was not able to include them all and I couldn’t find a comprehensive list that I could copy in here, so instead, the schedule is provided as a jpg picture here: www.dublineventguide.com/media/DublinQuaysFestival2017.jpg

Looks like a really interesting festival with some great performers!

It is National Heritage Week 2017 from Monday 19 August until Sunday 27 August. There will be thousands of events nationwide and in Dublin you can expect a few hundred of them. Organiser is the Heritage Council and this year’s theme is “It’s in Your Nature!” with a focus on natural heritage.

A huge proportion of the events is free and in Dublin and Dun Laoghaire there are hundreds of walks, workshops, guided tours, exhibitions, talks, performances and recitals. There are soo many that I can’t include them all, but I did my best to include a good number of them, but that good number was probably still less than 10%!! So the rest, you will have to check out in the guides below.

The downloadable PDF versions of the Event Guides for Heritage Week in Greater Dublin are here:
+ Dublin City
+ Dublin South
+ Dublin Fingal
+ Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown

The weekly Honest2goodness food market in Glasnevin has fresh meat, vegetables, fish, baked goods, and wines. It is open from 09:30-16:00. It is behind Lidl in the Industrial Estate just after the Glasnevin Cemetary coming from the City Centre.

Parkrun Ireland is organising free weekly runs in parks. It is a timed run over 5km and participation is completely free, but registration before your first parkrun is required.

A whole range of Parkruns take place every week (and if you know some more, please tell me):
+ Malahide Park, Dublin Road, Malahide, Co. Dublin
+ Cabinteely Park, Old Bray Road, Cabinteely, Dublin 18
+ Shanganagh Park, Shankill, Co. Dublin
+ Marlay Park, Grange Road, Rathfarnham, Dublin, Co. Dublin
+ St. Anne’s Park, Raheny, Dublin 5
+ Father Collins Park, Donaghmeade/Clongriffin, Dublin 13
+ Tymon Park, Tallaght, Dublin 24
+ Bushy Park, Terenure, Dublin 6

The SuperNatural Food Market is taking place every Saturday from 09:30-15:30 in St. Andrews Resource Centre in Pearse Street, Dublin 2.

The Green Door Market is a new indoor food/Farmer’s Market that takes place just a few doors down from the Dublin Food Co-op at Newmarket in Dublin 8. Admission is free.

Opening hours are Thu-Fri 12:00-19:00 and Sat 09:30-16:00.

The Belgard Weekend Market is an indoor market with stalls with handcraft (incl. designer jewellery, aran jumpers and wool, christening robes and shawls, cards and cross stitch), household items, bric and brac, furniture, flowers, make-up, clothes, shoes, showers, upholstery, toys, kitchens, cafe, army memorabilia, collectors items, sweets, handbags books, blinds, party shop, tools and more.

It is open every Saturday and Sunday and is located in the Glen Abbey complex (opposite Jacobs) on Belgard Road.

GirlCrew is a platform for women to make new friends. Find other women that are in a similar situation and find a gang to go to concerts, on travels etc.

GirlCrew is launching a new smart phone app this week and they are celebrating this with 19 events (many are free) over four days from 17-20 August.

The free events are a Creatives/Freelancers Lunch, Afternoon Tea, Mother & Baby Morning, Business Networking Lunch, Entrepreneurs Event, Saturday+Sunday Brunch, Photography Walk and Tech Talks.

Admission is free to them and there are a few more where an admission charge is indicated. Most events require booking.

To find the full list and all other details, follow the link below.

Jamestown Flea Market + Car Boot Sale takes place every Sat+Sun from 10:00-17:00. You can reach it from Tyrconnell Road and from Kylemore Road and it is within 3 min from Black Horse stop on the red Luas line. There is free parking.

The County Council Market (CoCo) in Marlay Park is taking place every Saturday and Sunday. You will find a wide range of products. There will be food to eat there and food to cook at home but also crafts and arts and books and lots more.

The Temple Bar Markets (Food Market on Meeting House Square, Book Market on Temple Bar Square and the Designer Mart near Cow’s Lane) are taking place every Saturday from 10:00-16:30.

Dublin City Hall has a museum/exhibition in the basement, called “The Story of the Capital”, it is an exhibition that you should definitely check out at some stage.

To celebrate the Easter Rising Anniversary, admission to that exhibititon was free in 2016, but lucky for us, Dublin City decided to also waive the admission charge for 2017.

Opening hours are Monday-Saturday 10:00-17:15.

The Drumcondra Village Market is now the “Art, Bites, Crafts Drumcondra Market”. And as you guessed it, it is an arts and crafts fair in the centre of Drumcondra. :-) There will also be some food and music.

The market is open on Saturday and Sunday from 10:30-15:30.

Admission is free.

The exhibition “The Beautiful Beasts” will feature a weird and wonderful collection of animal sculptures. Along with a brand new limestone seal, you will find a flying horse, a tortoise with a secret story and a toucan in disguise.

Created by leading Irish and international artists from materials ranging from bronze, woods, ceramics, steel and stone. You can learn about the techniques used to create the artworks and feel samples of the materials used.

Admission is free. The exhibition is open on from Wednesday to Sunday every week and is suitable for Age 4+

“Magic Bottles” is a Children’s Art Workshop as part of the National Children’s Museum event series on Saturday.

Children aged 6-8 are invited to this workshop. Active learning and hands-on activities are integral features of this fun workshop.

“We begin with a toy or “Gift” created by Friedrich Froebel in the early 1800s. Each of Froebel’s gifts were designed to develop children’s learning through interacting with his educational toys. Gift 1 is an ideal starting point for an exploration of colour, tone and texture. Children’s predictions and experiments with colour theory lead to expressive paintings. A celebration of children’s work will be evaluated by both children and adults in the Mini Gallery after the workshop.”

Admission is free, but booking is required via the link below.

At the Blackrock Market in the centre of Blackrock, you’ll find 50 stalls selling collectibles, antiques, handmade goods, books, food & there’s free popcorn, ballons & facepainting for the kids.
Open on Saturdays and Bank Holidays: 11:00-17:30, and Sundays: 12:00-17:30.

The dinosaurs are back! Spend the day at the Dead Zoo and hang out with a life-sized Megalosaurus and get to hold REAL dinosaur fossils in the palm of your hand.

Admission is free, but there may be a short waiting period. Suitable for all ages.

Come to this Fireman Sam show on Saturday. Shows are at 11:00, 12:30, 14:00 and 15:00 on Level 2 near the Odeon Cinema.

Admission is free.

An Intercultural Tour in Mandarin Language with Community Ambassador Vicky Wang will take place.

Admission is free and meeting point in the atrium of the Library.

Six times this year the “People’s Art 2017″ exhibition will take place. It is an art exhibition on the rails/fence of St. Stephen’s Green.

(If you want to exhibit at one of the events in the future, check the website for cost and conditions.)

Visiting the People’s Art Exhibition is free and you will be able to admire (and buy) a huge amount of great art works from the artists themselves. The event starts close to 11:00 and typically finishes around 17:00, it runs from Friday until Sunday with the main activity on Saturday and Sunday.

People’s Art Dublin is a voluntary, part time, non profit making group, brought together by Dublin City Council to promote the visual arts to the public of Dublin. A huge variety of art/paintings are displayed and if the weather is nice it is a great art-filled stroll around Stephen’s Green. Definitely recommended!

On three Saturdays in August (12+19+26) Crampton Court will be transformed into a family fun area. Kids, adults and their pets can enjoy different activities, including live music with The Pale, Call The Dancers and Jambo Jambo, ballet classes, folk dancing classes, Scooby Box Doggie dancing competition, kids art and book corner. There will also free treats and eats.

Admission is free. To reach Crampton Court go to Dame Street, find Brogan’s Bar next to the Olympia Theatre and enter Crampton Court under the words BAR of the Brogan’s Bar sign. ;-)

The Terenure Bushy Park Market is taking place every weekk. The market has more than 30 stalls, offering a whole variety of foods and crafts.

Admission is free.

The Irish School of Archaeology bring the Big Dig to Dun Laoghaire, as part of the National Museum of Childhood Event Day on Saturday. Learn about the life of Viking children and families through an archaelogical dig at St Michael’s Church.

Hourly sessions are available and can be booked via the link below.

The replica ‘Viking House’ workshop and excavation is designed for children from 5 – 12 years of age and it allows children to explore the Viking world through a simulated and controlled archaeology dig. Children have an opportunity to experience what it is like to be an archaeologist by learning how to excavate the remains of a Viking house. They will have an opportunity to dig for Viking treasures and artefacts dating back over 1000 years and learn about our Viking ancestors through the eyes of real archaeologists.

Admission is free.

“BMB – Body Mind Balance Weight Management” are inviting to a talk about “The Psychology of Weight Loss – Lose weight and keep it off” in Westpark Fitness on Saturday.

Losing weight and keeping it off requires more than exercising and eating less, you will also have to work on your mind and begin to understand what it is for you that makes it so difficult to lose weight and keep it off. At this talk, you will learn simple skills to lose weight for good.

Admission is free, but booking is required via 01-462-6911. Places are limited.

The National Museum of Childhoodis inviting to a day of talks about childhood in Ireland over the past three centuries.

The talks will be suitable for adults and teens and will be accompanied by an exhibition entitled “Down Memory Lane – Irish Childhood in the Twentieth Century”. The three talks are

1) Play and ‘Childish Reactions’: children’s leisure time in eighteenth-century Ireland — Gaye Ashford
2) Children’s clothing and the material of everyday life, 1800-1900 — Mary Hatfield
3) Youth and youth culture in twentieth-century Ireland: histories and memories — Sarah-Anne Buckley

The Irish Museum of Childhood does not exist yet, but is a proposed museum for Ireland and this event is organised to create awareness.

Admission is free, but booking is required via the link below.

Come to the museum to learn about how people in Stone Age Ireland caught their dinner and make your own paper fish to take home. Admission is free. The Drop-in activity is suited for Ages 8+.

The National Gallery has an extensive programme of free talks, public tours and Art Documentary screenings every day of the week. Currently there is at least one free tour every day. Check their website for details. Some special events will be listed separately.

Admission to the gallery and to most events is free.

Bear Essentials Teddy Bear Hospital is coming to Dún Laoghaire’s Bloomfields Shopping Centreas part of the National Museum of Childhood Event Day.

Anke and Nico from the Bear Essentials Teddy Bear Hospital from Bawnboy in County Cavan invite children and adults to bring their teddy bear or teddy bears to get them checked out and all small injuries will be repaired on the day.
Bear Essentials will also bring Bruno the Big Brown Bear and Seamus the Puppet Bear to meet everyone.

To read more about Bear Essentials go to www.bearessentials.ie

Admission is free.

The Vintage Inn Pub in Irishtown will host another “Best Little Market”. There will be approx. 12 traders selling their creative wares.

Admission is free.www.facebook.com/events/666905413518763

As part of the National Museum of Childhood Event Day (see other event listings on the same day), teenagers fom 14-17 years are invited to explore childhood past, present, and future in a Fighting Words creative writing workshop.

The participants will visit an exhibition of photos and stories related to childhood in the Royal Marine Hotel, Dún Laoghaire and this will act as inspiration and starting point for the creative writing workshop that follows.

Admission is free. More information and the required booking can be reached voa the website below.

The weekly Ha’penny Flea Market is an indoor market in the Grand Social Pub, which offers vintage Men and Women’s clothing, contemporary crafts, books, DVDs, vinyl records, vintage and handmade jewellery, vintage hair styles, art, photography and much more. Grand Social’s Bar and Gourmet Coffee options are available.

India Day is a celebration of the independence of India from the British crown (15 August 1947) and it will be celebrated with a Family Day in Farmleigh House. There will be dance, music, craft and photo exhibition and Indian food.

Admission is free and it is suitable for the whole family.

A Ceremonial Military Guard will parade at the site of the “National Memorial to Members of the Defence Forces who died in the Service of the State”, at Merrion Square during July and August. Ceremonies will take place at the pyramid at Merrion Square opposite the back entrance to the Dail, every Saturday from 15 July to 19 August 2015.

Units from different sections of the Defence Forces (Army, Air Corps and Naval Service) will participate in this Military Guard Ceremony to remember their comrades. Every week different units will be involved and the details of the ceremony and the participating units are described on the website below.

The exhibition “SOUND CHECK” (09 June – 24 September) in the Science Gallery is looking the influence sound has on our life. THe exhibition looks at lots of interesting ways to create sound.

It is highly interactive exhibition with lots of oppoertunities to create sound/make noise. Some of the main exhibits are a big sound pinball table, a synthesiser on a bike, musical swings, a room full of Moog Synthesiser equipment, a Uranium controlled Xylophone and there are fice “Sonic Bikes” that you cyn pre-book and loan out for a 1 hour guided tour in Dublin.

The exhibition is suitable for ALL ages, even younger children will be able to take part and nobody will be bored.

Use the help of the amazing mediators, who can explain everything you see, especially if you don’t want to read all the explanations that are next to every exhibit.

The Science Gallery has very visitor friendly opening hours of Tue-Fri 12:00-20:00 and Sat+Sun 12:00-18:00.

Admission is free.

Tiny Fingers, Little Toes: Dragon Workshop is an event for little dragons and dragon hunters. Hear the stories about these legendary creatures and create your own friendly beast.

Admission is free and no booking required but only the first 20 participants will get in.

This tour of the National Gallery collection looks particularly at works which feature animals.

Admission is free, meet at the Merrion Square desk.

As part of the current “Sound Check” exhibition in the Science Gallery you can rent out a bike to experience Dublin in a completely different way:

Ya slip ta bang is an interactive composition mapped over the streets of Dublin that will unfold for you as you ride ‘sonic bikes’ along specific routes of the city. Accompanied by electronic music, the composition tells the story of recovering he roin addict Lucy Dolan as she returns to the city, revisiting important places in her life.

The sonic bike is a bicycle with frame-mounted speakers that plays different sounds and music dependent on where the cyclist goes and how fast they ride, via a mounted location-sensitive system.

The bikes can be rented for free for up to 1 hour on Fridays, Saturday and Sunday between 12:30 and 16:00. The rules and conditions are on the website below and that is also where you book the bikes.

Archive at Lunchtime screenings take place Saturdays (Double Bill), Mondays and Wednesdays. The programme is changing weekly now (instead of monthly as in the past). To find out what film(s) will be screened go to www.ifi.ie/whatson/now-showing-coming-soon/ and look for “Archive at Lunchtime” on the right. Admission is free.

The Bernard Shaw Flea Market is a weekly market (every Saturday) with approx 16 stalls, music, pizzas from the Big Blue Bus and the Bernard Shaw Garden Bar. Expect vintage clothes, shoes, jewellery, art, records, bric-a-brac and more and DJs will provide the entertainment.

Admission is free.

“These Are a Few of My Favourite Things” is the title of a Walking Tour that Emily Gallagher runs every Saturday. It is an alternative Arts and Culture Trail and she will bring you to “Dublin’s Best Cafes, Bars, Markets, Unusual Stores, Galleries, Theatres, Arts Spaces, and more! And hear some tales you’ve never heard before!”

The tours are free but donations are welcome and booking is required via myfavouritesdublincitywalktour@gmail.com or 085-2725095

Every Saturday a free guided tour will take place in the Chester Betty Library. The tour starts at 14:00.

In addition there is another free tour every Wednesday at 13:00 and one on Sundays at 15:00

Artist and educator Sarah Edmondson will be providing a drop-in art making facilityduring her residency. All materials will be provided and all ages welcome.

Admission is free.

Every Saturday a kid’s book will be read in 27 Eason’s stores all over Ireland. In O’Connell Street the reading takes place at 14:00. In the other Eason Stores, the times vary between 11:00 and 15:00 (see website below). Suitable for age 0-6 with their parents.

Admission is free.

A free guided tour will take place at the National War Memorial at Islandbridge every Saturday at 14:00 from March until the end of October.

The tour will focus on World War I, in which so many Irishmen died. You will also hear about the main features of the gardens at this tour.

Meeting point is the car park at 14:00 (next to the Trinity College Boat Club). For further information and to check that it is taking place, contact 01-8155914 (Farmleigh House).

Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown are inviting to a two day movie event in Marlay Park. On Saturday and Sunday three movies will be screened each day on a huge screen in the Open Air. Admission is free.

Some traders from the weekly Marlay Park market will be still open to buy some food, but feel free to bring your own. (Alcohol is not allowed and all other rules, for example regarding parking, are on the website below.)

The movies are

SATURDAY
14:00 The Jungle Book (2016) 106mins PG
16:30 Honey I Shrunk the Kids 94 mins U
19:00 La La Land 128 mins 12
————-
SUNDAY
14:00 Finding Dory 97 mins G
16:30 Maleficent 97 mins PG
19:00 Sing Street 106 mins 12

As part of the National Museum of Childhood Event Day (see separate event listing on the same day) children aged 10-13 are invited to a drama workshop.

Toys, games and stories from the past will be used as stimuli to create a window to past childhood and drama activities like improvisation and role creation will be used to encourage active learning.

Admission is free, but booking is required via the link below.

The five venues Sin É, The Grand Social, The Workmans Club, The Sound House and Baggots Hutton came together and have created the new Dublin Quays Festival from 18-20 September.

The line up for the Liquor Rooms is

+ Friday 18 Aug: Fiona Harte
+ Saturday 19 Aug: Cowboy Diplomacy (Blues Rock Band from Texas)

Admission is free.

The Stillorgan Orchard has live music every Friday and Saturday. Many of the performers are established and very good bands. The upcoming gigs are detailed on the website below. Admission is always free.

“Mick Pyro and the Dublin Blues Cartel” is what the Harbour Bar calls this gig and it sounds like a new collaboration, but as far as I know, Mick Pyro is part of the Dublin Blues Cartel anyway, so in other venues it would probably just be “Dublin Blues Cartel”. ;-)

Anyway, you are right there if you like blues, but also soul, funk R’n’B and Rock ‘n’ Roll.

Admission is free.

The five venues Sin É, The Grand Social, The Workmans Club, The Sound House and Baggots Hutton came together and have created the new Dublin Quays Festival from 18-20 September.

The line up for Sin É is

+ Friday 18 Aug: Leila Jane & The Healers
+ Saturday 19 Aug: Square Head / Joolz Jones
+ Sunday 20 Aug: Des Hopkins Dixieland Jazz Band

Admission is free.

The five venues Sin É, The Grand Social, The Workmans Club, The Sound House and Baggots Hutton came together and have created the new Dublin Quays Festival from 18-20 September.

The line up for The Soundhouse is

+ Friday 18 Aug: Me & My Dog / Maria Kelly / Spoungebob Eyelashes
+ Saturday 19 Aug: Kicking Bird

Admission is free.

The five venues Sin É, The Grand Social, The Workmans Club, The Sound House and Baggots Hutton came together and have created the new Dublin Quays Festival from 18-20 September.

The line up for The Soundhouse is

+ Friday 18 Aug: Me & My Dog / Maria Kelly / Spoungebob Eyelashes
+ Saturday 19 Aug: Kicking Bird

Admission is free.

The Rock Tribunal will play a gig in Porterhouse Temple Bar.

Admission is free.

Another Ironman 70.3, also known as a Half Ironman is taking place in Greater Dublin. The swim will take place in Dun Laoghaire, the cycle goes from Dun Laoghaire via Dublin City Centre to Kilcock and back to Phoenix Park, where the run will take place.

The “70.3” refers to the total distance in miles (113.0 km) covered in the race, consisting of a 1.2-mile (1.9 km) swim, a 56-mile (90 km) bike ride, and a 13.1-mile (21.1 km) run.

Participation is unsurprisingly not free, it costs close to EUR 370 to take part! But watching the spectacle is free.

The best locations to watch the event are in Dun Laoghaire where the swim takes place and where you find the transition area and in Phoenix Park where the cycling finishes and the run takes place. The second transition area is near the papal cross in Phoenix Park.

Expect SEVERE traffic restrictions in Dun Laoghaire, Blackrock, Booterstown, Irishtown, along the Liffey and in Phoenix Park. Phoenix Park will be affected until 17:00, the rest until around 10:30.

In addition to the Saturday Car Boot Sale in Tallaght, Irish Car Boot Sales run a weekly Sunday Car Boot Sales in Ballymun.

Admission for buyers is free.

For the Dublin Quays Festival five live music venues near the Liffey came together and will run a total of 35 gigs over a four day period (Thursday-Sunday) from 17-20 August. Admission to all gigs/events is free and I have a good few of them listed separately in this Dublin Event Guide.

I was not able to include them all and I couldn’t find a comprehensive list that I could copy in here, so instead, the schedule is provided as a jpg picture here: www.dublineventguide.com/media/DublinQuaysFestival2017.jpg

Looks like a really interesting festival with some great performers!

It is National Heritage Week 2017 from Monday 19 August until Sunday 27 August. There will be thousands of events nationwide and in Dublin you can expect a few hundred of them. Organiser is the Heritage Council and this year’s theme is “It’s in Your Nature!” with a focus on natural heritage.

A huge proportion of the events is free and in Dublin and Dun Laoghaire there are hundreds of walks, workshops, guided tours, exhibitions, talks, performances and recitals. There are soo many that I can’t include them all, but I did my best to include a good number of them, but that good number was probably still less than 10%!! So the rest, you will have to check out in the guides below.

The downloadable PDF versions of the Event Guides for Heritage Week in Greater Dublin are here:
+ Dublin City
+ Dublin South
+ Dublin Fingal
+ Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown

The Belgard Weekend Market is an indoor market with stalls with handcraft (incl. designer jewellery, aran jumpers and wool, christening robes and shawls, cards and cross stitch), household items, bric and brac, furniture, flowers, make-up, clothes, shoes, showers, upholstery, toys, kitchens, cafe, army memorabilia, collectors items, sweets, handbags books, blinds, party shop, tools and more.

It is open every Saturday and Sunday and is located in the Glen Abbey complex (opposite Jacobs) on Belgard Road.

GirlCrew is a platform for women to make new friends. Find other women that are in a similar situation and find a gang to go to concerts, on travels etc.

GirlCrew is launching a new smart phone app this week and they are celebrating this with 19 events (many are free) over four days from 17-20 August.

The free events are a Creatives/Freelancers Lunch, Afternoon Tea, Mother & Baby Morning, Business Networking Lunch, Entrepreneurs Event, Saturday+Sunday Brunch, Photography Walk and Tech Talks.

Admission is free to them and there are a few more where an admission charge is indicated. Most events require booking.

To find the full list and all other details, follow the link below.

Jamestown Flea Market + Car Boot Sale takes place every Sat+Sun from 10:00-17:00. You can reach it from Tyrconnell Road and from Kylemore Road and it is within 3 min from Black Horse stop on the red Luas line. There is free parking.

The Magazine Fort in Phoenix Park is unusually neglected and at the same time unusually rich in history. Many have seen it as a barred off concrete fortress in a corner of Phoenix Park and even more don’t even know or have forgotten that it exists. The old Phoenix House, the home of the British Viceroy, was on the site where the fort was built from the early 17th century and then in 1734 the Fort was built and extended in 1801.

In 1916 the Fort was raided by the rebels who expected to find a lot of explosives there, but found the Fort nearly empty. In 1939 the IRA raided the Fort and stole more than a million rounds of ammunition, but most of it was recovered over the following weeks.

Since 1988, the Irish Army doesn’t use the Fort anymore and gave it back to the Office of Public Works (OPW), but not much good has happened to the Fort in the last 28 years (!!) and there were numerous speculations about the reasons for that.

Finally since last year, guided tours were provided and were meant to run for three months until end of October 2016. But the interest was so great that the OPW decided to continue the tours with a reduced schedule over the winter. And since 02 April there will be tours again every Friday and Sunday at 10:00, 12:00, 14:00 + 15:00 and only 20 places are available on each tour.

Tickets are available at the Phoenix Park Visitor Centre on a first come, first served basis and can not be pre-booked. A shuttle bus will bring the ticket holders to the Fort.

The County Council Market (CoCo) in Marlay Park is taking place every Saturday and Sunday. You will find a wide range of products. There will be food to eat there and food to cook at home but also crafts and arts and books and lots more.

Every Sunday, the Merrion Square Open Air Art Gallery takes place. Up to 200 artists exhibit their paintings on the railings on three sides (West, North and East) of Merrion Square and you can just enjoy the exhibition or even buy.

The Drumcondra Village Market is now the “Art, Bites, Crafts Drumcondra Market”. And as you guessed it, it is an arts and crafts fair in the centre of Drumcondra. :-) There will also be some food and music.

The market is open on Saturday and Sunday from 10:30-15:30.

Admission is free.

The exhibition “The Beautiful Beasts” will feature a weird and wonderful collection of animal sculptures. Along with a brand new limestone seal, you will find a flying horse, a tortoise with a secret story and a toucan in disguise.

Created by leading Irish and international artists from materials ranging from bronze, woods, ceramics, steel and stone. You can learn about the techniques used to create the artworks and feel samples of the materials used.

Admission is free. The exhibition is open on from Wednesday to Sunday every week and is suitable for Age 4+

The Brocante Market will take place on Sunday. It is a collection of antiques, furniture, vintage jewellery, collectables and curiosities from the past and present, second-hand, refurbished, antique and hand-crafted stuff for your house and garden. If you are an interior designer or just have and eye for style and are looking for a special piece or maybe a bargain then this is the market for you. The market is held every 3rd Sunday of the month.

Admission is free.

Every Sunday (with a few exceptions) an art workshop takes place for children from 6-11 years of age. Admission is free and children must be accompanied by an adult.

The themes for the workshop are:
13 August Paint a Summer Scene
20 August Medieval Life
27 August Farmer Ann
03 September Farmer Ann
17 September Medieval Life
24 September Paint an Autumn Scene

The full list can be found here phoenixpark.ie/media/phoenix-park-programme-of-events-2017.pdf

A weekly market with lots of food, but also many other products (art & crafts, books, etc) takes place every Sunday in the beautiful People’s Park in Dun Laoghaire. It is a very popular market and with around 50 vendors also one of the bigger markets.

The well known Palestrina Choir sing every Sunday at the mass in St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral. They sing complete masterworks by Mozart, Haydn, Dvorak, Palestrina, de Victoria, usually accompanied by Prof. Gerard Gillen on the organ, who often also plays a solo piece.

Six times this year the “People’s Art 2017″ exhibition will take place. It is an art exhibition on the rails/fence of St. Stephen’s Green.

(If you want to exhibit at one of the events in the future, check the website for cost and conditions.)

Visiting the People’s Art Exhibition is free and you will be able to admire (and buy) a huge amount of great art works from the artists themselves. The event starts close to 11:00 and typically finishes around 17:00, it runs from Friday until Sunday with the main activity on Saturday and Sunday.

People’s Art Dublin is a voluntary, part time, non profit making group, brought together by Dublin City Council to promote the visual arts to the public of Dublin. A huge variety of art/paintings are displayed and if the weather is nice it is a great art-filled stroll around Stephen’s Green. Definitely recommended!

The Rumble in the Jumble market is a art, crafts, vintage, vinyl and more market in the Food Co-op.

Admission is free.

The National Gallery is running a series of free themed family drop-in workshops from 11:30-13:30 every Sunday.

Inspired by the collection and the exhibitions in the National Gallery, these workshops are suitable for all ages from approx. 18 months to age 8. You can choose to stay for as long or as short a time as works for you.

The space will be divided by age and ability, and each child will be encouraged by Artist and NGI Education Assistant Caomhán Mac Con Iomaire and the week’s guest artist to create their own work on the week’s theme.

Admission is free and no booking required. Numbers are limited to 40 people at any one time but you can drop in and out whenever it suits you and as long as there is still space. Children have to be supervised at all times. The event takes place in the Atrium.

This week’s theme is: A picture in a picture

The National Gallery has an extensive programme of free talks, public tours and Art Documentary screenings every day of the week. Currently there is at least one free tour every day. Check their website for details. Some special events will be listed separately.

Admission to the gallery and to most events is free.

Discover the urban wildlife surrounding Collins Barrack during this tour for adults and children aged 7+.

Meet at Riding School steps. Admission is free and places will be allocated on a first come first served basis.

At the Blackrock Market in the centre of Blackrock, you’ll find 50 stalls selling collectibles, antiques, handmade goods, books, food & there’s free popcorn, ballons & facepainting for the kids.
Open on Sundays: 12:00-17:30. Open on Saturdays and Bank Holidays: 11:00-17:30.

Every Sunday, the National Botanic Gardens invite to two guided walks. The first one is at 12:00 and the second one at 14:30.

Admission is free.

The National Print Museum is inviting to their next Printfest on Sunday. There will be printing demos on the historic printing presses,, arts and crafts stations and face painting. The event is for the whole family and admission is free.

The exhibition “SOUND CHECK” (09 June – 24 September) in the Science Gallery is looking the influence sound has on our life. THe exhibition looks at lots of interesting ways to create sound.

It is highly interactive exhibition with lots of oppoertunities to create sound/make noise. Some of the main exhibits are a big sound pinball table, a synthesiser on a bike, musical swings, a room full of Moog Synthesiser equipment, a Uranium controlled Xylophone and there are fice “Sonic Bikes” that you cyn pre-book and loan out for a 1 hour guided tour in Dublin.

The exhibition is suitable for ALL ages, even younger children will be able to take part and nobody will be bored.

Use the help of the amazing mediators, who can explain everything you see, especially if you don’t want to read all the explanations that are next to every exhibit.

The Science Gallery has very visitor friendly opening hours of Tue-Fri 12:00-20:00 and Sat+Sun 12:00-18:00.

Admission is free.

Dun Laoghaire is currently celebratig the 200th birthday of Dun Laoghaire harbour and on Sunday the arrival of the Vikings – a long time before the harbour was built – will be celebrated with the Viking Invasion event on the East Pier. Witness their arrival in Ireland. There will be Viking longboats, a Viking camp, a real life Viking invasion and a chance to meet the Vikings themselves.

The highlight will be at 15:00 when two longboats arrive and a mock battle takes place.

Admission to this Family Day is free.

As part of the current “Sound Check” exhibition in the Science Gallery you can rent out a bike to experience Dublin in a completely different way:

Ya slip ta bang is an interactive composition mapped over the streets of Dublin that will unfold for you as you ride ‘sonic bikes’ along specific routes of the city. Accompanied by electronic music, the composition tells the story of recovering he roin addict Lucy Dolan as she returns to the city, revisiting important places in her life.

The sonic bike is a bicycle with frame-mounted speakers that plays different sounds and music dependent on where the cyclist goes and how fast they ride, via a mounted location-sensitive system.

The bikes can be rented for free for up to 1 hour on Fridays, Saturday and Sunday between 12:30 and 16:00. The rules and conditions are on the website below and that is also where you book the bikes.

At this Drop in Drawing Session, learn drawing techniques, including line drawing, shading perspective and decoration during these relaxed informal sessions.

Admission is free. Suitable for ages 13+. Materials are provided but feel free to bring your own sketchbook; dry materials only.

The cemetery at Arbour Hill is the last resting place of 14 of the leaders of the 1916 Rising. Among those buried there are Pádraig Pearse, James Connolly and Thomas Clarke. This tour every Sunday will focus on the context of the Rising and explore in detail the wording of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic.

No booking necessary. The meeting point is inside the cemetery gates.

Artist and educator Sarah Edmondson will be facilitating the children’s workshops “Vermeer meets Monty Python”.
Participants will write and record a dialogue between two characters from the paintings in the exhibition and then direct a very short interaction between these figures using cut paper animation.

This workshop is suitable for children of all ages. Maximum of 15 participants at one time.

Admission is free.

The “Dublin Sketchers” is an informal group of (hobby) artists who go somewhere different in Dublin every Sunday (e.g. National Museum, Maritime Museum, Dublin Flea Market, Farmleigh, Botanic Gardens, Dublin Castle, Science Gallery, …), sketch for one to two hours and then meet up for coffee afterwards and discuss their sketches.

There are some hugely talented people among them and it is a great idea to meet up with others who have the same hobby. Find out on their website below or on their Facebook Page where they will meet and join them if you do some sketching/drawing yourself. I know that the Dublin Sketchers often use the Dublin Event Guide to find interesting free events and I am delighted to be able to help!

Every Sunday a free tour takes place in the Hugh Lane Gallery.

Admission is free and booking is not required, but places are limited, so early arrival is recommended.

Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown are inviting to a two day movie event in Marlay Park. On Saturday and Sunday three movies will be screened each day on a huge screen in the Open Air. Admission is free.

Some traders from the weekly Marlay Park market will be still open to buy some food, but feel free to bring your own. (Alcohol is not allowed and all other rules, for example regarding parking, are on the website below.)

The movies are

SATURDAY
14:00 The Jungle Book (2016) 106mins PG
16:30 Honey I Shrunk the Kids 94 mins U
19:00 La La Land 128 mins 12
————-
SUNDAY
14:00 Finding Dory 97 mins G
16:30 Maleficent 97 mins PG
19:00 Sing Street 106 mins 12

Afternoon Jazz in Café en Seine. The Stella Bass Jazz Trio play every Sunday from 14:00-16:00 in Café en Seine in Dawson Street. Admission is free. A video is here www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8aKqtOB5S8

On 16 Sept is the International Zouk Day and on that day a dance Flashmob is planned to happen in Dublin and for the next seven weeks, starting this Sunday, a Dance Practice will take place at the Pavilion/Summerhouse in St. Stephen’s Green (next to the lake).

It is a 2 hour session and you will learn to dance this Brazilian partner dance that was born in Rio de Janeiro less than 30 years ago (early 1990s). You don’t need to have and dance experience and you also don’t need to have a partner to participate.

Admission is free.

Every Sunday a free guided tour will take place in the Chester Betty Library. The tour starts at 15:00.

In addition there is another free tour every Wednesday at 13:00 and one on Saturdays at 14:00

Unlike the three branches of the National Museum, the National Print Museum is normally not free, but every Sunday there is a free public tour for the next few weeks. Every visit begins with a short audio-visual presentation where the audience can observe active retired printers providing practical demonstrations of machines from the Museum’s collection.

The Bloody Stream Pub & Restaurant in Howth is inviting to their yearly Phil Lynott celebration “The Birthday Party for Phil Lynott”. There will be lots of bands playing Phil Lynott’s and other related music and the party will start already at 15:00.

Admission is free.

The Sunday Melt Sessions in the Mezz is a whole afternoon of bands, acoustic acts, spoken word, DJs and more. The line up is available via the FB Event Page below.

Admission is free.

Travel around European traditional dancing culture without a ticket at the weekly Bal Folk Dance Sessions.

And if you don’t know how to dance, don’t worry! Workshops are provided and admission is free, donations are appreciated.

This week, Polish dances will be practised/learned.

The event takes place every Sunday in the Cobblestone Pub.

Blues Got Soul, a four-piece blues band from Dublin is performing the music of the founding fathers of blues and blues masters in the International Bar every Sunday. Admission is free, but donations are welcome.

The New Breadwinners are a 3-piece Bluegrass band and they are playing every Sunday in the Leeson Longe.

Admission is free, donations are appreciated.

Every Sunday evening from 18:00-20:00, the Wiley Fox is hosting a trad session, where some of Ireland’s finest traditional musicians will play for you.

Admission is free.

The Dixeland Jazzmen play a weekly gig in Sin E. Admission is free.

At the Jawbone Gig night in Arthur’s Pub, Acoustic Folk & Blues will be performed every Sunday. Admission is free.

www.facebook.com/pages/Jawbone-Dublin-Acoustic-Folk-Blues-Commune/724102984268967

The Tiny Quartet will play a gig in the Harbour Bar.

Admission is free.

Every Sunday this singer-songwriter night takes place in the Bleeding Horse in Camden St. from 8.30pm. It is an Open mic night and performers can just turn up and put their name on the list for that night.

The Comedy Crunch is a free Stand Up comedy downstairs in Stag’s Head, Dame Lane from 21:00 every week on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Every week different comedians entertain and on top of that there is some free ice cream. The line-up can be found via the Comedy Crunch Facebook Page (see link below).

“Rhythm Rocker at The Globe” is a weekly event on Sunday night in The Globe with live music (Rockabilly) and DJs. Admission is free.

The Rock ‘n’ Rock and Swing Band “The Jive Cats” will perform in the Mercantile every Sunday from 22:00.

Admission is free.

It is National Heritage Week 2017 from Monday 19 August until Sunday 27 August. There will be thousands of events nationwide and in Dublin you can expect a few hundred of them. Organiser is the Heritage Council and this year’s theme is “It’s in Your Nature!” with a focus on natural heritage.

A huge proportion of the events is free and in Dublin and Dun Laoghaire there are hundreds of walks, workshops, guided tours, exhibitions, talks, performances and recitals. There are soo many that I can’t include them all, but I did my best to include a good number of them, but that good number was probably still less than 10%!! So the rest, you will have to check out in the guides below.

The downloadable PDF versions of the Event Guides for Heritage Week in Greater Dublin are here:
+ Dublin City
+ Dublin South
+ Dublin Fingal
+ Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown

The National Gallery has an extensive programme of free talks, public tours and Art Documentary screenings every day of the week. Currently there is at least one free tour every day. Check their website for details. Some special events will be listed separately.

Admission to the gallery and to most events is free.

Archive at Lunchtime screenings take place Saturdays (Double Bill), Mondays and Wednesdays. The programme is changing weekly now (instead of monthly as in the past). To find out what film(s) will be screened go to www.ifi.ie/whatson/now-showing-coming-soon/ and look for “Archive at Lunchtime” on the right. Admission is free.

During Heritage Week from Monday to Friday, National Library staff will speak about various aspects of the library including the history of the NLI, conservation, photographs and web archiving. Admission is free.

The talks are:
+ Mon 21 Aug: Politics is in our nature with Maria Ryan of the NLI’s Digital Collections explores the library’s political web archive.

+ Tue 22 Aug: Behind the scenes -Conservation at the NLI. Claire Dantin, Heritage Council conservation intern. will speak about Paper, pigments, wood, even plastic and how to conserve them for the future?

+ Wed 23 Aug: A beacon of light: The NLI’s Elinor Wiltshire Photographic Collection. Elizabeth Kirwan, Curator of the NLI’s National Photographic Archive, will share some of her favourite photographs from the NLI’s Elinor Wiltshire Photographic collection. Elinor Wiltshire (1918-2017), born in Limerick, was one of Ireland’s most outstanding twentieth-century photographers.

+ Thu 24 Aug: The Bigger Picture. Maeve Casserly, Learning & Outreach, NLI, will talk about the Flickr Commons online community that the National Library joined in 2011.

+ Fri 25 Aug: The National Library of Ireland: an informal history. Gerry Long, Department of Special Collections, will explore the National Library’s history since the passing of the Dublin Science and Art Museum Act in 1877, which established the National Library of Ireland.

If you regularly or occasionally buy books online, you can help the Dublin Event Guide hugely even without having to pay cent directly. In fact you even save money this way:

Buy your books from The Book Depository and get better prices and free (!!) delivery for all orders independent from the volume and when you click on the picture here before you buy, then 5% of what normally The Book Depository would get, they give back to the Dublin Event Guide. Everybody wins!

www.bookdepository.com?a_aid=dubevg

If you prefer Amazon to buy your books (for free postage you need to order a minimum of GBP 25), then use this Amazon link to help the Dublin Event Guide. Thanks!

Ciaran Burke will talk about the new National Gallery’s Garden on the Merrion Square side. There is a pollinator strip and plants are a mixture of annuals that will self-seed and perennials that will survive for many years.

Admission is free,

‘Choose, Catch, Snap! Get a Glimpse, a Glance, a Flash! Of directions you may wish your life to take! And discover decisions you may desire to make!’

Emily Gallagher will run a ‘just for fun’ photo trail weekly, involving participants following instructions for hunting for various specific snaps around the city centre, after which interpretations of the symbolic significance to the snaps will be shared!

Admission is free, but donations are welcome and booking is required via chooseyourowntracks@gmail.com or 085-2725095. Meeting Point is the Meeting House Square.

The Children’s Workshop “Build your own mini bug hotel” will take place. The gardens are filled with many beneficial insects like ladybirds, lacewings and beetles which help protect and pollinate the flowers. This creative drop-by workshop for kids will make use of natural materials to create cosy homes for the creepy crawling guests.

Admission is free, but booking is required via 01 804 0319. The event is part of Heritage Week.

Interesting that now even TV programmes are screened in pubs! :-O

A Game of Throne Screening will happen in the Bowery.

Admission is free and there will be free popcorn.

This is a weekly gig with authentic old-time fiddle tunes and Appalachian music.

Admission is free.

The “Rose of Tralee” is a live event that takes place in Tralee every year and the rest of us can watch a TV show over two (!!!) nights that introduces the participants of this competition and gives you a glimpse in the shenanigans of a Kerry based competition for a female representative.

If you grew up in Ireland you know the “Rose of Tralee” event well enough and you most likely have your own memories (good or bad) and your own opinion about it (depends possibly on your age). So this event notice is not really for people that grew up in Ireland. ;-)

But imagine if you never saw it before and didn’t grow up in Ireland, how would you describe this “thing”?

Well, I will try: There is a town in the west of Ireland, called Tralee, that for some reason 58 years ago decided that a young woman that has some tentative Irish roots and lives anywhere in the world should represent this town as their “Rose of Tralee”. All over the world, Irish communities run competitions and 63 young women will be sent to Tralee to compete against each other. The selection criteria is a mystery to anybody that will watch the show this week. They are usually not selected on their looks or talents or skills, but something has been seen in the 63. From these 63, 32 will make it into the TV show and then one will be selected based on similar incomprehensible criteria to become the Rose of Tralee.

During a TWO night, very long drawn out programme that is exciting for some (mainly the parents and grannies of the candidates) and is cringe-worthy for many others, presenter Dáithí Ó Sé will make meagre attempts of getting anything interesting out of the 32 and he will then also get them to show their bestest talent through performing a dance, sing or play an instrument. For years the emergency fall back if there were no other skills at all that would appeal to the viewers, was to recite a poem, but luckily that got ruled out in 2016.

There is another parallel universe story happening as well: The women might have partners but each and everyone of them is assigned a young guy as an “escort”. But get someone else to explain that to you. I will only tell you that 100s apply every year and 65 will be selected. And each of them has to raise EUR 1500 in sponsorship and they will have to be there for “their” Rose participant during the week. (www.thejournal.ie/rose-of-tralee-escort-shane-kenny-2932817-Aug2016/)

And by the way, the event takes place in the “Festival Dome”, which couldn’t be further from a dome than you could imagine. It is in fact a plastic marquee that the people from Kerry call “Dome” for unknown reasons.

58 years is this event running and shockingly you are part financing it through your TV license fee. Good use of your money!?

The show is broadcast live on RTE One TV for more than four long hours (3 hrs + 3hrs with a break in the middle for the 21:00 news). And to make sure that the rest of the world will not get away undamaged, you can also watch it worldwide on the RTE Player. Should you watch it? I think if you have never seen it before you should watch at least a small part of it. Just as a cultural experience thing. ;-)

“odd”, “Anachronistic” or even “boring” are some of the softer terms that opponents use, but the support in some quarters seems to be tremendous nevertheless.

www.roseoftralee.ie/

Song Cycle is a weekly Singer/Songriter showcase. The line-up is not always easily findable on the Whelan’s website, but admission is always free.

The Circle Sessions is an “Open Mic” that provides an opportunity for up and coming musicians, spoken word artists, poets and comedians to perform.

Come to this weekly show to perform or to simply watch a great mix of music, poetry, spoken word and comedy.

Admission is free.

Every Monday the Woolshed Bar hosts “The Comedy Shed”, usually with 3 headline acts.

Admission is free.

The Comedy Crunch is a free Stand Up comedy event every Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Every week different comedians entertain and on top of good comedy you will get free ice cream. Admission is free. The line-up can be found via the Comedy Crunch Facebook Page (see link below).

Great news the great duo of Donal Kirk and Anto Drennan have found a new home. Originally they played a weekly gig in JJ Smyth’s until it closed and now they will perform in the Leeson Lounge and the same day as before.

They will play music from Lowell George Little Feat, Bonnie Raitt, Free, Bad Company, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Beatles, Bobby Bland, Vince Gill, Ray Charles, Etta James, Elvis, Ry Cooder, Dobie Gray, Guy Clarke, early ZZ Top, Dave Edmunds, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Willie Nelson.

Admission is free.

Every Monday a Jazz Jam Session will take place in the Grand Social and you are invited to listen or even to participate. Admission is free for musicians and audience.

Instruments are supplied (drums (no cymbals), double bass, guitar amp, bass amp, PA system) and ideas and themes will be proposed prior to the session to the musicians who join the event on Facebook (see Facebook Page below).

An Open Trad Music Session is taking place every Monday in Mother Reilly’s. Admission is free.

That’s It Recordings is an open mic every Monday at Sin E. Just turn up and play. Sign up before 22:00 to ensure you get a slot. Bring a USB stick along and you will get a recording of your music to take home.

Admission is free.

It is National Heritage Week 2017 from Monday 19 August until Sunday 27 August. There will be thousands of events nationwide and in Dublin you can expect a few hundred of them. Organiser is the Heritage Council and this year’s theme is “It’s in Your Nature!” with a focus on natural heritage.

A huge proportion of the events is free and in Dublin and Dun Laoghaire there are hundreds of walks, workshops, guided tours, exhibitions, talks, performances and recitals. There are soo many that I can’t include them all, but I did my best to include a good number of them, but that good number was probably still less than 10%!! So the rest, you will have to check out in the guides below.

The downloadable PDF versions of the Event Guides for Heritage Week in Greater Dublin are here:
+ Dublin City
+ Dublin South
+ Dublin Fingal
+ Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown

The National Gallery has an extensive programme of free talks, public tours and Art Documentary screenings every day of the week. Currently there is at least one free tour every day. Check their website for details. Some special events will be listed separately.

Admission to the gallery and to most events is free.

As part of Christ Church Cathedral Crypt open day, a ‘Monks’ Tour’ will take place for 7-10 year olds. Children have the chance to dress up in their own little monks’ habits and will learn all about the monks who lived at Christ Church, what they ate, what they wore and what they did every day.

Admission is free, but places are limited to 29 children. Places are allocated on first come first served basis but to be on the safe side, I would also suggest to register via the link below.

During Heritage Week from Monday to Friday, National Library staff will speak about various aspects of the library including the history of the NLI, conservation, photographs and web archiving. Admission is free.

The talks are:
+ Mon 21 Aug: Politics is in our nature with Maria Ryan of the NLI’s Digital Collections explores the library’s political web archive.

+ Tue 22 Aug: Behind the scenes -Conservation at the NLI. Claire Dantin, Heritage Council conservation intern. will speak about Paper, pigments, wood, even plastic and how to conserve them for the future?

+ Wed 23 Aug: A beacon of light: The NLI’s Elinor Wiltshire Photographic Collection. Elizabeth Kirwan, Curator of the NLI’s National Photographic Archive, will share some of her favourite photographs from the NLI’s Elinor Wiltshire Photographic collection. Elinor Wiltshire (1918-2017), born in Limerick, was one of Ireland’s most outstanding twentieth-century photographers.

+ Thu 24 Aug: The Bigger Picture. Maeve Casserly, Learning & Outreach, NLI, will talk about the Flickr Commons online community that the National Library joined in 2011.

+ Fri 25 Aug: The National Library of Ireland: an informal history. Gerry Long, Department of Special Collections, will explore the National Library’s history since the passing of the Dublin Science and Art Museum Act in 1877, which established the National Library of Ireland.

This is a pop-up talk in front of William John Leech’s “A Convent Garden, Brittany” with Aislinn Lynch, as part of the Gallery’s series of events for Heritage Week 2017.

Admission is free. Meet in front of the painting in Room 18.

“These Are a Few of My Favourite Things” is the title of a Walking Tour that Emily Gallagher runs on Tuesday and Saturday. It is an alternative Arts and Culture Trail and she will bring you to “Dublin’s Best Cafes, Bars, Markets, Unusual Stores, Galleries, Theatres, Arts Spaces, and more! And hear some tales you’ve never heard before!”

The tours are free but donations are welcome and booking is required via myfavouritesdublincitywalktour@gmail.com or 085-2725095

The lecture “Plant Hunters in Petticoats – a history of Irish women in botany” is a talk by Charlotte Salter-Townshend.

“As part of National Heritage Week she will highlight the accomplishments of women who, despite the odds, blazed a trail in botany. In the eighteenth and nineteenth century, it was deemed fitting for ladies to collect and depict natural objects. This allowed women to make significant contributions to natural science, despite general disadvantages in education, promotion and attire. Featured are Ellen Hutchins, Ireland’s first female botanist, Matilda Knowles, the first female curator of the National Herbarium and Lady Charlotte Wheeler-Cuffe, who collected plants in Burma. The talk will be illustrated with photographs, artwork and displays by the women discussed.”

Admission is free.

The next Table Top Tuesday by “Girls Get Gaming” is happening this Tuesday. Come along and play some board games with lots of nice people. The organisers will bring some games, but you are invited to bring your own as well and also bring your friends.

If you don’t know how to play, there will be people to explain the games.

Admission is free.

A Trad Session called “Call the Dancers” will take place and no other than well known musicians Ronan Ó Snodaigh, Eoin Dillon & friends will perform.

Admission is free.

EveryTuesday at 19:00, The Dublin Language Exchange takes place in the Czech Inn. It is the biggest free meeting of people from all around Dublin that are interested in learning languages and communicate with speakers of other languages.

Admission is free and the meetup is completely informal. No booking required.

Camden Comedy is a weekly comedy night on a Tuesday that I only found recently.

Every Tuesday they have a whole range of comedians and admission is free.

Rumours have it that the Bluegrass Collective will perform in Sin É on Tuesday and there might even be an open Bluegrass Jam! Admission is free.

The “Rose of Tralee” is a live event that takes place in Tralee every year and the rest of us can watch a TV show over two (!!!) nights that introduces the participants of this competition and gives you a glimpse in the shenanigans of a Kerry based competition for a female representative.

If you grew up in Ireland you know the “Rose of Tralee” event well enough and you most likely have your own memories (good or bad) and your own opinion about it (depends possibly on your age). So this event notice is not really for people that grew up in Ireland. ;-)

But imagine if you never saw it before and didn’t grow up in Ireland, how would you describe this “thing”?

Well, I will try: There is a town in the west of Ireland, called Tralee, that for some reason 58 years ago decided that a young woman that has some tentative Irish roots and lives anywhere in the world should represent this town as their “Rose of Tralee”. All over the world, Irish communities run competitions and 63 young women will be sent to Tralee to compete against each other. The selection criteria is a mystery to anybody that will watch the show this week. They are usually not selected on their looks or talents or skills, but something has been seen in the 63. From these 63, 32 will make it into the TV show and then one will be selected based on similar incomprehensible criteria to become the Rose of Tralee.

During a TWO night, very long drawn out programme that is exciting for some (mainly the parents and grannies of the candidates) and is cringe-worthy for many others, presenter Dáithí Ó Sé will make meagre attempts of getting anything interesting out of the 32 and he will then also get them to show their bestest talent through performing a dance, sing or play an instrument. For years the emergency fall back if there were no other skills at all that would appeal to the viewers, was to recite a poem, but luckily that got ruled out in 2016.

There is another parallel universe story happening as well: The women might have partners but each and everyone of them is assigned a young guy as an “escort”. But get someone else to explain that to you. I will only tell you that 100s apply every year and 65 will be selected. And each of them has to raise EUR 1500 in sponsorship and they will have to be there for “their” Rose participant during the week. (www.thejournal.ie/rose-of-tralee-escort-shane-kenny-2932817-Aug2016/)

And by the way, the event takes place in the “Festival Dome”, which couldn’t be further from a dome than you could imagine. It is in fact a plastic marquee that the people from Kerry call “Dome” for unknown reasons.

58 years is this event running and shockingly you are part financing it through your TV license fee. Good use of your money!?

The show is broadcast live on RTE One TV for more than four long hours (3 hrs + 3hrs with a break in the middle for the 21:00 news). And to make sure that the rest of the world will not get away undamaged, you can also watch it worldwide on the RTE Player. Should you watch it? I think if you have never seen it before you should watch at least a small part of it. Just as a cultural experience thing. ;-)

“odd”, “Anachronistic” or even “boring” are some of the softer terms that opponents use, but the support in some quarters seems to be tremendous nevertheless.

www.roseoftralee.ie/

Every Tuesday an informal sing along with Ukulele and Toy Musical Instruments takes place in the Stag’s Head. Just bring your instrument and come along. Beginners are welcome. Admission is free and further details (and a big book of songs) are available on the Facebook Page below.

“All Aboard! An open mic night on a Pirate Ship.” seems to be the new name of the Bowery’s Open Mic Tuesday.

Each week there will be an array of music, comedy, spoken word and all things in between.

Admission is free.

The Comedy Crunch is a free Stand Up comedy event every Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Every week different comedians entertain and on top of good comedy you will get free ice cream. Admission is free. The line-up can be found via the Comedy Crunch Facebook Page (see link below).

The Lounge Quintet plays this gig every Tuesday: Jazz Standards, Latin and Bebop. Often guest musicians and singers join them. Admission is free, donations are welcome.

The Trad Stage is a weekly Open Mic event in the Tivoli Backstage venue. Musicians are invited to perform live in front of an interested audience. Performances are primarily of Irish Traditional Music and Folk Singing, however it is possible to also see performances of traditional music from all over the world as well as performances of original compositions from local and international musicians.

Admission is free.

Every Tuesday and Thursday the International Bar invites to a Jazz night in the Lounge.

Groups led by Cote Calmet, Sean Maynard Smith, Dominic Mullan, Paddy Groenland, Georgia Cusack & Alex Mathias are performing regularly with occasional guest players, but there are also other bands from all over.

Admission is free, with a suggested donation of EUR 5. The website clearly says that there is no entry fee, but – and that makes a lot of sense – that your donations are very much appreciated (Musicians need to pay for rent and food too!) Be generous after the gig if you liked it, but if someone wants to charge an admission charge, please point out that the “rules” as described on their website are like I have explained.

Every Tuesday, a pub quiz is taking place in the Woolshed.

Admission is free. Max team size is 6 people.

It is National Heritage Week 2017 from Monday 19 August until Sunday 27 August. There will be thousands of events nationwide and in Dublin you can expect a few hundred of them. Organiser is the Heritage Council and this year’s theme is “It’s in Your Nature!” with a focus on natural heritage.

A huge proportion of the events is free and in Dublin and Dun Laoghaire there are hundreds of walks, workshops, guided tours, exhibitions, talks, performances and recitals. There are soo many that I can’t include them all, but I did my best to include a good number of them, but that good number was probably still less than 10%!! So the rest, you will have to check out in the guides below.

The downloadable PDF versions of the Event Guides for Heritage Week in Greater Dublin are here:
+ Dublin City
+ Dublin South
+ Dublin Fingal
+ Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown

Did you ever want to give drawing a go? Or maybe you are a budding artist looking for like-minded people to draw with? The Creative Den in Rua Red runs free weekly drawing sessions on Wednesdays at 11:00.

This week’s Phoenix Park Walk is entitled “Gate Lodges of the Phoenix Park” it will bring you to the Gate Lodges and will look at the architecture and history of these unique lodges some of which were designed by Decimus Burton, Francis Johnston and Jacob Owen.

Admission is free.

The full list of all walks for the next few months is here: phoenixpark.ie/media/phoenix-park-programme-of-events-2017.pdf

At the Children’s Pond Dipping Event, children will explore the weird and wonderful diversity of insects and minibeasts living in and around the pond at the National Botanic Gardens. They will learn how to identify the creatures they have captured.

Admission is free, but booking is required via 01-8040319

The National Gallery has an extensive programme of free talks, public tours and Art Documentary screenings every day of the week. Currently there is at least one free tour every day. Check their website for details. Some special events will be listed separately.

Admission to the gallery and to most events is free.

Archive at Lunchtime screenings take place Saturdays (Double Bill), Mondays and Wednesdays. The programme is changing weekly now (instead of monthly as in the past). To find out what film(s) will be screened go to www.ifi.ie/whatson/now-showing-coming-soon/ and look for “Archive at Lunchtime” on the right. Admission is free.

During Heritage Week from Monday to Friday, National Library staff will speak about various aspects of the library including the history of the NLI, conservation, photographs and web archiving. Admission is free.

The talks are:
+ Mon 21 Aug: Politics is in our nature with Maria Ryan of the NLI’s Digital Collections explores the library’s political web archive.

+ Tue 22 Aug: Behind the scenes -Conservation at the NLI. Claire Dantin, Heritage Council conservation intern. will speak about Paper, pigments, wood, even plastic and how to conserve them for the future?

+ Wed 23 Aug: A beacon of light: The NLI’s Elinor Wiltshire Photographic Collection. Elizabeth Kirwan, Curator of the NLI’s National Photographic Archive, will share some of her favourite photographs from the NLI’s Elinor Wiltshire Photographic collection. Elinor Wiltshire (1918-2017), born in Limerick, was one of Ireland’s most outstanding twentieth-century photographers.

+ Thu 24 Aug: The Bigger Picture. Maeve Casserly, Learning & Outreach, NLI, will talk about the Flickr Commons online community that the National Library joined in 2011.

+ Fri 25 Aug: The National Library of Ireland: an informal history. Gerry Long, Department of Special Collections, will explore the National Library’s history since the passing of the Dublin Science and Art Museum Act in 1877, which established the National Library of Ireland.

If you regularly or occasionally buy books online, you can help the Dublin Event Guide hugely even without having to pay cent directly. In fact you even save money this way:

Buy your books from The Book Depository and get better prices and free (!!) delivery for all orders independent from the volume and when you click on the picture here before you buy, then 5% of what normally The Book Depository would get, they give back to the Dublin Event Guide. Everybody wins!

www.bookdepository.com?a_aid=dubevg

If you prefer Amazon to buy your books (for free postage you need to order a minimum of GBP 25), then use this Amazon link to help the Dublin Event Guide. Thanks!

Archaeologists can discover a lot about how people lived in the past by studying bones. Take part in this special workshop which will look at how bones are preserved in different environments and figure out which bones belong to a Bronze Age burial, a bog body and a Viking skeleton.

Admission is free. This is a Drop-in Activity for ages 10+.

The Temple Bar “Night” Market is more an afternoon and evening market (14:00-20:00) and it takes place every Wednesday until September.

You can buy Arts & Crafts at this market.

In previous years the missing food and drink stalls (probably to protect the pubs and restaurants in Temple Bar) was mentioned by visitors as a critique.

This Library and Archive Open Afternoon will take the nature theme of this year’s Heritage Week as a starting point, with rare books and archives from the collection about nature on display. Members of the library and archive team will be available to answer any questions and tell visitors more about the works on display.

Admission is free and no booking required, just drop by the ESB Centre for the Study of Irish Art in the Millennium Wing.

The “Havana International Language Exchange” is taking place every Wed from 16:30-19:30 in Havana Tapas Bar in George’s Street. There are many Spanish speakers and English-speakers are explicitly invited, but everyone else is certainly very welcome too, to meet for a chat to improve your Spanish or English.

Mind Blow brings you “accessible interactive philospohy” and the topic at this sixth event is “Selfhood and Identity”.

Admission is free. Donations are much appreciated.

The Dublin Jam Session is an open Jam with full back line. It is open to all levels of musicians and singers and all genres of music and the only rule is that you must jam with others (not all your own band).

It takes place every Wednesday and admission is free.

The Dwarf Jar House Trio (Daniel Rorke (sax), Cormac O’Brien (bass) and Matthew Jacobson(drums)) will play a weekly Jazz gig every Wednesday in Dwarf Jar Cafe and they usually have one or more guest musicians or singers supporting them.

Admission is free.

Jesters is a weekly open mic comedy event where a lot of comedians do 5 minutes of material.

Admission is free. If you would like to perform then send a message to the Jesters Facebook Page via the link below.

The Roots Band “Brand New Switcharoo” will perform in the Harbour Bar. Admission is free.

The Anseo Comedy Club takes place every Wednesday in Anseo (upstairs).

Admission is free, donations are welcome.

This year’s Harbour Roots Festival takes place in the Harbour Bar from Wednesday 23 – Sunday 27 August. A great line-up has been put together and all the gigs are listed below.

WEDNESDAY 23 Aug
———————-
+ Dick Valentine (Electric Six) solo (US) – Alternative, Acoustic Rock
+ Mick Heslin – Blues, Folk, Country
+ Eoin Glackin – Roots Rock
——————–

THURSDAY 24 Aug
——————–
+ Corner Boy – Folk Rock
+ Kenny Foster (US) Country
—————-

FRIDAY 25 Aug
—————-
+ The Hot Sprockets – Country Dirt
+ Rye River Band – Americana Folk & Blues
——————–

SATURDAY 26 Aug
——————–
+ 23:00 Gavin Glass Band – Americana, Rock
+ 21:00 Pete Cummins – Country, Folk
+ 19:00 Dublin Bluegrass Collective – Bluegrass
+ 17:00 The Whole Hog Band Country, Bluegrass, Folk, Southern Rock, Americana
—————–

SUNDAY 27 Aug
—————–
21:30 The Nickajack Men (Scotland) – Alternative Country Rock’n’Roll
20:00 David Keenan – Folk, Singer Songwriter
18:00 Gavin Povey & The Fabulous Oke She Moke She Pops – Boogie Woogie, Country
—————-

Admission is free to all events.

“The Song Room” is another open mic event. It takes place in The Globe in George’s Street at 20:30 every Wednesday.

“The Zodiac Sessions” is a regular open mic event from 20:30 in Bruxelles (between Grafton Street and Westbury Hotel) for unsigned musicians. Admission is free and there is a different line-up every week.

Bad Boy Jake are every Wednesday in the Gypsy Rose Rock & Blues Bar playing their rock, blues and American.

Los Paradiso are playing Rockabilly, Tex Mex, Western Swing, Surf in the Leeson Lounge. Admission is free, but donations are appreciated.

The Resident Open Mic is a new weekly open mic on Wednesdays with a bit of a difference: Each week a different established artist will go back to their roots by not just playing at the open mic but by hosting it. This gives the artists a chance to try out new songs, play some of their classics and most importantly it gives a chance for new songwriters to play their music in front of some of their favorite songwriters.

Admission is free.

Traditional Irish Music Session in Hedigan’s (The Brian Boru) in Phibsborough from 21:30 every Wednesday. If you play an instrument you are especially welcome (all levels are welcome).

The Harleys are a popular coverband and they will be in the Mezz every Wednesday at midnight.

Admission is free.

It is National Heritage Week 2017 from Monday 19 August until Sunday 27 August. There will be thousands of events nationwide and in Dublin you can expect a few hundred of them. Organiser is the Heritage Council and this year’s theme is “It’s in Your Nature!” with a focus on natural heritage.

A huge proportion of the events is free and in Dublin and Dun Laoghaire there are hundreds of walks, workshops, guided tours, exhibitions, talks, performances and recitals. There are soo many that I can’t include them all, but I did my best to include a good number of them, but that good number was probably still less than 10%!! So the rest, you will have to check out in the guides below.

The downloadable PDF versions of the Event Guides for Heritage Week in Greater Dublin are here:
+ Dublin City
+ Dublin South
+ Dublin Fingal
+ Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown

Every Thursday a free tour of Grangegorman Military Cemetery on Blackhorse Avenue takes place. Meet inside the cemetery gates.

Admission is free and everybody is welcome. Ring 01-6770095 for more information.

The National Gallery has an extensive programme of free talks, public tours and Art Documentary screenings every day of the week. Currently there is at least one free tour every day. Check their website for details. Some special events will be listed separately.

Admission to the gallery and to most events is free.

The Green Door Market is a new indoor food/Farmer’s Market that takes place just a few doors down from the Dublin Food Co-op at Newmarket in Dublin 8. Admission is free.

Opening hours are Thu-Fri 12:00-19:00 and Sat 09:30-16:00.

As part of the current “Sound Check” exhibition in the Science Gallery you can rent out a bike to experience Dublin in a completely different way:

Ya slip ta bang is an interactive composition mapped over the streets of Dublin that will unfold for you as you ride ‘sonic bikes’ along specific routes of the city. Accompanied by electronic music, the composition tells the story of recovering he roin addict Lucy Dolan as she returns to the city, revisiting important places in her life.

The sonic bike is a bicycle with frame-mounted speakers that plays different sounds and music dependent on where the cyclist goes and how fast they ride, via a mounted location-sensitive system.

The bikes can be rented for free for up to 1 hour on Fridays, Saturday and Sunday between 12:30 and 16:00. The rules and conditions are on the website below and that is also where you book the bikes.

During Heritage Week from Monday to Friday, National Library staff will speak about various aspects of the library including the history of the NLI, conservation, photographs and web archiving. Admission is free.

The talks are:
+ Mon 21 Aug: Politics is in our nature with Maria Ryan of the NLI’s Digital Collections explores the library’s political web archive.

+ Tue 22 Aug: Behind the scenes -Conservation at the NLI. Claire Dantin, Heritage Council conservation intern. will speak about Paper, pigments, wood, even plastic and how to conserve them for the future?

+ Wed 23 Aug: A beacon of light: The NLI’s Elinor Wiltshire Photographic Collection. Elizabeth Kirwan, Curator of the NLI’s National Photographic Archive, will share some of her favourite photographs from the NLI’s Elinor Wiltshire Photographic collection. Elinor Wiltshire (1918-2017), born in Limerick, was one of Ireland’s most outstanding twentieth-century photographers.

+ Thu 24 Aug: The Bigger Picture. Maeve Casserly, Learning & Outreach, NLI, will talk about the Flickr Commons online community that the National Library joined in 2011.

+ Fri 25 Aug: The National Library of Ireland: an informal history. Gerry Long, Department of Special Collections, will explore the National Library’s history since the passing of the Dublin Science and Art Museum Act in 1877, which established the National Library of Ireland.

Experience the sights, sounds, scent and feel of Viking Dublin through the medium of plants. This presentation and handling session, with National Botanic Gardens guide Charlotte Salter-Townshend, will transport you back to a 10th Century settlement.

Showcasing dye plants, textiles, crops, and building materials, Charlotte will describe the importance of plants at the Wood Quay site and how archaeologists and botanists worked together to develop the Viking House at the Botanic Gardens.

Admission is free, but booking is required via educationarch@museum.ie or 01 6486 334. Suitable for adults and teenagers from age 14.

August is the month for the yearly “Opera in the Open” at the Amphitheatre behind Dublin City Offices and not far from Christ Church Cathedral. For four Thursdays a lunchtime performance of an opera will take place. This year the performances are:

+ 03 Aug: La Boheme – Giacomo Puccini
+ 10 Aug: Cox and Box – Arthur Sullivan
+ 17 Aug: Rita – Gaetano Donizetti
+ 24 Aug: Gianni Schicchi – Giacomo Puccini

Admission is free. In very bad weather it can happen that the event will get cancelled. In that case notifications should be on www.facebook.com/DublinCityCouncil

The talk “Mirror of the World – Conserving captivating collections at the Chester Beatty Library” with Dorothea Müller, Heritage Council Intern in Conservation, Chester Beatty Library will take place.

Admission is free.

At this seminar Archaeologists will present results from some of the recent discoveries that they have made during the excavations for Luas Cross City (St. Stephen’s Green to Broombridge, Cabra).

+ The Royal Canal and harbour at Broadstone with a 3D Laser Scan of the harbour,
+ New evidence for the supply and management of water in the 17th and 18th centuries, from St Stephen’s Green to College Green,
+ A selection of archaeological and historical discoveries from Constitution Hill to Dominick Street Lower,
+ The Tudor Burials of College Green: The process of a 3D facial reconstruction

Admission is free, but booking via the website below is required.

This seminar will be followed at 18:00 by the launch by Dr Alison Sheridan of National Museums Scotland of the latest book in the TII Heritage Series: “Stories of Ireland’s Past – Knowledge Gained from NRA Roads Archaeology” A separate registration for this book launch is required via the link here.

Get behind the scenes at the Museum and take a tour of the conservation studios. This is a great opportunity to see the work of and meet Museum conservators.

Admission is free, but booking is required via 01-67774444. Suitable for adults and ages 12+.

“Wild and Domestic: nature in drawings and archives” is a Heritage Week tour in the “ESB Centre for the Study of Irish Art and Prints and Drawings Room” with material on the theme of ‘Wild and domestic: nature in drawings and art’ on display.

Admission is free, but booking is required via tours@ngi.ie

Every Thursday the Little Museum of Dublin waives their admission charges for two guided tours thanks to sponsorship from Guinness. The first tour is at 18:00 and the second tour is at 19:00. Make sure that you are there at least 10 minutes before the start of the tour to get one of the limited places.

The Little Museum of Dublin has a fascinating collection of artefacts from the last 100 years Dublin’s history.

On other days and other times, admission is EUR 7 for adults and admission is by guided tour only.

“These Are a Few of My Favourite Things” is the title of a Walking Tour that Emily Gallagher will run next Thursday. It will be an Alternative Arts and Culture Trail and she will bring you to “Dublin’s Best Cafes, Bars, Markets, Unusual Stores, Galleries, Theatres, Arts Spaces, and more! And hear some tales you’ve never heard before!”

Meeting point is at the Spire. The tours are free but donations are welcome and booking is required via myfavouritesdublincitywalktour@gmail.com or 085-2725095

An expatriate or expat is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country other than that of their citizenship.

And this is a weekly meeting for all Expats in Dublin (new and old!). If you are new to the city, this is an excellent way to meet people.

Admission is free (no booking required!), but you are asked to give the same kind of welcoming to new members as is given to you.

The Thursday Night Board Gaming event is running for more than 10 years already and it is a weekly event for all Board Game enthusiasts. But even if you are a Board Game newbie, you are welcome. Just come along! More information can be found here: www.meetup.com/IrishGamesAssociation/

Admission is free.

This year’s Harbour Roots Festival takes place in the Harbour Bar from Wednesday 23 – Sunday 27 August. A great line-up has been put together and all the gigs are listed below.

WEDNESDAY 23 Aug
———————-
+ Dick Valentine (Electric Six) solo (US) – Alternative, Acoustic Rock
+ Mick Heslin – Blues, Folk, Country
+ Eoin Glackin – Roots Rock
——————–

THURSDAY 24 Aug
——————–
+ Corner Boy – Folk Rock
+ Kenny Foster (US) Country
—————-

FRIDAY 25 Aug
—————-
+ The Hot Sprockets – Country Dirt
+ Rye River Band – Americana Folk & Blues
——————–

SATURDAY 26 Aug
——————–
+ 23:00 Gavin Glass Band – Americana, Rock
+ 21:00 Pete Cummins – Country, Folk
+ 19:00 Dublin Bluegrass Collective – Bluegrass
+ 17:00 The Whole Hog Band Country, Bluegrass, Folk, Southern Rock, Americana
—————–

SUNDAY 27 Aug
—————–
21:30 The Nickajack Men (Scotland) – Alternative Country Rock’n’Roll
20:00 David Keenan – Folk, Singer Songwriter
18:00 Gavin Povey & The Fabulous Oke She Moke She Pops – Boogie Woogie, Country
—————-

Admission is free to all events.

The Backroad Smokers Club will be in the Bowery for a gig.

Admission is free.

The Crystal Skull Sessions is a band competition in Sin É. A variety of acts perform at each heat and are randomly selected from an ancient skull.

Admission is free.

The Dalkey Lobster Fest will take place from Thu 24 – Sun 27 August this year. There will be lots of lobster and other seafood, but also all sorts of other food choices from 20 restaurants & marquees. In addition there will be lots of music performances and a large amount of them are free.

A list of all gigs and concerts (free and non-free) is here www.facebook.com/DalkeyLobsterFest/posts/1590060127705186

And at the weekend Castle Street in Dalkey will be closed to make more room for all visitors and a Kid’s Zone will ensure that your kids won’t be bored.

The Hardyhar Comedy Club in the Harbour Bar in Bray (upstairs!) will feature Pat McDonnell, one of Ireland’s best comedians. The event is hosted by Adam Burke and there will be five support acts for Pat McDonnell.

Admission is free.

Every Thursday a Singer Songwriter Night will take place in Mother Reilly’s in Rathmines. This is YOUR chance to show everyone what you can do, alternatively you can just listen to the talented Singer/Songwriters. Admission is free.

The Luna Boys are in the Mercantile for a gig every Thursday night.

Admission is free.

A Fun Pub Quiz takes place in Brady’s in Terenure on Thurs. The quiz will be on every Thursday night in the Lounge at Brady’s. Keith McLoughlin is the Quiz Master.

There will be six rounds of the quiz with picture questions, audio questions and general knowledge questions. Admission to the quiz is free and therr will be free drink vouchers for the winning and runner up teams. (No phones to get answers allowed.)

Every Tuesday and Thursday the International Bar invites to a Jazz night in the Lounge.

Groups led by Cote Calmet, Sean Maynard Smith, Dominic Mullan, Paddy Groenland, Georgia Cusack & Alex Mathias are performing regularly with occasional guest players, but there are also other bands from all over.

Admission is free, with a suggested donation of EUR 5. The website clearly says that there is no entry fee, but – and that makes a lot of sense – that your donations are very much appreciated (Musicians need to pay for rent and food too!) Be generous after the gig if you liked it, but if someone wants to charge an admission charge, please point out that the “rules” as described on their website are like I have explained.

Every Thursday “Left Right & Centre” play a mix of blues & soul with a bit of rock&roll.

Admission is free.

A weekly Trad Music Night is taking place in McLoughlin’s in Dun Laoghaire. It is an acoustic night and all musicians are welcome. Admission is free.

Every Thursday a free Trad Session takes place in McNeills and often there are high profile Trad musicians performing.

The Woolshed Karaoke is happening every Thursday from 21:30. Anyone can participate! Admission is free.

It is National Heritage Week 2017 from Monday 19 August until Sunday 27 August. There will be thousands of events nationwide and in Dublin you can expect a few hundred of them. Organiser is the Heritage Council and this year’s theme is “It’s in Your Nature!” with a focus on natural heritage.

A huge proportion of the events is free and in Dublin and Dun Laoghaire there are hundreds of walks, workshops, guided tours, exhibitions, talks, performances and recitals. There are soo many that I can’t include them all, but I did my best to include a good number of them, but that good number was probably still less than 10%!! So the rest, you will have to check out in the guides below.

The downloadable PDF versions of the Event Guides for Heritage Week in Greater Dublin are here:
+ Dublin City
+ Dublin South
+ Dublin Fingal
+ Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown

The Magazine Fort in Phoenix Park is unusually neglected and at the same time unusually rich in history. Many have seen it as a barred off concrete fortress in a corner of Phoenix Park and even more don’t even know or have forgotten that it exists. The old Phoenix House, the home of the British Viceroy, was on the site where the fort was built from the early 17th century and then in 1734 the Fort was built and extended in 1801.

In 1916 the Fort was raided by the rebels who expected to find a lot of explosives there, but found the Fort nearly empty. In 1939 the IRA raided the Fort and stole more than a million rounds of ammunition, but most of it was recovered over the following weeks.

Since 1988, the Irish Army doesn’t use the Fort anymore and gave it back to the Office of Public Works (OPW), but not much good has happened to the Fort in the last 28 years (!!) and there were numerous speculations about the reasons for that.

Finally since last year, guided tours were provided and were meant to run for three months until end of October 2016. But the interest was so great that the OPW decided to continue the tours with a reduced schedule over the winter. And since 02 April there will be tours again every Friday and Sunday at 10:00, 12:00, 14:00 + 15:00 and only 20 places are available on each tour.

Tickets are available at the Phoenix Park Visitor Centre on a first come, first served basis and can not be pre-booked. A shuttle bus will bring the ticket holders to the Fort.

Dublin City Hall has a museum/exhibition in the basement, called “The Story of the Capital”, it is an exhibition about Dublin’s History and you should definitely check it out at some stage.

To celebrate the Easter Rising Anniversary, admission to that exhibititon was free in 2016, but lucky for us, Dublin City decided to also waive the admission charge for 2017.

Opening hours are Monday-Saturday 10:00-17:15.

The Culture Club invites its members to explore and enjoy the collections at Collins Barracks through a series of specially arranged guided tours and activities in the company of museum staff followed by ’Tea & Chat’ and an opportunity to mingle.

The Club events take place on the last Friday of each month. In August join Lar Joye for a tour of Recovered Voices; the Stories of the Irish at War with a focus on poet Francis Ledwidge.

For further information and to book contact bookings@museum.ie admission is free.

The National Gallery has an extensive programme of free talks, public tours and Art Documentary screenings every day of the week. Currently there is at least one free tour every day. Check their website for details. Some special events will be listed separately.

Admission to the gallery and to most events is free.

The Green Door Market is a new indoor food/Farmer’s Market that takes place just a few doors down from the Dublin Food Co-op at Newmarket in Dublin 8. Admission is free.

Opening hours are Thu-Fri 12:00-19:00 and Sat 09:30-16:00.

As part of the current “Sound Check” exhibition in the Science Gallery you can rent out a bike to experience Dublin in a completely different way:

Ya slip ta bang is an interactive composition mapped over the streets of Dublin that will unfold for you as you ride ‘sonic bikes’ along specific routes of the city. Accompanied by electronic music, the composition tells the story of recovering he roin addict Lucy Dolan as she returns to the city, revisiting important places in her life.

The sonic bike is a bicycle with frame-mounted speakers that plays different sounds and music dependent on where the cyclist goes and how fast they ride, via a mounted location-sensitive system.

The bikes can be rented for free for up to 1 hour on Fridays, Saturday and Sunday between 12:30 and 16:00. The rules and conditions are on the website below and that is also where you book the bikes.

During Heritage Week from Monday to Friday, National Library staff will speak about various aspects of the library including the history of the NLI, conservation, photographs and web archiving. Admission is free.

The talks are:
+ Mon 21 Aug: Politics is in our nature with Maria Ryan of the NLI’s Digital Collections explores the library’s political web archive.

+ Tue 22 Aug: Behind the scenes -Conservation at the NLI. Claire Dantin, Heritage Council conservation intern. will speak about Paper, pigments, wood, even plastic and how to conserve them for the future?

+ Wed 23 Aug: A beacon of light: The NLI’s Elinor Wiltshire Photographic Collection. Elizabeth Kirwan, Curator of the NLI’s National Photographic Archive, will share some of her favourite photographs from the NLI’s Elinor Wiltshire Photographic collection. Elinor Wiltshire (1918-2017), born in Limerick, was one of Ireland’s most outstanding twentieth-century photographers.

+ Thu 24 Aug: The Bigger Picture. Maeve Casserly, Learning & Outreach, NLI, will talk about the Flickr Commons online community that the National Library joined in 2011.

+ Fri 25 Aug: The National Library of Ireland: an informal history. Gerry Long, Department of Special Collections, will explore the National Library’s history since the passing of the Dublin Science and Art Museum Act in 1877, which established the National Library of Ireland.

Take a tour of the iconic treasures in the National Museum, including the ‘Tara’ Brooch and the Ardagh Chalice.

Admission is free but places are limited and they will be allocated on a first come first serve basis. Meet at Reception. Suitable for Ages 7+

Summer Music at Sandford is a series of lunchtime concerts at Sandford Parish Church. Every Friday in July and August these classical concerts will take place.

The last one in this season is with Aine Mulvey (Mezzo-Soprano) and Annalisa Monticelli (piano) and they are performing Irish and Latin American art songs.

Admission free, but donations in aid of the Sandford Organ Restoration Fund are appreciated.

Discover the mythical animals hiding in the musem’s Irish Silver galleries. Go on an adventure to find some of the strange animals and create your own mythical creature. Art materials provided.

Admission is free, but booking is required via 01-6777444. Suitable for Families with children 6+

Helen Rock is leading this Garden Walking Tour at Farmleigh House.

Admission is free and meeting point is at the walled garden.

“GENEius 1.0: It’s In Your Nature (Age 7-10 Years)” by the Irish Family History Centre is a Heritage Week workshop for children aged 7-10.

“We will explore our own nature – our family history – with a fun arts and crafts workshop! The children will create a family crest and family tree and get some goodies on the day.“

Admission is free, but booking is required via the link below.

The Dalkey Lobster Fest will take place from Thu 24 – Sun 27 August this year. There will be lots of lobster and other seafood, but also all sorts of other food choices from 20 restaurants & marquees. In addition there will be lots of music performances and a large amount of them are free.

A list of all gigs and concerts (free and non-free) is here www.facebook.com/DalkeyLobsterFest/posts/1590060127705186

And at the weekend Castle Street in Dalkey will be closed to make more room for all visitors and a Kid’s Zone will ensure that your kids won’t be bored.

If you’ve ever visited the Science Gallery, then you will probably have spoken to one or more of the amazing mediators. They are a team of science fans, art aficionados and technophiles, who love nothing more than to talk nerdy to you.

And on Friday at “Eight Easy Pieces”, the mediators will present a series of short talks about the science they like to read about and do in their spare time.

Mark, Aleksandra, Fionn, Stephen, Rachel, Grace, Catrina and Corrin will present.

Admission is free, but tickets are very limited, so you will have to book via the website below.

Cornucopia Café & Restaurant host live music three evenings a week (Thurs, Fri and Sat). The restaurant is a Wholefood & Vegetarian Restaurant and is open until 22:15.
+ Every second Thursday N.C Lawlor, a songwriter, session player and troubadour plays a mix of country, bluegrass & blues from 19:30-21:30.
+ Every Friday (19:30-21:30) Junshi Murakami plays Irish Harp.
+ Every Saturday (19:30-21:30) Nollaig Mann plays a collection of popular and jazz classics.

This year’s Harbour Roots Festival takes place in the Harbour Bar from Wednesday 23 – Sunday 27 August. A great line-up has been put together and all the gigs are listed below.

WEDNESDAY 23 Aug
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+ Dick Valentine (Electric Six) solo (US) – Alternative, Acoustic Rock
+ Mick Heslin – Blues, Folk, Country
+ Eoin Glackin – Roots Rock
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THURSDAY 24 Aug
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+ Corner Boy – Folk Rock
+ Kenny Foster (US) Country
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FRIDAY 25 Aug
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+ The Hot Sprockets – Country Dirt
+ Rye River Band – Americana Folk & Blues
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SATURDAY 26 Aug
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+ 23:00 Gavin Glass Band – Americana, Rock
+ 21:00 Pete Cummins – Country, Folk
+ 19:00 Dublin Bluegrass Collective – Bluegrass
+ 17:00 The Whole Hog Band Country, Bluegrass, Folk, Southern Rock, Americana
—————–

SUNDAY 27 Aug
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21:30 The Nickajack Men (Scotland) – Alternative Country Rock’n’Roll
20:00 David Keenan – Folk, Singer Songwriter
18:00 Gavin Povey & The Fabulous Oke She Moke She Pops – Boogie Woogie, Country
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Admission is free to all events.

The Stillorgan Orchard has live music every Friday and Saturday. Many of the performers are established and very good bands. The upcoming gigs are detailed on the website below. Admission is always free.

Pop Singer/Songwriter Ódú (Sally Ó Dúnlaing) will be in Sin E for a gig.

Admission is free.

“Gavin Povey and The Fabulous Oke She Moke She Pops” will play New Orleans style Piano Rhythm & Blues, Boogie Woogie and Rock’n’ Roll. Gavin Povey has played piano with Van Morrison, Finbar Wright, Kirsty MacColl, Steve Cropper, Shakin’ Stevens and many more.

Admission is free.

Surf Rock band Pointbreak will play a gig in Whelan’s on Friday.

Admission is free before 22:30 or if you sign up for the guest list.