
Things to do in Dublin this long weekend (May 2-5)
Dublin Street Photography Festival
When: Friday, 2– Sunday, 4 May
Where: Charlemont Square, Dublin 2
How much: Free to enter
This weekend, Dublin will welcome the return of the Dublin Street Photography Festival. This vibrant event celebrates the artistry of street photography. Attendees will enjoy a range of engaging activities, including exhibitions, networking opportunities, photo competitions, inspiring lectures, practical workshops, and even guided photo walks.
Notice Box by Simon Hennessy
When: Friday, 2 May
Where: The Pearse Centre
How much: €25
A concept comedy show about life on our phones, from the most chronically online of creatures - the internet comedian. Following a sold out run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the Dublin Fringe Festival in 2024, Simon will bring songs, sketches, and stand-up to his hour long show to Dublin's Pearse Centre this Friday at 8pm.
The Big Bealtaine Tea Party
When: Sunday, 4 May
Where: IMMA
How much: Donation
Bealtaine Festival, Ireland's national celebration of the arts and creativity as we age, has launched its highly anticipated 30th-anniversary programme for 2025. Celebrated throughout the month of May, the festival will host a lengthy programme of diverse events nationwide, including the Big Bealtaine Tea Party. Running from 2-4pm, the flagship event will feature musical guests, poets, and more. Tickets are first-come, first-serve basis.
Are ya Dancin'? Dublin City Céilí
Dublin's Club na Múinteoirí (Teachers Club) is hosting a night of live music and craic this Friday from 7:30-9:30pm. An Irish-college-style céilí with live music and traditional dances like Ionsaí na hInse and more. All dances will be taught from scratch so no need for experience. Come alone or with friends - all are welcome.
When: Saturday, 3 May
Where: This Must Be The Place, 51 Wellington Quay
How much: €30
Alternative Dublin is hosting a messy morning of paint pouring in Temple Bar at 8pm on Saturday. In under 90 minutes, participants will create an individual piece of art, using a mesmerising paint pouring technique to decorate a 3D bear that you can proudly display in your home. Tickets include a Bank Bear, acrylic paint, necessary materials, as well as free tea, coffee and biscuits.
Parents, if you're interested in getting your kids involved, there will be a morning session at 11am, with tickets costing €18.13
Bat Walk Series
When: Saturday. 3 May
Where: Airfield Estate
How much: €25
Designed for adults and families with children aged 8+, this event promises an evening of wonder and exploration, perfect for families and nature enthusiasts. Wrap up warm and venture into the world of bats from 8:00pm-10:30pm. Children under 18 must be accompanied by an adult for the full duration of the event.
When: Sat, 3 May - Monday, 5 May
Where: Board Dublin, 29 Clanbrassil Street Upper
How much: €7.78
To celebrate 4 May (May the 4th be with you), Board Dublin - a bar specialising in no and low alcoholic drinks - is set to host a series of 18+ events for Star Wars fanatics. Teams should include 2-6 people who are willing to test their trivia when it comes to Padawans and Jedis. Tickets cost €7 per person (plus booking fee) and there will be a drink on arrival.
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One Night in Dublin ... at the museum: A nocturnal walkabout at the Irish Museum of Modern Art
At 10pm on a Thursday night, a fox slips out from the shadows at the gates of the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA). Historian Barry Kehoe follows close behind, regarding the fox with professional suspicion. A guide for the night, Kehoe leads the way up a path by now well trodden; he has just shy of 25 years at IMMA under his belt. Kehoe adjusts his head lamp and offers a small torch as the sky quickly darkens. 'The Drummer' by Barry Flanagan, 1941–2009 in the grounds of the Irish Museum of Modern Art IMMA in Kilmainham. Photo: Bryan O'Brien Royal Hospital Kilmainham at night, home to the Irish Museum of Modern Art IMMA. Photo: Bryan O'Brien He heads towards the courtyard as the fox disappears into a hedge. Presumably he has rounds to do. By day, IMMA is full of chatter and curated light. But by night, it's quieter and more theatrical. The building looms in a way it doesn't during daylight hours, suddenly more mausoleum than gallery. READ MORE 'We're walking with Dublin's dead,' Kehoe says, referencing the graveyard a stone's throw away on the site of the Royal Hospital in Kilmainham on the west side of Dublin city. He speaks in hushed tones as if not to disturb them. Built between 1680 and 1684, the Royal Hospital was once home to hundreds of retired soldiers and was the capital's main burial grounds. In more recent history, a temporary mortuary was erected on the old hospital grounds in grim anticipation of a Covid-19 surge in 2020. Today it houses more than 4,500 contemporary artworks by Irish and international artists. Kehoe is not alone within these walls. Aside from the company of ghosts of Ireland past, somewhere in the east wing is artist-in-residence Eoghan Ryan. He lives onsite, in the old stables at the edge of the museum complex only a short walk from the main building. Ryan's immaculate studio shines like a beacon on the otherwise darkened campus. Inside, the walls are painted with brightly coloured trains and a desk in the corner is covered with the works of Thomas Kinsella . The collection is inherited, says Ryan; the poet was his grand-uncle. IMMA artist-in-residence Eoghan Ryan at work in the old stables. Photograph: Bryan O'Brien Artist Eoghan Ryan at the door of his studio/residence at IMMA. Photo: Bryan O'Brien The multidisciplinary artist from Dublin moved back from Berlin and has lived on IMMA's grounds since January, one of a lucky few who have been granted a place on the museum's Dwell Here residency programme. While Ryan's stay lasts a year, others are here on a shorter contract. 'If people come for a month, they're really on a different buzz,' he says. 'The tempo shifts.' The blurring of domestic and professional quarters is not unfamiliar to Ryan. 'I don't know if it's the healthiest relationship,' he says, as he thinks aloud, 'to be so close to the institution that you're working in. But it's something I've been doing a lot in my life.' Much of his artwork – a blend of performance, puppetry and video installations – wades 'through the entanglements with institutions', meditating on systems of power. 'So living close, at that line between where something is made and something is shown, is kind of interesting.' A few days after we meet, Ryan's latest project – a collaborative dance performance piece – takes place on IMMA's grounds. 'It's a very specific mode that I really enjoy, being in a place and getting to know a place as a stage. You start to see things in a different way.' There are some uneasy contradictions, as well, that the artist grapples with. 'You're living in a completely surreal situation, especially when there's a large housing crisis in the city and you're living in a gated ex-military hospital,' says Ryan. 'It's very odd. It adds to the theatre of things. Everything starts to feel weirdly fictional when you come home from the pub and have to press the gate.' Barry Kehoe in the courtyard at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Photograph: Bryan O'Brien The IMMA courtyard at night. Photograph: Bryan O'Brien Security guard on night duty, Keely Raghavendra. Photograph: Bryan O'Brien But eventually, 'you do start to switch off from the strangeness of it all'. 'There is something comforting about knowing if you get really scared at night, you can go over to the security guards with a blanket. It's nice to know they're there,' he says. One of the security guards on night duty, Keely Raghavendra, takes a brief pause from patrol to say hello. 'Sometimes I scare myself,' Raghavendra says. When it gets into the wee hours of the morning, the shadows can start to play tricks on even the most grounded guard. 'I saw something in a basement. When I opened the door someone was looking at me. I was scared for a second, then I closed it and relaxed. Then I opened it again and it was gone,' he recalls. [ Lunch with a side of art: Seven Irish galleries with great cafes Opens in new window ] After a sound sleep knowing security have his back, Ryan's days to tend start early, usually at about 6.30am. Looking out the bedroom window in the morning, he often finds a spectacle. 'You wake up and there's always something weird. I woke up last Wednesday and there were just a load of soldiers rehearsing for the commemoration‚' he says, referring to last month's National Day of Commemoration Ceremony . 'I opened the blinds and was like: 'Oh great, this is happening today.'' With the exception of the museum's resident seagulls who continue to swoop and squawk even at night, the museum's courtyard feels otherworldly – strangely detached from its city setting. IMMA's permanent collection at night is a sight to behold. Much of the artwork takes on a new energy. 'When the lights are fully on, the red is a lot more dominant,' says Kehoe, considering Vik Muniz's Portrait of Alice Liddell, after Lewis Carroll. 'Seeing it now gives a completely different sense and feel to it.' Barry Kehoe with Mnemosyne, 2002, by Alice Maher in the IMMA gallery space. Photograph: Bryan O'Brien A wall plaque in the baroque chapel, Royal Hospital Kilmainham. Photograph: Bryan O'Brien Bluer hues are more present in dimmer lighting, giving the portrait's young subject a melancholy look. Barry Kehoe pictured in the Great Hall. Photo: Bryan O'Brien Machines whirr and hum, keeping control of the galleries' humidity levels and providing ambient background noise for a steady stream of consciousness as we take in the art. An audio loop of bird song from a distant installation filters through. Kehoe steps inside IMMA's baroque chapel, which was consecrated in 1686. It is pitch black. Stained glass windows gifted to the Royal Hospital by Queen Victoria in 1849 cast an eerie reflection on to the chapel wall. 'You can sort of feel the weight of history in this part of the building that you don't quite feel in the rest of it, because it still has that very ceremonial element to it,' Kehoe says, shining a torch over the decorative windows. 'They used to lock the pensioners out of the chapel because if they came in here during the daytime they'd fall asleep.' [ Sam Gilliam: Sewing Fields review – At Imma, an outstanding experimentalist's work takes over three floors Opens in new window ] From there, Kehoe walks on to the Master's Quarters, the palatial dwelling place of the hospital's masters and their families. Passing from the old diningroom through deserted corridors, Kehoe comes to stand in the Oak Room. He says it contains the strongest poltergeist presence. 'There's a lot of potential about these rooms in terms of great events. It's believed that some of the leaders of the 1916 Rising may have been questioned here before their executions,' he says. A light drizzle starts to fall as Kehoe enters the Master's Garden, an expansive green space dotted with fruit trees and cherub statues. The isolated cherubs once formed part of the triangular plinth of the Victoria Statue removed to the Royal Hospital from Leinster House, home to Dáil Éireann, in 1948. 'It's a strange sound oasis. The walls and the trees kind of cut out the city's sound,' says Kehoe. Apartment blocks and cranes join Phoenix Park's Wellington monument on the city's night-time skyline above the treetops. Barry Kehoe the military cemetery in the grounds of Royal Hospital Kilmainham. Photograph: Bryan O'Brien 'Weirdly, the city is growing up around us. When I started working here you wouldn't have had any of that in the skyline so you wouldn't have seen anything over the wall of the garden,' says Kehoe. A swarm of bats descend at the headstone of Master Lord Frederick Roberts' beloved warhorse, Volonel. Erected in the garden in 1899 with great ceremony, the headstone's original location meant it could be seen from the windows of the Master's Quarters. Lord Wolseley, who preceded Roberts, also buried his treasured dog Caesar in the garden, under a mulberry bush. Moving from one miniature cemetery to a far greater one, Kehoe's tour arrives inside the gates of Bully's Acre where more than 200,000 estimated burials were made. As the main public burial ground for Dublin city before Glasnevin Cemetery, dating from the early 1600s until 1833, there are a few big names in the soil beneath. The remains of Brian Boru 's son and grandson are thought to have been buried here after the Battle of Clontarf. Bully's Acre was subject to much body snatching over the years. In more recent history, Robert Emmet was laid to rest here following his 1803 execution up the road from here on Thomas Street. However, his body was later secretly dug up and taken elsewhere; its final resting place a mystery . At the far end of the grounds, the Royal Hospital's recently restored military cemetery lies unlit and exposed to the open road. An ambulance blares past as the museum sleeps behind the walls. The night outside holds many more stories beyond the Royal Hospital. Next in the 'One Night in Dublin' series - a night out with Dublin's street cleaners - on Wednesday