Well, the weather remains somewhat gloomy (but dry) in the city, with the odd sunny days at weekends. Not entirely a bad thing if this trend continues, although I wouldn’t be looking forward to a beautiful Saturday followed by a drenching Sunday (cf weekend 13-14 Sept).

Nonetheless, after the fun that was last night of Dublin Culture Night, there’s more activities for arts lover coming up in a few days, namely Ranelagh Arts Festival 2008. The festival runs from Tuesday 23 September to Sunday 28 September.

The festival is in its 4th reincarnation, with various events to be held in and around Ranelagh (of course), where some would be free, some free but ticketed (so order those you want now!) and some are plainly ticketed. You can either order them online or at the box office, which is the front snug of Smyth’s Pub on Ranelagh Road.

There will be song and dance, comedy nights, photography competition, open air movies, poetry reading, family fun day, children’s pirate parade, free food tasting and many many more. [Check the full programme in PDF]

I think this is a brilliant initiative to bring the people who lives in and around Ranelagh village together, while promoting this urban village to everyone else. I’ve marked out a couple of jazz events and comedy nights to check out, and perhaps will brave the crowd on Sunday for some free food at Ranelagh Gardens. ;-)

Today is the day! Or maybe I should say… Tonight is the evening!

The Temple Bar Cultural Trust is bring the Dublin Culture Night for the third year running, and it’s all starting at 5pm. Think culture and you’ll get galleries, museums, theatres and the likes, and for this special day, they’re opening till late (well, very late for most of these places actually) - give or take 11pm/midnight - and there will be no entre fees charged.

The comprehensive list of events can be found on the Culture Night website, and there are some awesome and unusual line ups too, including Filipino Tribal Dance (Meeting House Square, Temple Bar, 6.45pm), Yodel (Old City, Temple Bar, 6pm & 8pm), 2D and 3D building illumination (3 different locations) and for anyone wanting to go and visit Leinster House, have a look at this press release and ring in to see if they have any places/tickets still available.

Lots and lots of dance and music all over the city, which will add to the liveliness that’s ever the hallmark of Dublin on any good old weekend. That’s the spirit we should all maintain, and I hope you have a fantastic evening, enjoying all the free goodies on offer! :D

I still have one double pass for the Ponytail gig on Wednesday to give away. I also have some passes for Immanu El on Saturday. Read about the gigs here and to win the tickets just send me an email at dublinthom@gmail.com

You can also read a recent interview with Ponytail by State Magazine (now free State Magazine) here.

The irrepressibly enthusiastic Howard Linnane restarts his Pint and a Picture series of free weekly film screenings in Russell’s of Ranelagh this Monday the 1st. September, with a program that includes two films by yrs truly. The screenings and Q & A’s are a lot of fun - if you make it there, please say hello.

Mon 1st 7pm programme: you’ll like Mondays now
We’re back to Monday nights at the weekly free ‘picture show’ screenings at our usual venue in Ranelagh this week, but we start at an earlier time this Monday. The programme for Monday 1st September kicks off at 7pm with the usual Irish Short Films Slot starting the show but at 7.30pm we show ‘Yellow Gate Women’ (dir Margaretta D’Arcy (2006); running time 60 mins), a documentary about the Greenham Common Women’s protest that began in the early 1980s against the siting of Cruise missiles at an airbase in England and went on for years. The film was screened at Galway Film Fleadh last year (and again this year, I believe) and it was shown a while back at the Portobello Film Festival in London and has been shown elsewhere.

Following the Q&A and any ensuing discussion we’ll be screening ‘Happiness’ (dir Conor Horgan (2005); running time 27 mins), which involves a wide variety of people all around Ireland expressing their idea of happiness to camera. I expect this film to start screening at 9.30pm, if not earlier. We screened Conor’s award-winning first short ‘The Last Time’ on 26th May and again more recently. His latest film ‘About Beauty’, a documentary about Irish artist Dorothy Cross, is being broadcast on RTE1 later on the very same night that our ‘picture show’ is showing ‘Happiness’ ie this Monday 1st (at 10.30pm or thereabouts) and will be screened at the IFI during the forthcoming ‘Stranger Than Fiction’ Documentary Film Festival 2008 in late September. (Conor has kindly agreed to our showing ‘About Beauty’ after that festival screening and will be doing a Q&A about it with us then.) The rest of our programme for this Monday night will be detailed later.

Foggynotions have been busy lately with 3 gigs coming up in September. In what the Irish Times are calling “recession-busting gigs“. They’ve got 3 super gigs in September and they’re all cheap as chips AND we have tickets to give away!

They’re all in Whelans
Sep 10 – Ponytail
Sep 13 – Immanu El
Sep 25 – O’Death

read more to find out how to get your grubby mitts on them!
(more…)

From Friday to Sunday, Dun Laoghaire is hosting the Festival of World Cultures. The event promises a mix of music, performances, markets, food and other eclectic fun.

Check out their website for a full programme of events. Some are free and some are ticketed (the awesome Seu Jorge is sold out) but it all looks fun.

http://www.festivalofworldcultures.com

I think I’ll start a regular ‘Rip-off Ireland’ name and shame spot, prompted by the fact that retailers in ‘Dublin’s fair city’ think that they can charge what they damn well please and get away with it. For an excellent example of this, see Conor’s post from a few weeks ago about rip off rice merchants.

Another shining example: I brought my 5-year-old son and 8-year-old cousin to Charlestown Shopping Centre during the week to run a few errands. After bribing them with anything their little hearts desired to ‘please behave for just half an hour’, I made good on my promise and told them to pick out 5 sweets each from the pick-n-mix vendor, Sweet Express. My jaw almost fell off when the assistant asked for payment of €7.90. Yes, you read right… €7.90. For 10 sweets.

More fool me for paying it you might say, but (note to self) doe eyes and quivering lips can be a powerful tool.

Thanks to the wonderful folk at Foggynotions, we’ve got 2 double passes to give away for “Little Wings” who is playing Upstairs @ Whelan’s, Wed August 13.

Little Wings is the project of artist and musician Kyle Field. Having worked with stars like M.Ward and Devendra Banhart, Kyle Field released his 7th album last year: Soft Pow’r. His music can be described as lo-fi folk and his latest work has a raw yet slumbering feel like what a grizzly bear might listen to when he’s feeling moody. He’s not unlike the popular Bon Iver and comes with a big thumbs up from us.

to be in with a chance to win tickets, just leave a comment here or send me an email at mytop5blog *AT* gmail.com

listen to Little Wings, Gone Again

Some free events for opera lovers who are able to get away from whatever they are doing in the middle of the day on Thursdays for a few weeks. The Dublin City Council’s Opera in the Open is back and it’s offering 5 different classical operas at the Civic Office’s Amphitheatre at Wood Quay!

The season starts today and will run for 5 weeks in total. Showtime of 1pm makes it a bit awkward for anyone who’s stuck at work, but otherwise for those around in the city centre, this could be a nice place for extended lunch break if you could afford such flexibility.

• Thursday 07.08.2008 - Così Fan Tutte (Mozart)
• Thursday 14.08.2008 - Alcina (Handel)
• Thursday 21.08.2008 - La Bohème (Puccini)
• Thursday 28.08.2008 - The Barber of Seville (Rossini)
• Thursday 04.09.2008 - Don Pasquale (Donizetti)

Now, just one thing to bear in mind. These are not going to be one of those highly elaborated opera sets so don’t expect one like those in Arena di Verona, or something like that. The enjoyment lies in appreciating operatic music with a limited number of cast members. This perhaps require just that little bit more from the cast than usual, in order to continue captivating the audience.

Hopefully the weather will hold up (I know, the last few days have been rubbish weatherwise) and with a little blue sky over the head, this should be fun. I wonder if I could sneak out from work for a bit today…

Hi Dublin!

This is gonna be my first post, and already i’m going to do some advertising just to get it over with. It’s good advertising though as it’s two ways to find out about events in Dublin.

The first is a link to a website with a lot of non-free events a around town. As far as I know it is updated every day. the link is: http://forum.electricpicnic.ie/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=14 . It is pretty good to have a website to check out every day around 4 or 5 to see where the crowds will be that night.

The other thing I’d like to mention is a way to  receive a list of free events in dublin. It is sent out by a guy called Joerg. He is doing it on a fully voluntatliy basis. All you have to do is send a request to be put on the list to: dublineventguide@gmail.com .

That’s it for my first post on Dublin Metblogs. Hope you enjoy my posts now and in the future,

Hans