District x Ace & Tate: HEADS

HEADS A LOOK AT CONTEMPORARY DUBLIN THROUGH THE LENS OF THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE HERE.

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FOREWORD

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MANGO DASSLE

14

AISLING FARINELLA & DAVID WALL

24

FELISPEAKS

32

JOE MACKEN

42

SHAUNA BUCKLEY

CONTENTS

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5

There are a few heads that make this city tick. The people who carve out a place for art and culture here. It’s the heads that inspire each other to push the boundaries, whether it’s discussing an idea that’ll never come to fruition over a pint, or partnering up with another like-minded Dubliner to make things actually happen.

We started District in 2014 as a platform for sharing Irish music and culture that we felt was going under the radar. Radical and forward-thinking art that subverted what the outside world perceived our country to be associated with. It’s since grown into a community of writers, photographers, artists and readers who share similar ideals and are hungry for their tastes to be challenged and developed.

Ace & Tate has eyewear for every side of you. We celebrate the universal truth that people are not one thing, but complex creatures. Weird and wonderful, multifaceted, experimental, or not. We’re not just interested in frames on faces, but the people behind them like those fascinating people who form dynamic communities and make pretty sick cities. Cities like Dublin.

When collaborating with Ace & Tate to create this magazine, plus a minidocumentary series, we decided to call it ‘HEADS’. It’s a project that explores a selection of the characters who make Dublin what it is, featuring photography by the talented Ellius Grace. From poetry and rap, to design, fashion and food, these people make things happen in the Dirty Old Town.

FOREWORD BY ERIC DAVIDSON, EDITOR OF DISTRICT

INTRODUCTION

MANGO

7

“One tune got that whole city buzzin’...”

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9

Since the late 1980s Ireland has had a tumultuous relationship with hip hop. Scary Éire were the genre’s first success story and landed a major record deal nearly 30 years ago, but few had reached the bar they set. That was until a renaissance of Irish rap began around eight years ago.

Cue, Mango Dassle.

In the late 2000s Mango played nearly every venue in the city and further afield with his widely-beloved group The Animators.

However, after creative but amicable differences broke the crew up he decided to create music his way. Alongside fellow Animator MathMan, the pair have since grabbed Ireland’s music scene by the throat with their raw and punchy grime-inflected sound.

It was a shake-up that coincided with the country’s newfound love for urban music. Mango was just what the city was crying out for.

“Dublin has the most profound effect on my work. From the way I talk, even from the videos, the sound as well. If this was the UK we might be trying to make a more traditional grime sound, but the fact that we’re introducing hard rave sounds into it is reflective of how small the city is. It’s a techno city, it’s a rave city, so that’ll be in the work.”

For Mango rave culture is a representation of the spirit of the capital. It’s where he absorbed the music he was exposed to, in the infamous Twisted Pepper basement, right up to the recently demolished Hangar. These were places he frequented so often that a simple bump of the fist guaranteed entry. But how important was that scene in shaping him as an artist and a person?

“It was massively important. You’re in love with a sub-genre of music not all of your mates you grew up with are into it.

So when you go to these clubs you find a whole new world.

It opens your mind to performing, getting involved, because of that community spirit. But also you get to see the city and hear from voices not like your own. I’ve been at after parties full of working class lads or an LGBT party. It makes you a better person when you can understand the different walks of life that run through this city. That’s shaped massively by clubs, music and cheap session houses. All we’re going to be left with these days is music the way it’s going. No one ever had a life changing moment in a hotel bar.”

While these iconic venues are being closed down, turned to rubble and repurposed, it’s the industrious nature of his fellow Dubliners that instills Mango with some remnant of hope for club culture.

mango wears

quentin (tiger wood).

“Taking no opportunities and making something from nothing, it’s the ethos of rap music. But it’s also an ethos of Dublin.

Somebody turned an old fruit and veg market into a space where I could throw a grime rave. Dubliners will find little hacks, little tricks. We’re very crafty people. It sounds good and bad, because it is good and bad, but we’re very crafty people.”

MANGO

10

“To turn tragedy into triumph is something I’ve learned from Dublin.”

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MANGO

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13 “It’s a small city mentality where everybody knows each other and it’s a social currency to know movers and shakers. ‘Cause you’ll run into everybody, it’s a town, it’s a village, so if you know or hear about somebody doing well you’re like, ‘Ah sure that’s me cousin’s mate’. I love how connected the place is. Like finding out my Da and my best mate’s Da went to the same Bob Marley concert in Dalymount in 1980. There are no six degrees of separation here. It’s more like two and that can make the city feel more like a community.”

That closeness the city boasts means when Mango hits his favourite pub for a quiet one it could end up turning into a networking session, albeit soaked in pints of black.

“If you want to do something, or you want to get at this party, or you want to find out what they’re doing, it demystifies what you need to do. ‘Cause you’ll probably end up in a boozer with these people at some stage and they’ll get yapping to you about what’s going on and how they hustle. You can pick their brains a little bit.”

mango wears

dexter (lilac).

Another layer that’s important to the heartbeat of the city for Mango is the aesthetic of the streets, the style. At a recent show he had a ‘strictly tracksuit and trainers’ policy. It wasn’t enforced, but combine that with the barrage of lyrics about Air Max (“They’re to Dublin what the Air Force One is to Harlem or the Chuck Taylor to LA”) and it’s clear the garments he wears represent more than just clothes.

“Awh, how long have you got?” He asks when his love of street style is brought up. “There was fuck all happening in streetwear here until about 2012 or 2013, but even before that looking your best, especially when you don’t have money, was so important. Even from my uncles’ days of 501s and Lacoste tops, the same principle is there even though the clothes change. London thinks it invented the tracksuit thing. But they always had something else. Dublin stuck and stays with tracksuits, even when it’s not high fashion anymore.”

If you see Mango strolling down a pub-laden back street of Dublin city, and it’s hard to miss the 6’ 3” ‘red-headed regular’, you’ll see him stop several times to chat to a few heads. According to the rapper, that’s the beauty of his hometown. It compliments the creativity that flows through the streets.

It seems those evenings having the ears burned off him by makers, doers and heads in candle lit snugs, blended with raw talent and a rabid work ethic, paid off. For the last two editions of Electric Picnic he was on stage with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra for the ‘Story Of Hip Hop’ in front of thousands of people. Alongside his partner in grime MathMan they sold out The Complex on Capel Street to launch their ‘Wheel Up’ EP and they’ve stolen the show at just about every festival in Ireland since 2017. As a duo they’ve even performed with a string quartet on the fabled stage of the National Concert Hall and have supported heroes of theirs, Wiley and Mike Skinner of The Streets. But, for the Finglas man, the city drags him back to Earth and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

“I’ve been working 10 or 12 years to get into this position. I want to do gigs full of people, not so these people love me, it’s so that I can have a barometer or measure of how well my art is doing. But with Dublin there’s always an ego check there.

So you can’t really get too hype about it. I get off the stage and say, ‘That was deadly!’ and then I go back to lifting boxes in a stock room. It can humble you, but it’s bleedin’ whopper.

Dublin has changed me for the better because it givesyou a warmth and sense of humour and it also gives you a humbleness that you might not get somewhere else. We deal with bad stuff pretty well. We take the piss out of it, or make art out of it. To turn tragedy into triumph is something I’ve learned from Dublin.”

MANGO

“I was born in Dublin, I’ve lived here all my life so I’m sure everything I do, everything I am, is as a Dubliner.”

AISLING FARINELLA & DAVID WALL

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16 As well as being one of Ireland’s leading stylists, Aisling Farinella is the editor and co-founder of Thread Magazine. Since beginning her career in fashion, she’s brought an edge and vision to Dublin that the city had been seriously lacking. In collaboration with Keith Nally and Indigo & Cloth’s Garrett Pitcher she created the bi-annual fashion publication, featuring design and subject matter seldom covered on these shores. There was an acute focus on fashion, but forward-thinking names in art, design, film and music all appeared, perhaps representative of Aisling’s varied cultural palate.

17 aisling wears lily

(fizz).

With design at the heart of Thread’s content and production, it’s no surprise that Aisling and David Wall were drawn together.

David is the co-founder of WorkGroup alongside his business partner Conor Nolan. Formerly known as Conor & David, WorkGroup is one of the most important organisations in Irish graphic design. They’ve collaborated with brands as diverse as 3FE and An Post to create unique identities and campaigns, outside the usual realm of corporate design.

David is also a board member at The Institute of Designers in Ireland, a founder of the 100Archive “a living archive which maps the past, present and future of Irish graphic design” and type foundry TypeGroup. He’s also a design writer for monthly publication Totally Dublin.

On top of that, the pair also live in Dublin 8 with their two kids, putting the cherry on top of their hectic, but beautifully designed life together.

Aisling, what prompted you to start Thread Magazine?

A: “Thread was born out of a time when things were definitely changing in Dublin, [I] really wanted to represent the Dublin that I knew, in terms of fashion. There was a great community and there was really amazing stuff happening internationally and such a presence of Irish people working in fashion internationally but there was always a kind of, “Oh fashion in Ireland?”, you know? They never really went hand-in-hand, always felt it was really important for people to start looking at fashion as design and not just as a commercial process and following trends.

Obviously, working as a stylist for over 15 years now, the way I connect with fashion is through the process, through the cultural and community aspect and I really wanted to have a space to explore that and share it with other people.”

AISLING FARINELLA & DAVID WALL

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“Thread is a group project, it wasn’t just me, those were just my personal reasons for beginning it, but I started it with Keith Nally who’s a graphic designer/creative director and Gareth Pitcher who is an independent retailer who has a menswear store [Indigo & Cloth] who also works as a creative director.

Keith and Gareth came from very different angles as well, but there was that joint feeling of wanting to position Dublin and Ireland in the amazing way that we experience it and put it on an international platform as opposed to keeping it too indigenous or too isolated.”

David, tell us about how you started WorkGroup?

D: “I suppose I had always thought that I’d like to work for myself, growing up both my parents were designers. They’re both architects and they both worked for the civil service and they always said, “You should work for yourself”. I suppose they had a view of what that would be like and that’s what they sold me on at a relatively young age. The defining reason was that I met Conor Nolan, who’s my business partner. He’s a designer too and we met in college, we work really well together and I think I realise more and more now that it’s something really rare to get, that good working relationship where you have different skills, different kinds of personalities and, to a certain extent, a different way of seeing the world.

We’d both worked in other studios, I was really keen to do that and to get experience elsewhere and then there was this opportune moment for us to work together full-time. We started our business at the tail end of the Celtic Tiger, looking back now it was a really great, or arguably easy [laughs], time to start a business in Ireland. It was 2006 and it was very fortunate in a lot of ways and I guess we continue to be fortunate in lots of ways, but those were the factors that we were at play when we started to work together.”

You mentioned finding someone that you can work well with can be incredibly rare - obviously yourself and Aisling are both involved in the creative industry, what’s the best elements of having someone you can go home to and say, “I want your opinion on this”?

D: “It’s brilliant to have someone that has a really good understanding of what your world is like in a work context and hopefully that’s reciprocal [laughs]!”

aisling wears lily

(fizz) & david wears hudson (caramel).

A: “You have to have your own space, but we do collaborate, definitely. It’s amazing to be able to come home to somebody who understands exactly what you’ve been put through that day, or the amount of variables that you’ve had to negotiate, or all of the different issues because every day is different, we don’t have 9 to 5’s. We’ve got two kids and it’s great that we can both have our independent creative careers and have our two kids and work all our logistics around that.”

How much do you inspire or motivate each other?

A: “David is the hardest working person I know. He loves graphic design and that’s something that definitely drew me to him, he’s so passionate and really involved in the work that he does. He gives everything to every project that he’s working on and I really admire that. I’ve also learnt so much about graphic design.”

D: “[Laughs] Yeah I never shut up! With regard to working together, for me it’s really important to be able to come home and that our relationship isn’t all about work.”

AISLING FARINELLA & DAVID WALL

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21 What do you love to do together that has nothing to do with your respective careers?

D: “Eating dinner together every night, I like cooking. I’m no great Masterchef, but I enjoy it.”

A: “David likes cooking, I like baking so it’s a good match.

Our lives are very busy because we both have very busy, very involved jobs and we’ve got a four year old and a seven and a half month old. Life revolves around them in the non-working hours. It’s amazing being in Dublin and being a parent, the area that we live in, Dublin 8, is so incredibly open, it’s a really interesting relaxed mix of people here. All our neighbours have opened their doors to us, there are street parties, laneway BBQs, you can just knock on somebody’s door and throw Franca (their four year old) in - it’s very ‘neighbourhood’ and that’s not something I actually expected. We always wanted to live in the city, and we’re definitely city folk, but we didn’t quite expect to find somewhere to live with such great neighbourhood vibes going on.”

D: “Most of what we do together is hang out with our kids, who are brilliant, and Ais has said this is such a nice place to live in general and it’s a really nice place to live with kids. Our neighbours are brilliant, there are loads of cool parks nearby.”

You’re both incredibly passionate about your careers, but do you have any other passions?

A: “Our kids, it’s all about Franca and Olive [laughs]! I like running, I haven’t been able to do it too much, it’s obviously quite hard to do when you’re pregnant, but yeah I love to run.

It’s something I’ve been doing for years. I also do yoga quite a bit and that’s definitely something that I need in my life in terms of headspace.

I love cinema, I studied cinema and that’s my background and everything goes back to that a little bit. I mean it’s definitely not the time of in our lives when we have much free time, or me time, but yeah there’s cinema and art... And we like to hang out in playgrounds [laughs]!”

david wears teller small

(olive gradient).

AISLING FARINELLA & DAVID WALL

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In your respective careers your seen as heads now, the people that are doing things, pushing things, is that something that you’re aware of, or something you enjoy being?

work happening, which is really interesting. All of that is still happening but the spaces in Dublin are changing, these spaces are being taken away, the rent is insane, the property market is insane and people are struggling to live in the city.”

D: “In some ways, yes it’s amazing, it’s very flattering. I suppose I don’t know how I feel about it really, I love what I do, I love my work and I’m very proud of it and I think it’s brilliant if someone sees something and thinks, “I’d love to do that too”. I mean that’s how I got into graphic design, I met a graphic designer.

I used to sing in a boys choir and we were in Antwerp on tour when I was 11 and we were staying with local families and the dad of the family we were staying with was a graphic designer and I thought, ‘I can’t believe that’s a job, that looks like great craic’.

Do you feel that Dublin inspires you both enough for exactly what you want to achieve?

A: “Yes, but I don’t just look at Dublin, I look internationally, everybody does as well. I think that’s one perspective that perhaps needed to be changed, just because you live in Dublin doesn’t mean that’s your entire world. We all live in a very global space now and everything is connected and we all know what’s happening in so many lives simultaneously. Even with the economy changing Dublin is still a great place to live, it’s a great place to bring up your kids, there’s a great openness to the people and people are genuinely willing to share their experiences in order to help you with your projects. Whereas perhaps in the bigger cities, where there’s so much more creative commercial activity, everyone has to be so much more niche and that’s one thing that I love about my work, it’s all so varied. From editing Thread to developing the Kildare Village Fashion Scholarship for an Irish student at the Royal College of Art, I’m pretty sure that if I was living somewhere else like New York or London my work would probably be a lot more niche.”

I studied in Finland when I was in college and I met a guy who had done game design for Atari in the late 80s and that guy really inspired me and I don’t think either of those people thought they were an inspirational character, so I’d be very wary of viewing myself as that at all. But they were really into their work and they were doing really interesting things and trying to do it on their own terms, so I think if there’s an iota of that in what I do then that’s brilliant but it’s a positive byproduct on the way really. I don’t think that kind of thing can ever be a goal, otherwise things will get too introspective, too self-indulgent and the focus would be in the wrong place.”

A: “I think it’s hugely important to have people to look up to and I guess in a way that’s part of Thread as well and it’s not about people looking up to me, or looking up to Thread. It’s about using it as a platform to showcase amazing talent out there and about telling their stories about the process of their careers. To be able to showcase that all of this is achievable and attainable and everyone faces the same challenges.

I think Dublin is a really unique space in terms of its ability to create opportunity, or if you take the initiative with your own ability to be able to create your own opportunities in the space. Instead of thinking these are my limitations why not think that if something is missing, why can’t you just make it?”

How has Dublin affected your creative lives and lives in general?

aisling wears neil

(satin gold).

D: “I was born in Dublin, I’ve lived here all my life so I’m sure everything I do, everything I am, is as a Dubliner really. It’s the city that I know, it’s the only city I know well, everything gets fed through that prism.”

Do you feel the landscape of Dublin is in a healthier place than when you started Thread?

A: “Yeah, it’s been up and down. When we started Thread it was at the start of the recession and people were losing their jobs, there was less money around but with that there was more creativity. There were great studio spaces opening up, there were so many small communities of designers working around the city and there was so much cross-disciplinary AISLING FARINELLA & DAVID WALL

FELISPEAKS “The importance of an artist is to reflect the time that they’re living in.”

26 Stepping onto the stage as a performer of any discipline for the first time can be nerve shattering. Reciting honest spoken word can be even more daunting. You’re opening your heart and emotions up to a room full of strangers, and in a lot of cases baring your soul.

“It’s the easiest part, being that vulnerable,” explains Felicia Olusanya, aka Felispeaks. “I think that if I was ever to get on stage and not be raw or honest or open it would be very obvious to everybody that I’m pretending… And I’m bad at pretending. So the only alternative is that when I’m up there on stage it’s to be as open and honest as possible. Why am I sharing my thoughts if I can’t share my personality… They come linked together.

It’s funny, whenever I’m on stage and I’m really vulnerable and I’m revealing parts of myself and sometimes telling secrets, whenever I get off stage I’m kind of like, ‘Did I really say that?’ and I still feel like they don’t know me. Because I opened a box to Section A of my life and you’re free to view, but I still get to walk off stage with the rest of me intact.”

Feli’s popularity has been rising in tandem with the resurgence in demand for spoken word in Ireland. Poetry is in this country’s blood. Pubs and streets are named after laureates of old and the echoes of their work can still be heard in every corner of the arts here. But there has been a tangible shift in recent years, with a wider audience having a thirst for the spoken word. Feli believes it’s a sense of inquisitiveness that’s drawing people in.

“When something feeds into your curiosity it levels into a trend.

Everybody else wants to know what makes it special and why all of their friends are going to it.”

For the Nigeria-born, Longford-raised, Maynooth native, being a poet happened almost by accident.

“I started writing pretty young, at about 11 or 12 and at first I started writing in diary format. I didn’t realise I was writing poetry for a really long time. I first got into performance in college. I found it easy to transition into the spoken word world, because after the competitions in college I just kept going, finding little spoken word spots. I think my first big exposure after the intervarsities was Bello Bar. I was just hooked ever since.”

feli wears milan

(blush).

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HOW TO HOLD WHEELS The Dublin quay's rolled in snapshots,

Among all who spit on the yellow bus man's justice,

Each blink held a picture of what yesterday was,

Unclean hands gather coins complete,

And today is,

In high esteem, each identify as a member,

Rebellion softly stirred,

Owning green card, allegiance to the exchange.

Still lingering,

Demanding a servant of a sea uniformed man.

Citrus traffic lights,

Now,

Slowed down,

Between answering the ant pile of commuters, "3.30 euro".

As impatient pedestrians tip-tapped the bus,

Collecting any spare change,

To come a-foot.

Not sprawling outside banks

His uniform, plain in the shadow,

For alms nor salvation,

Washed to a sad ocean blue,

But,

Holding wheels firm,

Seated,

To halt tempers steaming pale men beetroot,

Behind plastic protection with a seat in false authority,

A man pulped,

With instructions recited for the honour of the yellow bus.

Letting pain eat at his face,

Yet,

Morphing skin to arch in competitive angles,

A man pulped,

Brows furrowed,

Holding wheels firm,

Launching a wave of guilt,

To halt tempers steaming pale men beetroot.

Brewing stench of accomplice,

A POEM BY FELISPEAKS

30 Over the past few years this small basement venue underneath a local’s favourite pub called The Lower Deck has become a magnet for not only poets, but for forward-thinking artists of all disciplines.

One crew that made this spot their temporary home was Word Up Collective, a group of writers, poets, rappers and musicians. It was through Word Up that Feli would truly find her feet. A place where she “could shine as a spoken word artist amongst all different kinds of people”, a place where “everybody’s talent was important”.

“I was thrown into the deep end, I wasn’t expecting it. I went to support a few friends, who were kicking it, they had a rehearsal space in Bello Bar. There was going to be a gig on later that evening so I was just sitting in. A friend of mine said to Annette (Udell) who runs Word Up Collective, ‘Oh! She writes poetry!” and Annette turned to me and said, ‘Ok, you’re performing tonight’. I was really shocked and didn’t have any poems on me, so I literally had to write a poem on the spot with an hour to go.

I performed it that evening... And Annette was in the bathroom when I performed that poem… I was like, ‘For fuck sake’. But she told me to come back next week. So I got a taste that day and I was ready the following week. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a rush like that before.”

While Bello has a certain slick-for-a-dive-bar polish to it, not every hub for this new wave of poetry is quite as aesthetically appealing.

But for Feli, it’s in the flaws where true character lies.

31 So, why does she feel it’s important as an artist to be vocal about positive social change?

“The importance of an artist is to reflect the time that they’re living in. I’d be doing a disservice to myself as well as the community I’m in to not speak about issues that are happening and that affect me as a person. I would be wasting my talent, because a lot of my words would end up being superfluous and have no meaning or substance. To mark myself in history as part of Dublin I do need to speak about important issues. They’re so heavy on my heart as well.”

But it’s not wholly selfish. There’s a catharsis in exploring these concepts.

“When I perform a subject or an issue that has been bothering me or is in the news and I release that on stage I feel like I’ve done something right. Then I can put my pen down and start all over again.

Sometimes it’s not even about me when I’m performing. The subject might be important but it might not touch me in the slightest, but I realise that somebody needs this and somebody needs to hear it. It’s so warming after I get off the stage and somebody is like, ‘I needed that, thank you so much’.”

feli wears teller

(golden brown).

“The International Bar is another place. I remember the first time I walked in there I was like, ‘Everyone here is a weirdo…

I love it’. I remember going into this dingy-looking basement, all the chairs were on top of each other, there was a funnylooking bar… I loved it. The imperfections of Dublin city itself reflects on the citizens and it’s so enjoyable to watch and see people with all their cracks that resemble the city. Even when you’re spitting poetry and somebody messes up, the cracks are part of the performance.”

Another passion Felispeaks has is her quest for social justice, something that feed directly into her creative work. As well as speaking about love and life, her poems about the issues young people face often get the most rapturous applause at her performances.

She received a standing ovation at St. Patrick’s Day’s Young Blood Event in 2016, leaving mouths ajar with her carefully constructed pieces. She performed at a Repeal The 8th Amendment benefit in the famous Olympia Theatre, This Is Pop Baby’s Riot at Vicar Street, plus Dublin Fringe Festival’s Requiem For Truth.

FELISPEAKS

JOE MACKEN

“If something has integrity it’ll last”

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35 More than once dubbed as ‘The King of Casual Dining in Ireland’, when you see Joe Macken walking seemingly nonchalantly through Dublin with his pooches Fennel and Farrell you’d be mistaken for thinking he’s out for a midday stroll. But in reality, Joe is probably flitting between one of his several wildly successful eateries; Crackbird, Jo’Burger Smithfield and Castle Market, Skinflint and, most recently, “Jo’Burger all grown up”, Hey Donna.

joe wears roth

(crystal).

Joe grew up in a hotel in Slane, an experience he describes as “totally unique”, giving him a very early taste of the service industry.

He considered the staff there a second family in a way - “or a circus depending on your outlook” - but later he went to a boarding school in Dublin leaving the neolithic Valley of Kings and “wild natural mythicism” behind for a more metropolitan life.

Jo’Burger Rathmines (now Hey Donna) threw open its doors in 2007, winning restaurant of the year award in 2009 and bringing something to the table, figuratively and literally, that Dublin had never seen before. Over the coming years, everything cool about food culture in the capital stemmed from Joe’s creations.

Crackbird was perhaps the most important in consolidating the Macken empire as dozens of musicians who passed through the city professed their love publicly for their seriously addictive chicken.

Originally planned as a 12-week pop-up in 2011 on Crane Lane in Temple Bar, it’s become an institution. Over the years artists as diverse as Jessie Ware, Professor Green, Shlomho and Charli XCX, who recently said she was looking forward to her show in Croke Park with Taylor Swift “but mainly the fried chicken”, have grazed there.

“Mates, dates & yadda yadda…”

JOE MACKEN

36 Through fresh and local ingredients, clued in staff, DJ sets in the restaurants at weekends and staying constantly ahead of the curve, Joe’s restaurants have become part of the vernacular for discerning Dubliners. We sit down with him in his south city apartment, alongside his dogs, for a conversation about the city’s food culture and what else makes Dublin’s dining don tick.

37 joe wears pierce large (fizz).

Dining seems to be such an all-consuming part of your life, but what outside of restaurant culture motivates and drives you?

“I’m fairly driven by food, wine, restaurant culture all the time, it’s quite consuming - we have six premises with five restaurants and we always need to change and improve. We also just had a fire in one of our properties, so it’s a 24/7 rollercoaster, and that’s before you change the menus... And I’m working a new bar in one of our spaces too. So when all that’s put to bed it’s friends and family in the normal run of the month. I’m hoping to make more time in my life moving forward for travel and other projects that are not based around my business.”

Did you always want to work in this industry, or growing up did you have any other aspirations?

“I wanted to read the news, be a ballerina and design stuff. In a way the restaurant is a dance… Now I dream about making cheese, rearing rare breed cattle and living near the sea - come back to me in 10 years.”

Hey Donna in particular showcases a real diversity in taste and inspiration. Do you travel to find out about these new recipes?

“I don’t see it that way at all, Hey Donna to me is Jo’Burger plus 10 years, or its me and my tastes plus 10 years… The same core things inspire me, make it in house, buy well from smaller suppliers, keep it fresh, cook it to order, give people doggie bags - reduce the waste. The same places inspire me too, South Africa, Korea, Australia and Lebanon, which in ways are all of our restaurants jumbled into one.

I’d love to travel more to eat more, but I find I can’t. But sometimes you can discover foods from around the world in cities nearer to you. I’m hoping to get to Zanzibar this year and Philippines in early 2019 with Anthony [Joe’s partner].”

When did you start out as a restauranteur?

“11 years ago, we opened Jo’Burger in Rathmines, it was sort of by accident. I had two sandwich bars in town, through the jigs and reels of a property thing I ended up with an extra property and I needed to do something with it.”

When you say by accident, did you have a food background at all?

“I grew up in a hotel and I had food businesses, I worked as a hotel manager, that’s what I went off to college and did.

Jo’Burger just sort of came around, it’s a bit like the way Dublin is now, where people are just fucking addled by money you know? You can really see it and feel it. Dublin was in the height of the boom and there were people going around with five grand bags and they needed a chair to put their bag on and everyone had become really fussy. I wanted something that was the antithesis of that.”

You know exactly what to expect when you go to each of your restaurants. Do you think that’s one of the reasons why they’ve lasted and been so well received?

JOE MACKEN

38 “They should be sort of like verbs, you know? I grew up in a small country hotel and in a small country hotel you’ve got these mad things like a wedding out the back, a funeral in the front room, lads having pints, there could be Sunday lunch and it’s like mixed farming – it just doesn’t work. So I’m trying to make our places easy, so instead of seeing 100 things on the menu you go in and see that there’s just burgers, or just pizzas, or just chicken.”

How important do you feel food culture is for a city like Dublin?

“I think food culture is important for any culture. It’s mad in Ireland, because we didn’t have one and we’re still trying to find our feet. What we do have is unbelievable ingredients, we have access to unbelievable food in Ireland, we produce unbelievable dairy, amazing fish, the meat that’s coming out of the country is incredible. Food culture is now about how we get these things to the customer.”

Has that made opening a place like Hey Donna easier because there are these amazing natural ingredients and people love the idea of traceability, from farm to fork?

“Yes and no! It’s great to have access to amazing produce, we’ve access to amazing vegetables so we don’t have to be as meat heavy. It’s exactly the same as what Jo’Burger was when we opened up 11 years ago. As I said earlier, it’s more where I’m at now. As you grow up your palate changes or your lifestyle changes and, you know what, I think Dublin is changing. When we opened up Jo’Burger it was the only place to go for a burger apart from Eddie Rockets, people used to drive for an hour to go for a Jo’Burger and wait in a queue for another half hour.

I remember one night people were out waiting outside in the snow.”

What do you think about the food fads and trends in Dublin. Do you think it’s funny that one week it’s donuts, the next is burgers?

“I think we’re faddish. Instagram fads, everything. Everyone is expecting stuff to look a certain way, but I think if things are good quality people will always come back for it. If you go somewhere regularly and get a shit meal once you won’t mind, but if it happens twice or three times you won’t go back and that knocks fads. If something has integrity it’ll last, I believe.”

39 The people that work in your spaces are almost as important as the food that’s being served, I don’t know if you’d agree with that?

There are heads in there that you’d recognize from being out and about. Was that a conscious thing when you starting off or did you just enjoy working with like-minded people?

“It was totally conscious. For one, not to say that I’m temperamental, but I just couldn’t be working with people that I didn’t like. Life’s about being happy, there’s no point in being unhappy.

I think it’s really important when you visit anywhere that when you go into a restaurant or pub that the person serving you can actually discuss and talk to you about where they’re from and know everything about it. They don’t have to be from Ireland, but they have to live it, they have to live Dublin. You want staff to engage with people.”

Aesthetically your restaurants have always been on point and ahead of the masses. Why is design such an important aspect?

“If your restaurant doesn’t have a cohesive message it will not work, design is the bit people see before they walk in the door. That is so important, if you can’t do it yourself get a designer, but know what you need. Know the message, know your market.”

I mentioned heads, for people that understand food, or know about food, you are a head in Dublin, we spoke to Mango and he was comfortable with the idea of being a head…

“Mango is a total head… [Laughs]” What does the term ‘head’ mean for you and what does it mean to be a reference point or figure in Dublin that people look up to?

“To me heads are the current group of people that are literally styling the city. You see them posse-ing up and down South William Street, that’s what I’d normally think of a head.

If you come to Dublin from elsewhere, thinking you’re coming to a capital city, you find out Dublin is about three streets wide and everything that happens outside of those streets is the suburbs, realistically. It’s a really small space. It’s sort of growing now, we’re going to see Capel Street and other places actually beginning to grow.”

JOE MACKEN

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You’ve said before that you like to walk the Great South Wall. Is Dublin’s unique location in being so close to the sea, the mountains and countryside a little less claustrophobic?

joe wears lenny

(matte black).

“Physically, yes it’s less claustrophobic than European cities like London, Amsterdam or Paris, but the small size can be socially suffocating if you want to avoid heads. We’ve all gone through a bad break up at sometime or another and had to vacate South William/Fade Street...

But I love getting out of town and going to the Phoenix Park, North Bull Island or especially the South Bull Wall - Dublin is such an odd city in that we ignore our natural assets like the fecking river in the middle of town.”

What are the characteristics of Dublin people that you like and admire the most?

“I love the whole ‘Fuck it, it’ll be grand’ attitude. I’m very much like that. It’s really local, it’s just so small and there’s a village mentality, and I love that.”

JOE MACKEN

SHAUNA BUCKLEY Homegrown designer Shauna Buckley has a depth of experience to match her impeccable and forward-thinking taste and eye for her craft. After completing her BA in Visual Communication from the Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design & Technology, and working in David Wall’s WorkGroup, she co-founded It’s Okay with Simon Sweeney. It’s a studio that has clients from radical art collectives to publications. She also featured on the 100Archive Panel at Offset 2018 and won a The Design Kids Award the same year.

As lead designer for this collaborative publication with District Magazine and Ace & Tate, we asked Shauna to describe her perfect day in Dublin. Now based in Munich, it seems she’s going to miss a few things about the capital...

BEST MEMORY OF THE CITY: Probably when I was really young and my Nana and Grandad took care of me after school while my parents were working, we always ran little errands and at the time Dublin seemed gigantic.

I loved going into Thomas Street and we’d spend far too much time in Frawley’s (a retail landmark in Dublin that was open for over 115 years, but sadly now gone), potter up and down Meath Street, going to the butchers and into the Liberty Market. At the end I’d always get treated to an eclair in Mannings Bakery.

When I was older I read something where James Joyce described Thomas Street as an “open air asylum”, which I always thought was gas.

shauna wears phoebe (fizz).

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44 shauna wears grace

(caramel blitz).

45 BEST SPOT FOR MUSIC: For me it’ll always be the sadly now closed Twisted Pepper, it’s pretty great that a venue existed in Dublin where one week you could see Freddie Gibbs and the next you could see Bicep.

I miss those sweaty walls. Now, Tengu is probably the place I go most but if anyone I like is playing Vicar Street I always try to go.

People are doing great stuff out in places like A4 Sounds and Jigsaw now too.

WHAT’S ONE THING YOU SAW EVERY DAY HERE: Something that I’ve seen in the last couple of years is that we’re way more multicultural, which is amazing and encouraging.

I can’t wait to see what Ireland develops into. I love walking into town and seeing groups of all types of people mixing together.

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE LESS OF: I’d like to see less cultural and creative outlets shutting down in Dublin or not being used to their full potential. We have to push back a lot as we have a lot of regulations that in the long run limit what we can do, whether it be clubs closing early or not enough government funding for creative projects. The city is bursting with ideas we just don’t always have the space to let them flourish.

FAVOURITE PLACE TO ESCAPE TO: There are lots of amazing places to escape to that surround Dublin, we’re really lucky that it doesn’t really take more than 15/20 minutes to be completely away from the city. Most recently the 40 Foot has been my place of choice, it reminds me of my dad and my boyfriend Simon and I have spent the last six months living in Grand Canal so being on the Dart line we managed to get out there a couple of times over the summer.

Also, being on the Dart when it’s sunny is one of the best things you can do in Dublin.

FAVOURITE COFFEE SPOT: I actually don’t really drink coffee, but when I’m with someone that does and I have to pretend to, it’ll usually be 3FE! FANCY BRUNCH OR GREASY SPOON: Definitely a greasy spoon. A more hearty meal and you don’t have to get dressed up to go. Matt the Rashers will always have a spot in my heart.

YOU’VE JUST RELOCATED TO GERMANY. WHAT’S SOMETHING YOU’LL MISS NOW YOU’VE MOVED AWAY? Just how easy it was to live there, we have a really high standard of life compared to a lot of other places I’ve spent time in. I love that you can walk from one side of town to the other in about 25 minutes and run into everyone you know along the way.

The late Anthony Bourdain said, “If you’ve got any kind of a heart, a soul, an appreciation for your fellow man, or any kind of appreciation for the written word, or simply a love of a perfectly poured beverage, then there’s no way you could avoid loving this city”. So that’s what I’ll miss.

DESCRIBE THE CITY IN FIVE WORDS: Eccentric, Modest, Funny, Ridiculous, Lovely.

FAVOURITE IRISH PHRASE: Gerrup outta that garden!

WHERE’D YOU GET YOUR SHADES: Ace & Tate obviously! But I am also a fan of ridiculously cheap and impractical sunglasses that don’t protect my eyes from the sun at all.

SHAUNA BUCKLEY

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Ace & Tate collaborated with District Magazine to produce this limited edition publication, HEADS. We’re super proud to launch in Dublin and, being our first ever Irish store, of course we wanted to get to know some of the downright great people who are doing amazing things in the city. Mango, Felicia, Joe, Aisling & David are just a few of the talented creatives who’ve been inspired by your city’s energy, then gone forth to build successful careers through bold and courageous work. We love your spirit, Dublin, and can’t wait to make more local friends. Cheers!

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