Totally Dublin 80 by Totally Dublin

May 2011 // FREE // totallydublin.ie

with... JOE CORNISH JEDWARD WILD BEASTS INSIDIOUS AND THE END OF THE WORLD

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it’s what’s inside that counts

contents 80

first things first

Let’s put aside the fact I’ve been watching way too much Buffy the Vampire Slayer this last month - I like to think the world is ending. Very, very soon. I’ll take supervolcanic lava spew or a collision with the Nibiru planetoid, nuclear war, or magnetic pole reversal. I’m even onboard with the opening of the ungodly orifice of hell and subsumption of the human race into the eternal armies of darkness. Why? Because everybody loves a deadline. A theory goes that the advent of doom leads to a switch of human values from time is money to time is art (this is probably factoring in that if the world were scheduled to actually end in 2012, we’d loot every last thing we want from Grafton Street and hide in our houses eating expired readymeals). A romantic notion: time is finite for all of humanity, and your life options become suddenly limited to the point where the only decisions worth making are based on your core, short-term human desires. The looting would be a serious problem though. This is our end of the world issue. We thought we’d get it out of the way now so that when the apocalypse comes we get to say ‘I told you so’. Enjoy your every issue of Totally Dublin like it’s your last. Daniel Gray

8 Entry Level

56 Adventure Weekend

The reason why we love all you guys is you being u just you =:)

Windsurfing at the crack of doom

10 Roadmap

62 Barfly

More useful than Cormac McCarthy

On the knack on the knack on the knaaack

14 Threads

64 Gastro

Bow selectors

Dehli buzz

16 The End Of The World As We Know It

72 Insidious

God-damned

Been there Saw that

22 Sufjan Stevens

74 Audio

Ain’t that the Soof

Post-pigcore

26 Attack The Block

76 Games

No Corny puns spring to mind immediately

Getting a little to Carrawayed with the Great Gatsby game

30 Listings

78 Print

With Wild Beasts, Dublin Dance Festival, and President Obama

Reviewing the new issue of Totally Dublin x3

credits where credit’s due Totally Dublin 56 Upper Leeson St. Dublin 4 (01) 687 0695

Art Director Lauren Kavanagh lauren@hkm.ie (01) 687 0695

Publisher Stefan Hallenius stefan@hkm.ie (01) 687 0695 087 327 1732

Arts Editor Rosa Abbott rosa.abbott@gmail.com

Editorial Director Peter Steen-Christensen peter@hkm.ie (01) 687 0695 Editor and Web Editor Daniel Gray editor@totallydublin.ie (01) 687 0695

Advertising Stefan Hallenius stefan@hkm.ie (01) 687 0695 087 327 1732 Distribution Kamil Zok kamil@hkm.ie

Contributors Bobby Aherne Ollie Dowling Aisling Farinella Benjamin Flocka Ciarán Gaynor John Hyland Zoe Jellicoe Roisin Kiberd Ian Lamont Fuchsia Macaree Karl McDonald Aoife McElwain Oisín Murphy Aine Pearl Pennello Conor O’Toole Derek Owens Steve Ryan Megan Specia Elizabeth Alexandra Windsor

All advertising enquiries contact (01) 668 8185 Read more at www.totallydublin.ie Totally Dublin is a monthly HKM Media publication and is distributed from 500 selected distribution points. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or part without the permission from the publishers. The views expressed in Totally Dublin are those of the respective contributors and are not necessarily shared by the magazine or its staff. The magazine welcomes ideas and new contributors but can assume no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, photographs or illustrations.

Totally Dublin ISSN 1649-511X

Cover image: Sufjan Stevens

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Jedward Words Bobby Aherne Picture Fuchsia Macaree

Steve Brookstein, Shayne Ward, Leon Jackson, Joe McElderry, Matt Cardle. The list of X-Factor winners to date represents a celebration of boring faces, good voices and empty heads. Meanwhile, despite their inability to sing or dance, Jedward managed to wrangle sixth position on the show in 2009. They are now international superstars with four million euro in their redcoats, their daft grins making cameos all over the pouty world of showbiz, and have created (and now play) an unsubstitutable role in popular culture. They are modern mythology; a retelling of the victorious underdog yarn. They are Setanta burying the sliotar inside the hound three times his size (and yes, thank you, that’s a particularly potent parallel, because John and Edward’s lifechanging incident also came packaged with a change of name!). Obviously they got bullied at school, but no amount of posh Palmerstown jerks could make them change their clothes, or their hair, or their personalities… or their dreams, maaaan. A recording of them yelling along to a Blink 182 song shouldn’t have charted. But it did. Take that, meatheads! Your ma now likes those quare lads you use to wedgie more than she likes you! Their absurd fashion sense and constant gurn means that everyday Jedward sightings never fail to raise a fond eyebrow and a proud smile. They are simply too animated and too damn silly to be real. Are they taking the piss out of everybody all of the time? Are they stoned? Are they a postmodernist experiment? Is it Bill Drummond having a laugh, in disguise and carrying around a mirror? They talk like candyfloss beat poets, alternating between infantile thoughtfulness and unprovoked glee. Weirdness can easily be feigned. Stefani Germanotta can decorate her stage with a 36 feet high tinsel-laden dinosaur wing, wash herself backstage in a bath filled with dodo shit, and eat a pizza made out of rollerblades, but Jedward are proper propless eccentrics. At 00:03 one night, they tweeted “3 minutes past midnight 1 for john 1 for Edward and 1 for you”. Another time, they claimed “Its cool that we put Ireland on the map just like Britney Spears put belly buttons on the maps”. They occupy a space in the otherworld, and earth isn’t something which is familiar to them. When quizzed about the existence of a heaven, a deadpan Edward replied “I think heaven’s this really cool place, ok… you always have this vision of the clouds, the

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golden gates, and then… like… all this crazy Egyptian stuff… and all the pyramids and stuff.” You may be surprised to learn that neither of the lads drink alcohol or take drugs, claiming that if one were to indulge in either, you’d “end up being on CSI... someone’s gonna end up shooting you or something”. They don’t even consume tea or coffee, and allegedly run up to 45 miles per week as members of a south Dublin mountain running club. Never mind setting a good example for ‘the kids’ - this stuff is encouraging to all of us tired and drunken old slobs. We need to surround ourselves less with the pathetic drama of Kerry Katona or Ronan Keating or Wayne Rooney or Katie Price or whichever eejit is frowning at us from the front page this week. It’s good to be around insane identical teenagers who leap about espousing the age-old (but old-fashioned) virtues of innocence, positivity, excitement, stamina, diligence, individuality and curiosity. It’s good to have Jedward; a truly one-of-akind pair.

www.twitter.com/planetjedward The only reason to visit twitter. “Vending machines are like sweet jail and when you put the money into that vending machine you are bailing out the sweet”, “I broke the TV but it wasn’t me just gonna put everything back together and walk away! It was me looking at the TV and it started laughing”, “it feels realllly wired to just sit down on a chair”. They even set up a separate twitter account wherein they write from the perspective of their pet parrot (@perezparrot), though I’m not confident that they even have a pet parrot. http://tinyurl.com/jedwardlipstickvideo Jedward’s Eurovision entry, and their first release of a non-cover, ‘Lipstick’ is a infectious little masterpiece of contemporary pop music. This song inspires genuine anticipation for their new album. Also search for a video of the lads performing this song whilst running around Croke Park in knee-high Converse, to the bemusement of a few dozen thousand sports fans. http://tinyurl.com/tv3acidtrip Vincent Browne confronts some Serious Issues for a change, quizzing the twins about love (“our granny always asks us if we’ve met anyone we like better than ourselves and we’re like ‘no’”), politics (“I think Mary McAleese is doing a really cool job… we’re getting a waxwork… she’s got a waxwork… ours is gonna be better”) and Louis Armstrong (“is he the guy that does the cycling?”). They also throw a pillow at Browne’s face, and do the splits on his coffee table. None of this makes any sense, and that’s why it’s all so brilliant.

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Beautiful and bold contemporary dance from Ireland and the world.

Dublin Dance Festival May 13-28 2011

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Haptic and Adapting for Distortion Hiroaki Umeda

A spirited comedy about class and ambition. Photo by Anna Kooij

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Music

Unless you’ve prematurely taken to your survival shelter, you’ll know all about POD’s juicy new festival, Forbidden Fruit, happening this 4th and 5th of June at The Royal Hospital, Kilmainham (attractions include Aphex Twin, Flaming Lips, Caribou, this issue’s interview subjects Wild Beasts, and a frankly stupid amount of other awesome bands). What you mightn’t know is that we have a pair of tickets for you. Get an A4 sheet and some crayons, pencils or markers, draw a picture of the end of the world, and post it to us marked ‘Forbidden Fruit Tix Plz’ before the 21st of May (the apocalypse is that day, so there’ll be no post afterwards) with your name and contact details - and keep your eye on the TD website for a gallery of the finest entries and a weaved-basket worth of other Fruit coverage. (Non-winners worry not - tickets are still available via usual outlets)

Film

We’re not the only ones feeling doomy this month. One Hundred Mornings is director Conor Horgan’s first film, an already-lauded depiction of two couples trying to weather societal breakdown in lakeside cabin. An entirely Irish slant on the end of the world, you can catch it on general release from May 6th.

Good Deeds

SCOOP (Save Children Out of Poverty) is one of the friendliest and most creative fundraising faces in town. You can hark back to your own cherry-cheeked school days with their forthcoming Sports Day, to be held in the Phoenix Park this 4th of June - not only will you be doing your little bit by adding to their collection box, but you get to beat all your weakling friends at Ultimate Egg and Spoon. Aw yeah. To get involved contact Rachel at lifedrawingbs@gmail.com www.thescoopfoundation.com

This month on the TD website Live-blogging the Apocalypse. Follow the end of the world with us on May 21st.

Date Night. Spy on our first foray into matchmaking as we send budding couples out on their first date.

Royal & Presidential Visits. Our alternative guides to spending your May stalking heads of state.

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Words Daniel Gray and Aine Pearl Pennello

Animation

The plot behind animator Nick Cross’s first feature length film, Black Sunrise isn’t entirely clear yet - whatever, judging by its morbidly fascinating trailer video there’ll be plenty of gas masks, burning buildings and one-eyed army generals. He’s going to need a bit of funding to release it, so be a dear and throw him a few bob after watching the trailer over at http://bit.ly/h2VNSA

Wheels

If you’re trying to outrun pestilence and slow-moving lava flow, you’re probably going to want to hide out in a forest for a few hours. Get yourself a teardrop camper and do it in style. Silver Tears Campers Woodie series is one sweet-looking mahogany runaway essential, a beautifully-designed cabin for sleeping, eating, and surviving in. Or you know. Festivals. http://silvertearscampers.com

Beats

When it comes to the end of the world, the most important thing to bring might be your lunchbox. Notorious gourmand MF Doom’s landmark Operation Doomsday album has been repackaged into a packed-tight metal box, featuring a 2-CD re-release of the album, a 32-page lyric book, and 10 pretty cards of Doomsday MCs, which should keep you pretty entertained during the sky opening and killing us all. http://www.stonesthrow.com

To win tickets to this year’s Taste of Dublin festival, visit the TotallyDublin.ie blog

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Make-up for strippers nipples? You’re making us blush! But then isn’t that the point? Benefit is the cosmetics brand that started with a pink-coloured tint for the aforementioned lapdancer, but went on to find its way into every good girl’s makeup bag. The logical follow-on from cult favourite Benetint, their newest launch is Cha Cha Tint, a punchy coral stain for lips and cheeks, Coming up a coral, mango shade that’ll flatter all skintones, it’s sure to put a spring in your step this summer. benefitcosmetics.com

Mercy!

In dreams you’re mine, all the time... no, not Roy Orbison, but we’ll gladly take his glasses! Ironymongers and all-round style geniuses Laura and Kate Mulleavy (a.k.a the Rodarte sisters) have created Roy’s signature glasses in collaboration with Opening Ceremony. The chunky translucent frames come in burgundy, floral, tortoiseshell and a creamy nude colour. Ideal for creepy-cool karaoke turns, or for hiding when you’ve been crah-ay-ay-ay-ing.. $219 at lagarconne.com

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So say Eleven Paris, a brand for men and women that’s a little bit Parisian grunge, a little LA skater chic. They’re sure to please customers who want to look good but loathe to appear fashionable; board shorts, denim that comes pre-loved, baseball jackets and one particularly great shirt emblazoned with a poorly-drawn portrait of Anna Wintour and Karl Lagerfeld, over the hand-drawn slogan ‘Vogue Off’. Too bizarre to be offensive.. oh and the delicious Ash Stymest features in their campaign. YUM. Available from Brown Thomas

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The Georges Street Arcade has long been the domain of Dublin’s young folk, with stalls selling temporary green hair dye, Bettie Page postcards and rockabilly shoes. So it makes perfect sense as the site for a 24-year-old style queen and entrepreneur to open her very first shop. But how has Ailbhe Stafford, boutique Beaux Bows, pulled the whole thing off? The answer is a curious mix of grown-up business talk, party dresses and one-of-a-kind designer hobby horses. We sit her down for a chat to find out more. First off, when did the idea of Beaux Bows take shape? Did years of working in retail not put you off? The idea of Beaux Bows came about last October. I suppose working in retail for a couple of years didn’t really put me off, it actually drove me. I learned so much and really developed who I was and what I loved doing, and that was being surrounded by pretty things and like minded people! I wanted to have something I could call my own and it seemed a logical step for me to open my own boutique. What obstacles did you encounter in setting the shop up, and how did you overcome them? My age was probably the biggest obstacle. As I’m twenty four, people immediately think that I’m too young and therefore don’t have anything to offer. With certain letting agents, I’d call for information and they’d turn their noses up at me. Eventually my Dad suggested that he stand in for me. It’s sad that people still think like this, young people should be encouraged to take the leap of entrepreneurship. Is Beaux Bows an extension of your personal style? What do you look to for inspiration? Is there a distinct Beaux Bows kind of girl? I’m most comfortable in a pretty dress, so in a way it is an extension of myself. Bows have always been my trademark, I feel a bit naked when I don’t have one in my hair! I’m really inspired by the fashion and music of the 1930s, 40s and 50s, eras that seem to be so full of glamour but also have major historical importance. I guess, a Beaux Bows girl isn’t afraid to be feminine, pop a bow in her hair and take pride in her own style. You stock some really great pieces by upcoming (or, in Chupi’s case, quite established) young Irish designers. Do you know most of the designers themselves? Dublin is so small you’re always meeting people who enjoy the same things as you do. I’ve known Chupi for a while, as a good friend of mine worked for her in Topshop and I always loved her stuff. Salty Philip is another brand I also stock. Her stuff is amazing; all of her cottons are organic and her beautiful dresses are recycled chiffon. I really admire her vision and it’s very reasonable as well! The day the shop opened I was introduced to her by friends of mine. Canter Canter is the other label I stock. These hobby horses are the only non-clothes thing I sell, they’re all handmade by one girl and have their own

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Bow Selecta Beaux Bows Words Roisín Kiberd Pictures Peter Fingleton

names and identities. People fall in love with them and I’m always really sad to say goodbye! The Georges St. Arcade is such a wellloved landmark; was being part of Dublin’s subculture heritage important to choosing a location? Were you intimidated opening up shop there? I also hold a very special place in my heart for the Arcade! I remember going there when I was fifteen with my friends, spending hours in Simon’s Café with one cup of tea between five of us! It’s so beautiful during the summer, too, it’s so laid back. The area was constantly in the back of my mind, so when the spot became available in the Arcade I was very enthusiastic about it. I was quite lucky because I’ve worked there before and have close friends who work there too, so the transition from working in the Arcade to actually having a shop there was quite easy. Where do you see the shop heading in future? Will the style change, or the stock vary? Ooh hard question! But it makes me really excited too - I have so many plans for Beaux Bows! The next step will be opening upstairs, which will hopefully happen after the summer. The shop changes and evolves every day, it’s all very exciting but I’m just taking each day as it comes and enjoying every experience that comes with it! Join www.facebook.com/BeauxBows, or visit the shop at 21/22 George’s St. Arcade

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What will doomsday look like? According to Harold Camping – who reckons it’s coming this May – it won’t be pretty. Words Derek Owens Pictures Fuchsia Macaree

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Chatting with Harold Camping is a weird trip. Then again, if you thought the world was ending (in the literal sense, not like an emo kid complaining about their latest heartache), you’d probably be an unusual conversationalist too. The 89-year-old president of Family Radio, a volunteer organisation broadcasting conservative Christian programmes around the world, reckons that the world as we know it will end on May 21. It won’t be pretty, he says. He and his followers have decided to warn us by advertising on billboards, driving around to preach from camper vans, and talking to sceptical journalists. We’ll say one thing for the guy: if you’re in a knot about a meeting with the bank or a tense discussion with your landlord about getting your deposit back, he adds a certain sense of perspective. In fact, Camping is unerringly calm as he describes the imminent apocalypse. You can almost forget that this is a man who sees a decline in homophobia as the clearest sign yet of mankind’s imminent collapse. He’ll remind you before long, though. “We’ve all noticed the enormous amount of wickedness that the world is engaging in. The sexual… terrible things, and the stealing, and the greed, and the world is just… the morality is just disappearing and that is exactly what God predicted

would happen in Romans Chapter One. On top of it, God indicated in Romans One that there would come a time when he would deliver the world up to homosexuality and lesbianism, and we compared that with other passages in the Bible. It was to be a sign, like it was a sign in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. And, you know, we’ve all been wondering ‘how is it possible?’ There’s always been homosexuality around some. But in our day, the whole business of gay pride and so on, people are accepting that all over. It’s no longer a sin, it’s just another way of living, and it’s their lifestyle, and it’s just like they can’t lose. And when we studied the Bible we thought ‘Yeah!’ That’s because God has delivered up the world to them, and this was an enormous sign that we’re right on the threshold of Judgement Day,” he explains. It’s tempting to point out that Romans never purported to be the word of the Almighty (it was actually a letter from another self-appointed theologian, Saint Paul, to a group of Christians in the city), but a chapter-and-verse argument with Camping is never going to end well. After all, he’s been thumping away on the good book for over five decades since packing in a construction business shortly after the Second World War. “I graduated in

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1942 with a degree in civil engineering from the University of California. Then, right after the war I started my own construction company, but all my life I’ve been tremendously interested in the Bible and sharing it, because I believe the Bible is the word of God. And so, when I was 35, I began to feel for myself. Instead of trying to get more construction business, I spent a lot of time just studying the Bible. I decided to make the Bible my university, so for the last 54 years I have really just used every moment that I have extra from other activities to study the Bible,” says Camping, who decided to avoid a PhD or any of that university-based nonsense. “I really was tempted to go back to school and get a degree in something, or an advanced degree. But after I prayed about it a whole lot I realised: when I was in college, I never did take notes because it was all in the books anyway. I studied the book and of course I dutifully went to class, because you have to do that. So, I decided, now we have the Bible. That is the book, that is the most wonderful book in the world and I’m going to make it my complete study. And so I decided to forget about going to university again, But I bought a Bible with a good leather cover so it could survive a lot of handling, and I began to cram like I used to cram my notes in the University of California, and I’ve been doing it ever since, for the last 54 years.” In those 54 years, Camping says he’s uncovered a secret timeline in the Bible that signals when the world will end. “I learned that the end of the Church age was 1988, and that, in Judgement Day, there would be great tribulation in 23 years time. Finally I found that the end

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of the world would be 2011,” he says. However, this isn’t the first time Camping has hinted that judgement day might be imminent: back in 1992, he published 1994?, which suggested that September 6 1994 would signal the end. Presumably, he was pretty embarrassed when nothing happened. These days, his followers are keen to emphasise the question mark in 1994?. There was one verse that he did not understand,” says Gunther Harringa, a volunteer for Family Radio. “Because of that, he mentioned 1994 as a possibility, but he wasn’t dogmatic about it. He knew that he hadn’t studied everything as carefully as he wanted to. Now, 17 years later, he discovered that 2011 is indeed the date, because he was able to do much more research. The proofs for this just happened a few years ago, and that was the icing on the cake.” A host on Family Radio programmes, and of some Christian TV shows, Harringa has been a missionary for some 37 years. He and his wife are still ministering, but Harringa says having a doomsday timetable has changed their life. “What it’s done for us is to bring home the reality that every day is important,” he explains. “It gives an urgency to the situation in the same way that, when the Japanese heard the early warning system, that was 15 minutes before the earthquake hit recently. They had 15 minutes to do whatever they needed to do to prepare.” Harringa has been extremely obliging with his 15 minutes, fielding several interviews on behalf of the organisation from his camper van in the Eastern United States, and has been pencilled in for an appearance on Sean Moncrieff’s Newstalk show on May

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23. He doesn’t reckon that he’ll be eating his words then, though. “We can’t even consider that possibility, because we have proofs from the Bible that are set in stone. There’s no room to wriggle out!” he laughs. “This is not just one man’s interpretation at all. This is information that God has given us.” Particularly in light of Camping’s 1994 mistake, it’s tempting to be cynical about preachers like Camping: after all, some men have made themselves very rich off doomsday preaching and Christianity generally down the years. Camping and his followers are quick to note, however, that he’s never made a bean from his work with Family Radio. “Family Radio is quite different from any other religious organisation; we are not in business to make money. In the 52 years of our existence, I have never received a nickel worth of salary or remuneration. In fact, when we set up Family Radio at the beginning, we wrote into our articles of incorporation that we were non-profit, and that if we ever sold the radio station and made money from that, the board of directors could never receive any of that as personal gain. I have also tried to follow through that, and have managed to live off of what I had left over from my construction business. I live very economically, and I have never, never had to take any money from Family Radio, in fact I give from time to time,” he says. Even so, he takes plenty of flack, much of it coming from committed Christians ringing his regular call-in radio show and calling him a false prophet. “We don’t monitor the calls and we have people who are very angry, or very cynical. But I understand that. They call me names,

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and it doesn’t bother me at all because I understand they’re fearful and they don’t want to believe it. The Bible says that there will be many scoffers and mockers at this time who just don’t want to listen. It’s because they don’t believe the Bible: they don’t understand that the Bible is right from the mouth of God, the whole Bible.” It’s clear that no amount of mockery or sneering will dissuade Camping and his followers from preaching the imminent end of creation: after all, the Bible tells them to. “In Ezekiel Chapter 33, God

commands those that are following Christ that, if they know the time of the end, they are commanded to warn the world. And everyone who is a true believer wants to be obedient to the Bible. So we are fighting all over the world. We’ve broadcast in 61 languages by short-wave radio, and in many languages through Family radio, through the internet with familyradio.com. We’re finding people all over the world who are listening,” he says. “This is springing up all over the world, because Christ has believers all over the world.” It’s altogether more comforting to dismiss the guy, though, not least because his vision of the end times isn’t a particularly sunny one. “On May 21, that will be the finish of the gospel programme as God brings judgement on all those who have not believed in him. And this world is going to be turned into a place of total horror. First of all there’s going to be a huge earthquake, far greater than anything that has ever happened before,” says Camping. “The recent earthquakes in Japan or in Chile are going to be child’s play compared with this huge earthquake.” From there, he says, the world will be turned into a living hell where unbelievers die agonising deaths in their droves until the world is finally destroyed in October. It’s worth noting that this cheery exposition comes after I ask, as an agnostic, what will become of me. Many an interviewee will tell a journalist to go to hell, or worse – not many people will happily tell someone else that they are bound to live for a few agonising months before finally dying. To give the mad old bigot his due, at least he doesn’t sugar-coat it. ■

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Diego Rivera, Portrait of Mrs. Natasha Gelman, 1943, oil on canvas, 115 x 153 cm Collection Vergel Foundation. © 2011 Banco de México, ‘Fiduciario’ en el Fideicomiso relativo a los Museos Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo. D.F. Photograph Gerardo Suter

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ADZ FUTURE DEATH AND DANCE MOVES WITH SUFJAN STEVENS Words Daniel Gray

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n the pantheon of musicians making Big American Music, Sufjan Stevens might be counted as an analog to Jonathan Franzen in literature. A couple of formative early records (A Sun Came, Enjoy Your Rabbit) acted as tasters for his expansive later work (the Michigan and Illinois albums, part of the now-abandoned project of documenting each American state with its own album). Stylistically recognizable for his banjo and piano-laden odes to heroes and villains both human and man-made, Stevens re-injected the Americana singer-songwriter stereotype with a newfound clarity of vision and musical adventurousness. The Age of Adz (that’s pronounced ‘Odds’, folks), his latest work, takes the non-conformity of his work to a wholly stranger field. Dashes of autotune and twenty minute songs aside, Adz represents either a rebirth or a new perspective from Stevens. Still intact is the vast musical tableau and the biblical intensity that are his calling cards. All you lucky ducks with tickets for his upcoming Olympia Theatre shows are in for a treat - not only is Adz an inspired piece of work, but now the Sufjan brigade have dance moves and neon costumes to match. Here is Sufjan Stevens talking about things.

Hey Sufjan. Where you at? I’m in Brooklyn. It’s good. We’ve had a real severe winter. But now it’s getting hot. Likewise. It’s pretty inappropriate since I’m sitting in the sun eating an ice-cream, but I thought we might talk about the end of the world. That sounds fine. The Japanese earthquake seemed to make everybody feel pretty apocalyptic. Maybe it’s the nuclear element. Maybe it’s the 2012 conspiracy videos on Youtube. But do you think the world is any closer to coming to an end than it was in, like, the 15th century? I think so. Geologically speaking, it’s a living breathing force that’s far beyond what we can contain as people, as civilization. We’ve lived in a delusion and somehow created a social, civic network that makes us feel completely severed from the natural world. Which is one of the great mistakes we’ve made. The Age of Adz hints at the story of Pompeii and Vesuvius, this entire population wiped out by an arbitrary force, which makes me think that maybe environmental consciousness is almost a waste of time - the Earth can still completely fuck us over of its own accord. Does that terrify you? It’s pretty terrifying. I guess somehow we think we’re the ultimate species because of our consciousness, like we have this leverage of our cerebral power. But we’re animals, and it’s all about survival of the fittest. I think that our life is not our own. We have the short privilege of being stewards of these bodies. But I think there’s a lot to be learned from meditating on mortality. I don’t know if I buy into the apocalypse as a literal event, but I do see it as a... slow and inevitable death... Stand-out lyric from the album: ‘words are futile devices’. Are words futile devices? I believe in the force of language, and I believe that words create reality. But I think that reality will always be an illusion, it’s not actuality, it’s a representation, and so there’s a limited value and function for any symbol. It’s just an indication of a deeper, greater transcendent thing. I’ve started to realize more and more lately that language is a utility, but it’s also a futility. This album explores different modes of communication, whether that’s sound or texture, or using dance in the live show - what kind of processes did you use to eke out some of the sounds on the album, and are they specifically expressive of anything more profound? A lot of the noise experiments are very much trial and error, and playing around with gear. Doing away with the strummy guitar and banjo and piano, and starting out with just gear, computers, electronics and synthesizers... A lot of it was

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Do you secretly hope there’s a retirement home in Florida at the end of all this for you? I guess there’s peace in death. Work is the curse of man, but it’s also a privilege. The work of our hands is an honour, it’s our legacy. It’s constant work, effort, and movement. We’ve applied this negative connotation to work - toiling and labouring is a curse in the Christian sense. But in the natural world it’s done with this instinct, there is no application of grief or pleasure to work. We got that Nintendo Wii game, Just Dance in our house recently, and I like how learning some really simple routines gets you over the self-consciousness that I think comes with dancing for most people - given that it’s so much related to remembering and repeating patterns, do you find it’s like learning new songs on an instrument? It’s definitely similar. They say that when you move you’re stimulating memories, that the act of dance is the act of remembering. I feel that when I’m making music and writing a song, I don’t feel like I’m venturing into something new, I feel like I’m gathering from something that exists already. I don’t know if it’s an event or an episode of my own, or if it’s the Universe’s. I’m just bringing it together and participating in that. And dance is the same as that. It’s traditional and ritualistic, it’s kind of like you’re participating in something much bigger. We’ve been doing a lot of dance in the show... as much as we can. I’m sort of stuck to the microphone, but the girls are getting to do it a lot more than I am. But we’re really trying to inhabit the music, physically, I never really experimented with that in the past. I’m enjoying associating movement with lyrics.

kind of built on a structure of accidents, and improv. Some of it’s deliberate in its refinement and architecture, but the source material is accidental. I don’t know how that relates to language except that maybe it’s like speaking in tongues... You don’t know what you’re saying, but you know it’s coming from inside. Do you still enjoy more traditional songwriting from a listener’s perspective? DM Stith, for example, is supporting you on tour, and he’d be classed as very much a traditional songwriter. I still love songwriting and folk music, and I guess I’m essentially still a folk musician. This is for me a season of experimentation. It’s an exercise for me to shake off old habits and try new things. I haven’t walked away from folk songwriting at all.

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McCarthy which is about the end of the world, of course.

A large part of folk songwriting is that it’s narrative-driven, and while Age of Adz is a lot more abstract you’re pretty well known for being a good storyteller. Do you engage with that outside of music? I used to write a lot of fiction when I was younger. I still write a little bit here and there, but it’s less and less so as I take music more and more seriously.

There’s this awesome book I’m reading for our new issue called The Atlas of Remote Islands, which is this combination of cartography and fiction. The author’s picked 50 islands from around the world that she has never, and will never visit, and written these one page anecdotes from each island, and then painstakingly drawn beautiful maps of the island, which reminded me of the erstwhile 50 States project. Oh yeah, that sounds fascinating. Islands have this pull on me too. As an island inhabitant do you think that there’s a whole different kind of culture that comes with living somewhere removed from other places around you?

Are you reading anything at the moment? I’m trying to read Proust’s Swann’s Way, the translation by Lydia Davis at the moment which is really beautiful, but dense, and requires patience and suspension of immediate desires... That’s the pretentious one I’m reading at the moment. Oh, actually! I just finished reading the Road by Cormac

Absolutely. I think it fosters a much denser mythology and cultural habits. And everybody is inbred. Would you like to own an island? I would love to live on an island. I was recently in Australia and New Zealand, and they’re extremely isolated. There’s a sense of isolation and mystery, and a kind of a quietness to it that I really enjoy.

The clips I’ve seen remind me of Parliament/Funkadelic. Are you expecting a lot more audience participation than maybe before? Neon-clad fans might be an interesting spectacle. I guess I don’t have discretion anymore... there’s no holding back. The performance is totally an exercise in excess, it’s definitely got a cosmic space-jam feel to it. It totally comes from Funkadelic, and probably Pink Floyd, and a little bit of Janet Jackson. If I could afford it and get away with it, I would completely have laser lights, balloons, confetti, the works. I think more conservative music fans are coming back around to the spectacle of a live show. It’s a really unique opportunity to experiment with a lot of new things. It’s become much more valuable and transcended the album. The show is an investment as an audience member, it’s a very special selfcontained event, and I think more people are taking advantage of that and trying to communicate with something new and different. I’m into spectacles. Sufjan Stevens plays shows at the Olympia on the 17th and 18th of May. His album, The Age of Adz, is available in all non-dubstep-specific record shops now.

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Joe Cornish is a busy man. He may be familiar to you from his work alongside Adam Buxton: on television in The Adam and Joe Show, and on radio/podcast with Xfm and, at the moment, BBC Radio 6, but his current work, in a creative capacity, includes scriptwriting for Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson and directing his debut feature: Attack the Block, a sci-fi/monster/crime/comedy film in which a Brixton suburb is besieged by bloodthirsty aliens. Coping with a slightly fuzzy phone connection, I press my face (and Dictaphone) to the receiver, despite his vocalised fears for my hygiene, and begin talking about this most unusual of British films. A genre melting-pot of this kind is an uncommon sight in modern cineplexes (and, certainly, in British cinema), and Cornish maintains that his inspiration in making ATB is rooted firmly in his childhood experiences of watching films; a modern throwback to the chaotic blockbusters of the 1980s on which he was raised, ‘when horrible things used to be fun.’ The crossover, he alleges, is principally that of ‘a gang film and a monster film’, name-checking Streets of Fire, The Warriors, Gremlins, Tremors, E.T. and the work of John Carpenter, who sought to

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make ‘little genre-pieces that have a neat social subtext to them as well’, as influences. This social-awareness is in evidence in ATB, which pits a group of ‘hoodies’ against hostile aliens who serve both as a source of action and as a reflection of British media rhetoric regarding those less-privileged youths in society. ‘The aliens are “feral”, “animalistic”, “bestial”, “territorial”... all words used to describe these sorts of kids, and they are set against one another in the film, to highlight the considerable distance between the two,’ he explains. ‘I was trying to make a compassionate film, one which treated human beings with dignity, which focused its violence on aliens and fantasy things while focusing dramatically on real people and real issues.’ ‘I was a massive fan of E.T. when I was about twelve; I was kind of obsessed with it,’ he continues, ‘and the thing about E.T. is that it’s a social-realist film mixed with a fantasy film. Everyone talks about Spielberg in terms of his incredible fantasy and adventure sequences, but he’s a brilliant realist director as well: the scenes of families around dinner tables in E.T. or Close Encounters are every bit as well observed and truthful as Mike Leigh’s stuff or Ken Loach or these British films

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of the 60s.’ The establishment of a cinematic realist ‘canvas’ allows for the fantastical elements of these films to function effectively as a fundamental diegetic element. For Cornish, achieving this dichotomy was extremely important: ‘I wanted to make the aliens as incredible as possible and the humans as real as possible’. Without it, he explains, the subtext of the film simply wouldn’t work, maintaining that ‘good science-fiction is about now, rather than the future’. After a very short but effective expository sequence, in which a young woman is mugged by the gang of youths who are to be the film’s main characters, the action begins: the gang kill an alien who attacks them and parade its body around the local area before more and more falling explosions herald the beginning of an invasion which threatens the entire community. These aliens are, unlike E.T., wholly unsympathetic, physically imposing and given to disembowelment. Cornish worked on the script for the upcoming The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn (produced by Stephen Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy and Peter Jackson and directed by Spielberg) alongside Edgar Wright and Steven Moffat before making Attack the Block, after which he screened his film to Kennedy, whose enjoyment of the film was well-received as both surreal and gratifying. Working in close proximity with people he considers his heroes was inspirational to him, and the longevity of Spielberg’s career (as well as others) suggests that Cornish is absolutely right to laud his work, particularly his more exuberant early work. It is important to note, in this regard, that Spielberg and Lucas’ decision to introduce aliens into the most recent Indiana Jones film was widely derided, proving that handling extreme fantasy within the mainstream requires a steady and considerate directorial hand, as well as conceptual firmness. There is a certain nostalgic feel to the film, pitting a ragtag, young gang of friends against a fantastical enemy in a cinematic world which does not extend beyond the immediate (this is not a ‘global’ invasion, punctuated by news-flashes and military footage, as is the norm, but a more discrete, idiosyncratic adventure more in tune with The Goonies or The Neverending Story). ‘It’s interesting to me that these movies were last around in the 80s,’ Cornish says, ‘Genres seem to be much more distinct nowadays. I mean, Raiders of the Lost Ark had exploding heads, Indiana Jones said “shit” in Temple of Doom...’ ‘Gremlins had Hulk Hogan,’ I add. ‘Yeah! And Elliott says “penis breath” at the dinner-table, and there’s that bit in The Goonies where Chunk snaps the penis off the statue and glues it on the wrong way up... Now if you go to see a horror film you know it’s going to be fucking horrible, if you see a family film you know it’s going to be anodyne and everything just seems to sit in its own quadrant. What’s more, you look at the

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THE LASERGUNS OF BRIXTON Joe Cornish’s ASBO alien-busters bring British cinema back to the future Words Oisín Murphy

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poster and you see a little box from the BBFC [British Board of Film Censorship] telling you exactly what you’re going to get. It didn’t used to be like that and I think it’s a bit of a shame. With Attack the Block, I kind of wanted to bring back that sense of “anything can happen!” and you don’t know exactly what genre you’re in.’ Attack the Block is certainly unorthodox in its approach, which combines disparate elements both in generic terms and with regard to its innate appeal to younger viewers alongside more ‘mature’ narrative features, with class-politics and drug-use featuring relatively heavily. ‘I think the BBFC are pretty liberal, actually,’ he says, having received a 15 certificate in the UK, ‘but there’s a sort of equal-and-opposites thing where, however liberal they are, they insist on telling you what you’re going to get... “Sure, we’ll let anything through, but we’ll insist on writing it in big letters on the poster so you can’t blame us for not warning you!” - which is a weird trade-off, and one which I think can damage the enjoyment or impact of the film.’ This curious brand of censoriousness, which perhaps operates by dissuasion, did not affect Cornish while he was making the film. One shot in particular, in which an unsympathetic character gets his still-moving face chewed off in close-up and gruesome detail, is a throwback to the excessive, ornate gore of Carpenter or Cronenberg (two directors who, incidentally, combine the ‘low-art’ or horror or sci-fi with incisive social commentary). ‘Films are more violent now, but less explicit about it,’ Cornish sighs, ‘when I was younger, people used to bleed when they got shot...

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It seems like film companies want the lowest rating possible while inserting as much implied or sanitised violence as they can... But a lot of people have mentioned that shot. I find it funny that it creeps people out, it seems so Grand Guignol and comic-book-y to me.’ Despite his forthright views regarding this sort of commercial censorship, Cornish got his high-concept directorial debut made at a time when British cinema is ‘in crisis’... ‘It’s always in crisis,’ he chuckles, ‘I wrote my O-Level History paper on “The Death of the British Film Industry” in 1984, with The Eady Levy, Palace Pictures collapsing and Goldcrest was collapsing. It’s been collapsing ever since.’ This tongue-in-cheek awareness of the spurious influence of media rhetoric is part of Cornish’s overall postmodern outlook, and a tangible belief in the possibility for the fantastical to be entertaining and socially relevant or analgesic. As far as funding the project was concerned, Cornish is unsure: ‘I was in fantastic company working with Big Talk Productions (Nira Park’s production company, whose credits include Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World) and I was very much protected from the [financial] process. I was left to the process of writing, directing and pre-production, while people much more skilled than me at that sort of thing raised the money. I can’t really speak with authority on it, all I know is, by some miracle, I was able to make my film and I have Film4, the now-defunct UK Film Council, StudioCanal and Optimum to thank for the opportunity.’ It is certainly refreshing to see a film of ‘untested’ appeal being made at a time where lo-fi,

familial films or the resilient regionallyaccented gangster flicks and period dramas dominate British releases. Cornish is adamant that he always wanted to make something high-concept for his first feature. ‘I really admire first-time filmmakers who bite off a bit more than they can chew,’ he laughs, ‘like with Spielberg’s Duel, Ridley Scott’s The Duellists, Luc Besson’s early stuff, or James Cameron’s Terminator, though technically his first film was Piranha 2: Flying Killers. I was just waiting for an idea that was kind of like one of those, that had a bit of action and adventure, fun and excitement and creatures in it, rather than some comingof-age thing.’ And Attack the Block is certainly that. The creatures, in particular, have been a talking point since it premiered at SXSW to rapturous applause in March, but Cornish wants to remain tight-lipped as regards their appearance, to protect the element of surprise so heavily besieged by the BBFC already. ‘One thing I will say,’ he begins to say, ‘is that they are on-camera, so when they attack the kids, they are attacking the kids, when they chase them, they’re really chasing them. I wanted them to be grounded, to be animalistic.’ There is definitely something rather terrestrial and immediate about the aliens, and the simplistic character design belies their multifarious threat to humans. While Attack the Block is a film enchanted by the genre-sprawling of 1980s Hollywood, it retains the socialrealist concerns of much of British cinema alongside thrilling sci-fi fantasy. Cornish retains a definitive Britishness in tandem with his strongly American influences, which are numerous and clear to be seen throughout the film. And as far as ‘Grand Guignols’ are concerned, a shot in which Moses, the film’s ‘hoodie’ chief protagonist, is saved from a fatal drop by grabbing onto a Union Jack hanging from an apartment window is, for me, one of the most memorable moments, rich in significance, of British cinema this year. ■ Attack the Block is released in Ireland and the UK on the 13th of May.

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Beasty Boys Wild Beasts Words Ian Lamont Picture Paul Phung

Wild Beasts are on the cusp of releasing their third album Smother on Domino Records, building on the extremely positive reception of their 2009 breakthrough Two Dancers. With their own brand of English eccentricity, part darkly naughty literary lyrics, part twisted crooning from twin vocalists Hayden Thorpe and Tom Fleming, Wild Beasts have plowed a furrow distinct from the perennial troupe of saviours-of-rock fêted each year. In anticipation of their performance at Forbidden Fruit Festival on June 4th, Totally Dublin spoke with Hayden and Tom about their new adventure. Were there any conceptual limitations put on this record? T: I think we wanted it to be human, as in made with hands. H: We’re still rooted in a complete pop

philosophy. Every sound or word has to have a function. There’s no wastage in that sense. So I think that’s always the overriding thinking – where does this play a part? What we do is always defined by its limitations more than its possibilities, so we gave ourselves six weeks to write and a month to record because we knew we didn’t want to get swallowed up in our own arses. There was always a danger of doing that and we wanted to make the distance between the first idea and the realisation on the record as small as possible. The record is slightly more synth-orientated. Was it a new discovery for you? T: Relatively new. We’d just fallen in love with the sounds of it more than anything – these big romantic pads and strange blips, the things that are kind of antimusical sounds and sampled sounds that can be very unorthodox, sampled voices and sampled percussive sounds that are tuned to be played on a keyboard. Again, just removing the familiarity. H: The song Lion’s Share is a good example. We had a whole band arrangement that was almost cartoon Wild Beasts. It was an amalgamation of Devil’s Crayon, All The Kings Men and Hooting and Howling. And we just felt we had to be braver than that.

Was there any piece of equipment that was particularly key to your creative process? H: I think what was key really was Richard [Formby], the guy who produced it. I think his philosophy is really all over the record. Instead of one big striding guitar, there are maybe a dozen parts which make up what a guitar would do itself. So that’s what I think abstraction is – taking that one solid object and breaking it into lots of parts. We’re really blessed that he invested in us a lot of his life’s work. He made field recordings from 20-30 years ago – of say a twelve-tonne forge hammer – and brought it to us. On Plaything, we wanted a bigger snare, on the chorus we really wanted it to leap out, and that’s the biggest noise we could ever dream of, so stick it on. I’m really interested in that idea of the producer who is a George Martin or a Jon Landau figure, guys who really helps artists but isn’t in the band, technically. H: Yeah, we did our first ever singles with him. He’s our mentor really. He’s the odd number in an even band. With four people, you need the fifth voice. T: He won’t speak up unless he has to, but when he does you know he’s right. H: I think importantly he never says “no” to anything. He probably knows that we’re going down the blindest alleys sometimes but he’ll always help us go down it, he’ll never say “I told you so!”. Where does the title Smother come from? H: I think it originated from the fact that we started writing the record three days after the last shows for Two Dancers. So it was a pretty exhausted state to be honest. The record became our consoling device and Smother refers to the pillow really, the place where we’re putting our heads. And “smother” has that twinned element to it where you smother someone with love but if it is too much, then it becomes suffocating. The record is all about that immersive quality and too much of a good thing, the euphoria of a good thing, followed by the disaster of too much of it.

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Words Rosa Abbott

Alex Martinis Roe

Pallas Projects have always put on stellar exhibitions, but their old premises in Stoneybatter could be tricky to get to without a Joycean knowledge of Dublin nooks and crannies - or the benefit of a GPS smartphone. So weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re happy theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve up-rooted and set up new home on the more central Lower Dominick Street, just around the corner from the Hugh Lane. With a web and logo redesign also on the cards, Pallas look set to be reborn as one of the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s foremost contemporary art spaces. For the month of May, the Berlin-based Australian artist Alex Martinis Roe is taking over the agenda. Inspired by the writings of Belgian feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray, Martinis Roe will explore the concept of communication: probing and querying the realm of human interaction via performative sessions. Gallery visitors will scribe messages in white chalk on a white chalkboard, overwriting one another to form a dense and abstract tapestry of words; chalk dust gathering on the toes of each attentive scrawler (so leave the blue suede shoes at home, eh). The exhibition runs from Friday 6th May until June 4th.

In Your Hands

Augmented Reality

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no surprise that John Cronin has caught the beady of hawk-eyed collectors both in Ireland and in foreign fields. A graduate of NCAD, the Dubliner quickly charged ahead to become a leader of Irish abstract painting: his bold and vivid works are enough to induce a state of retinal ecstasy. Intense yet finely attuned colours are thickly applied, layer-uponlayer, over an aluminium sheet. The heady concoctions take on both a textural tangibility as well a disconnectness akin to virtual reality: buzzing in front of you like a swarm of jilted megabites, despite being analogue creations. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Augemented Realityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; is a pretty apt name for an exhibition of his works then. His oversaturated and multi-layered approach mimics the inescapable and all-consuming digital culture which has swallowed modern existence whole. The result burns brighter than the flicker of a thousand laptop screens logging on and off worldwide; but the electrical jolt emanating from these exuberant works is far more spiritually affecting than any online creation. You can catch Augmented Reality at the Green on Red Gallery on Lombard Street from May 19 until June 18.

Few artists would claim to be in the industry for cash, but even so, it would take some steely bohemian principles to turn down 20,000 big ones. Nevertheless, Sofia Monika Swatek, the Polish artist behind the MadArt Gallery, is doing exactly that. On May 19, between 6 and 9pm, Swatek is hosting an exhibition of her works at her Lower Gardiner Street gallery (spot it by the pink bicycle outside), at which visitors are free to pillage and raid the gallery wall â&#x20AC;&#x201C; no questions asked. Why the sudden act of philanthropy? â&#x20AC;&#x153;I always wanted to make art available for everyone, and to help people be truly in touch with it,â&#x20AC;? Swatek explains. There are also some psychological reasons at play: a lot of emotional intensity and personal angst go into Swatekâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s expressionist paintings â&#x20AC;&#x201C; her last exhibition, which explored her recent pregnancy and childbirth, was titled Please Shoot Me. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need any emotions from 2008 lying in my studio,â&#x20AC;? she muses. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m a completely different person now.â&#x20AC;? Just as painting can be an act of catharsis for many, so, it seems, can be letting them go.

SOLAS 10

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3000 kg of rice are used to create the Dublin Dance Festival’s showcase piece, Songs of the Wanderers, danced by the sensational Cloud Gate theatre group of Taiwan. Cloud Gate have achieved such immense recognition and popularity that in Taiwan there is actually a day dedicated to their group. They are recognized internationally as Asia’s leading dance company. The festival this year focuses on Asian dance. Though festival director Laurie Uprichard insists that DDF never would pretend to embark upon the hubristic attempt to portray “all” of the most exciting world of contemporary Asian dance, the festival has achieved a wonderful harmony in their lineup. The dancers and choreographers participating in DDF have, on one hand roots in traditional Asian dance – Balbir Singh uses a precise, mathematical eye in his interpretation of north Indian Kathak dance, while Mugiyono Kasido is schooled in Javanese dance. There is also a great breadth of the contemporary to choose from – Hiroaki Umeda, for example, is well known for his use of digital mediums. His performance combines a dense electronic score to create an unearthly, disorientating atmosphere, with undulating liquid movement inspired by street-dance. Umeda was born Japanese but is now based in France, and originally studied photography, eventually putting together his own dance company, S20, in 2000. Yasuko Yakoshi will treat audiences to what is set to be a groundbreaking accomplishment. She will perform Bell, an interpretation of one of the most important and complex pieces of Kabuki theatre, the story of female metamorphosis from youth to mature beauty, using Dojoji, an account of revenge and unrequited love, as its source. When it emerged in the 1600s, kabuki was performed only by women – it was quickly assimilated into Japanese Edo culture, and became the only social gathering within which social classes were mixed. Eventually, female-only Kabuki was banned for being too erotic. There followed a transition to male-only Kabuki, which is still today the status-quo in Japan. Yasuko Yakoshi was trained in Tokyo by master Kabuki teacher Masumi Seyama, and has been banned from per-

Winged creatures Dublin Dance Festival Words Zoe Jellicoe

forming her re-working of the kabuki repertoire in Japan. Her performance will represent a daring and revolutionary new step for traditional Japanese dance. Now in their seventh year as a festival, in previous years, the Dublin Dance group have brought together performances which centre upon age, the nomadic lifestyle, and cultural identity. As festival director, Laurie Uprichard remarks, in years before the focus was more on the conceptual – themes often spark a love/ hate reaction. The choice to concentrate upon Asian dance is partly based upon the shifting cultural balance, which in many ways characterizes our current era, but also a sense of differences and subtleties not immediately apparent in contemporary Western dance. Tickets are available either online at www.dublindancefestival.ie, by phone at (01) 672 8815, or in person at the Dublin Dance Festival Box Office, The Culture Box, 12 East Essex Street, Temple Bar. It will take place in various venues across the city, including the Grand Canal Theatre, the Project Arts Centre, the Samuel Beckett Theatre, The Ark, DanceHouse, the Button Factory, and IMMA.

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Live gigs May Mon 2nd May

Crawdaddy, €tbc, 8pm Lead zeppelin-esque launch party

Ryan Sheridan Whelans, €12, 8pm

€28, 7.30pm 1990s alt-troubador

Rea Garvey The Workmans Club, €14.50, 8pm

Sat 7th May

Fri 13th May

Wed 18th May

Katzenjammer Academy 2, €16, 7.30pm He sounds like he plays a keytar

Drive-By Truckers The Button Factory, €20, 7.30pm Making another Dublin pit-stop

Legend – A Tribute To Bob Marley The Academy, €15, 23.15pm Also known as Ligind in Munster

Sufjan Stevens Olympia Theatre, from €39.20

Wilko Johnson Whelans, €26.50, 7.30pm Two English Rubgy World Cup winners team up Tue 3rd May John Grant (Bella Union) The Button Factory, €19.50, 7.30pm

Wed 25th May

The Frank and Walters The Workman’s Club, €21, 8pm Cork’s finest, still going The McGetigans Academy 2, €11.80, 7pm It’s a family affair Talvin Singh and Niladri Kumar Crawdaddy, €20/24.50, 8pm Tabla and sitar virtuosi to blow yizzer minds

Wed 4th May Terry Reid The Button Factory, €10, 7.30pm Once turned down Robert Plant’s job in the Zep

The High Kings Vicar Street, €33.60, 7.30pm Creepy boyband-Paddywhackery hybrid

Sanzkrit The Workman’s Club, €8/€6, 8pm Speaking in tongues

Sun 8th May

Thu 5th May

Dan Deacon The Button Factory, €20, 7.30pm Explorer of the square waves

Bill Callahan The Academy, €19.50, 7.30pm Morose, brilliant songwriter/indie lothario Kitty Daisy & Lewis The Button Factory, €tbc, 7.30pm Gimme summa that rock ‘n’ rollin music

Noah and The Whale The Academy, €23, 7.30pm You again?

Moon Duo The Workman’s Club, €16, 8pm Looney Two-nes Sat 14th May Royseven Academy, Sold Out, 1pm & 7pm Afternoon and evening shows Scout Niblet Whelans, €16.50, 7.30pm Offbeat songer-singwriter

Grimes Upstairs in Whelans, €9, 8pm Hotly tipped Canadian pop weirdist with support from Catscars

Mon 9th May

Mon 16th May

Wallis Bird Whelans, €23, 8pm Special acoustic show

Manic Street Preachers Olympia Theatre, from €39.20, 7.30pm Smarter than Mensa, Miller and Mailer

Jamie Lawson Vicar Street, €18, 8.30pm

Eric Clapton The O2, €70/81.25, 6.30pm Got them arena rock blues

Explosions In The Sky Vicar Street, €25, 7.30pm Need some slow motion part of your life soundtracked?

Fri 6th May

Tue 10th May

My Passion Academy 2, €12.50, 7.30pm …Is doing the listings

Soilent Green Whelans, €21, 7pm With guests Dripback

HAL Whelans, €10, 8pm I’m afraid I can’t allow that

No Roller

Jazz May

Wed 1st June

Cass McCombs The Grand Social, €15, 8pm Woebegone songwriting genius

The Tallest Man On Earth Vicar Street, €24, 7.30pm Robert Wadlow’s Ableton side-project

Suede Olympia Theatre, from €44.20

Ellie Goulding Olympia Theatre, €28, 7.30pm

Jinx Lennon Whelans, €10, 8pm The Nations Greatest Protest Singer (SelfProclaimed)

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart The Button Factory, €16, 7.30pm Travails of the Arsenal Fan Thu 2nd June

Boyce Avenue Olympia Theatre, €23, 7.30pm Me, Alejandro, Daniel and Fabian down by the schoolyard

Roddy Woomble The Workman’s Club, €15.00, 8pm Disappointing, his solo moniker is not JFK

Sat 21st May

Fri 27th May

Spring Break Tripod, €26.50, 7.30pm Support from Girls with Low Self-Esteem

Chris De Burgh Grand Canal Theatre, €44.50, 7.30pm “There’s nobody here…”

Sun 22nd May

Peter Doherty The Academy, €28, 7.30pm Shambolic, baby

The Mountain Goats Whelans, €20, 8pm The best ever death metal band in Denton

Maria & Kieran Whelans, €17.50, 8pm Maria Doyle Kennedy and Kieran Kennedy in a specially acoustic show

Sufjan Stevens Olympia Theatre, from €39.20 Adz Future

Roger Waters presents The Wall The O2, €59.80-86.25, 8pm Well its sold out.

Cold War Kids The Academy €26.50, 7.30pm Hot Peace Parents

Suede Olympia Theatre from €44.20, 7.30pm Return of the Wild Ones

Essential Big Band Grainger’s Pub, Malahide Rd. 9.30pm, e5

Jam Session Centre for Creative Practices, 15 Lwr. Pembroke St., 8pm, e7 Thursdays Isotope with Cleveland Watkiss (UK) May 5th playing the music of Thelonious Monk May 19th. 9pm, e10, JJ Smyths, Aungier St.

Olly Murs Vicar Street, €39.50, 8pm Future “I’m A Celebrity…” contestant

Emeralds Whelans, €16.50, 8pm

The Deans + The Hounds Crawdaddy, €10, 8pm Crusty Olds + Release The… Sat 4th June 3OH!3 The Academy, €21, 7.30pm 808 State’s younger brother Forbidden Fruit Festival Royal Hospital, Kilkainham, €49.50/90, 2pm Flaming Lips, Wild Beasts, Jape & more Sun 5th Jun

Sat 28th May Katherine Jenkins The O2, from €49.80, 6.30pm Whales, whales, bloody great fishes are whales Futures Academy 2, €13, 7.30pm Trading well

International Bar, Wicklow St. 9pm, e8

Kevin Morrow Qrt. Mespil Bar, Burlington Hotel, D4, 7.30pm, Free

Fridays

MAY (ONE OFFS)

La Cuvee Bistro and Wine bar, Custom House Square, IFSC., 6pm, Free May 6th Anne Marie Kelly May 13th Midnight Blue May 20th Kristina G. May 27th Colette Henry

The Chet Baker Story with The John Leighton (Piano) Trio JJ Smyths, Aungier St., Mon May 2nd

La Dolce Vita, Cow’s Lane, Temple bar, 9pm, Free Every Friday Jazz Every Saturday Latin/Samba Saturdays

Brass Jaw feat. Ryan Quigley (Trumpet) JJ Smyths, Aungier St., Mon May 9th

Peter King (Alto Sax) Qrt. JJ Smyths, Aungier St., Fri May 6th

Wednesdays The House, 4 Main St. Howth, Co.Dublin May 4th Louis Stewart Trio May 11th Rock Fox Trio May 18th Son Son Bossanova Trio May 25th Hugh Buckley Trio

Phosphorescent The Workman’s Club, €18.45, 8pm All attendees must wear beards

Fri 3rd June

Jack L Vicar Street, €35, 7.30pm Give ’em L.

Swing Factory O’Reillys Bar, Seafort Ave. Sandymount, 8pm, Free

TOTALLY DUBLIN

Thu 26th May

Tue 24th May

Hot House Big Band The Mercantile Bar, Dame St. 9.15pm, e8 18 Piece Big Band

Tue 31st May

Ellie Goulding Olympia Theatre, €28, 7.30pm Brit school pop starlet

Tue 17th May

Fitzpatricks Castle, Killiney 12.30pm, Free

Jessica Lea Mayfield The Grand Social, €16, 7.30pm “A cool Taylor Swift”

Sade The O2, €54.80-86.25, 8pm With help from Jamaica’s Jolly Boys

Wed 11th May

Grant Lee Buffalo Vicar Street

Sun 29th May

Meat Puppets The Button Factory, €17.50, 8pm “I’m thing one, this is thing two”

Barry McCormack Crawdaddy, €tbc, 8pm Former Jubilee Allstar returns

Rush The O2, from €57.80, 6.30pm What about the voice of Geddy Lee, how did it get so high?

Kings of Leon Slane Castle, Meath, Sold Out! With Elbow, Thin Lizzie and Mona Soul Jam for The Musical Youth Foundation The Workman’s Club, €15, 8pm Its for charidee

After The Explosions Crawdaddy, €7, 8pm Robocop’s third favourite band of all time

Roger Waters presents The Wall The O2, €59.80-86.25, 8pm So ya thought ya might like to go to the show?

7.30pm, Free

Henrietta Game The Workman’s Club, €10, 8pm With guests String Arrangements

MATMOS The Button Factory, €20, 7.30pm Seated gig for lauded experimental electronica duo

Mondays

Zinc Jazz Club Pacino’s (Cellar bar), Suffolk St. D2. May 1st TBC May 8th Suzanne Savage May 15th Jenna Harris May 22nd Aoife Doyle May 29th Georgia Cusack 5.30pm, e8/6

Fri 20th May

…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead Whelans, €19, 8pm Raucous and overblown Texan rock troupe

Mon 23rd May

Sundays

Stella Bass Trio Cafe en Seine, Dawson St., 2pm, Free

Relish Crawdaddy, €17.50, 8pm Ballymaloe’s finest export

Suede Olympia Theatre, from €44.20

The Story of Motown Olympia Theatre, €25, 7.30pm Make brilliant single, screw artist, repeat

Thu 12th May Rakim (Paid in Full Tour) The Button Factory, €22.50, 7.30pm No sign of Eric B

OBCD The Workman’s Club, €tbc, 8pm Rockers with a weight problem

Sun 15th May

Warpaint Tripod, €17/20, 7.30pm More hotly-tipped than a branding iron

Max Tundra The Workman’s Club, €15, 8pm Hyperactive, borderline-annoying nerd-pop

Perfume Genius The Sugar Club, €19.50, 7.30pm Ever-so-fey indie balladry

Queens of the Stone Age Olympia Theatre, €44.20 Is Jack Bauer even in this band anymore?

Love Minus Zero Whelans, €12, 8pm Dylan tribute act

Justin Sullivan & Dean White Academy 2, €16.50, 7pm From New Model Army

The Secret Sisters Academy 2, €12.55, 7.30pm New-age traditional country rears it head

Thu 19th May

Alex Winston The Sugar Club, €13.50, 7.30pm Not the only Lower Peninsula Michiganian in town this month

Guided by Voices Celebration Night The Workman’s Club, Free, 8pm Game of pricks

Mercury Rev Perform Deserter’s Songs Vicar Street, €33.60, 8pm Hope they perform that hidden track too

Eleventy Four The Workman’s Club, €10, 8pm Bill Callahan’s songwriting nemesis

Vladimir The Sugar Club, €22.50, 7.30pm President Putin’s speaking tour hits Dublin

Ryan Sheridan Whelans, €12, 8pm Starting to think he lives in Whelans

Sweet dronescapologists with heart

Honor Heffernan Qrt. Bewleys, Grafton St. Sat May 14th, 8.30pm, e18

Forbidden Fruit Festival Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, €49.50/90, 2pm Aphex Twin, Battles, Caribou & more Peter Delaney Whelans, €8, 8pm Plays the “ukelele role”

Georgia Cusack Quintet Kevin Barry Room, NCH Sun May 8th, 8.30pm, Free Patrick Groenland Qrt. International Bar, Wicklow St. Tues May 10th, 9pm, e8 Kevin Barry Room, NCH Thurs May 12th, 8.30pm, e10 The Back Loft, 7-11 St. Augustine St. D8 Tues May 17th, 7.30pm, e10 Hello Operator, 12 Rutland Place, D1 Fri May 20th Madame Anne and the Teasers Break for the Border, Fri May 27th, 10pm, e15

Alex Mathias Qrt.

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Classical May Sun 1st May Macra National Talent Final NCH, Main Auditorium, €20, 6:30pm 100 performers from the Macra na Feirma branches

Songs From The Harp Room NCH, John Field Room, €12, 1:05pm Claire Roche plays Irish and Classical harps John O’Conor NCH, Main Auditorium, €25-40, 8pm An evening of chamber music

Tue 3rd May

Wed 11th May Oilean & Other Worlds NCH, Main Auditorium, €11-38, 8pm Micheál Ó Súilleabháin with RTÉ Concert Orchestra Thu 12th May

Sat 7th May Final Year Degree Concerto Performance NCH, Main Auditorium, €10, 8pm Students from the Royal Irish Academy of Music

“And The Band Played On” 150th Anniversary of the R.I.C. Band NCH, Main Auditorium, €15-20, 8pm Celebrating Irish police bands

Wed 4th May

High Achievers NCH, John Field Room, €5, 7:30pm Students from CDVEC Music Centre, Kylemore College plus guests Fri 13th May

Don Giovanni NCH, Main Auditorium, €20-48, 7:30pm Tue 17th May

Kaleidoscope: A Night of Music Odessa Club, €8, 8.30pm An evening of specially created music, old and new Thu 5th May Blow the Dust Orchestra Bealtaine Concert NCH, Main Auditorium, €5, 1:05pm Senior citizens orchestra celebrates Bealtaine Brian Kennedy & His Musicians NCH, Main Auditorium, €35-25, 8pm Featuring songs from the northern singer’s career Fri 6th May

Celebrating 30 Years of The Fields of Athenry NCH, Main Auditorium, €25-35, 8pm A celebration of the music of Pete St. John Mon 9th May “Playing Time”! NCH, John Field Room, €8, 7:30pm Young European Strings School of Music Tue 10th May Horizons Featured Composer: Philip Hammond NCH, Main Auditorium, Free, 1:05pm Celebrating the composers 60th birthday Michael O’Toole Guitar NCH, John Field Room, €10-16, 8pm Classical guitar recital

Fergus Sheil NCH, John Field Room, €12 1:05pm An evening of piano jazz and boogie-woogie RTE NSO Hamilton – Cries and Whispers NCH, Main Auditorium, €10-35, 8pm Featuring the music of Sibelius and Nielsen Sat 14th May Don Giovanni NCH, Main Auditorium, €20-48, 7:30pm Mozart’s famous opera Sun 15th May And I Love You So ... The Perry Como Story NCH, Main Auditorium, €25-38.50, 8pm Tony Jones as the voice of Como Mon 16th May

Kaleidoscope: A Night of Music Odessa Club, €8, 8.30pm An evening of specially created music, old and new

Mon 23rd May Horizons Featured Composer: Jerome de Bromhead NCH, Main Auditorium, Free, 1:05pm Celebrating the composer’s music

Fri 3rd June Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra NCH, Main Auditorium, €30-75, 8pm International Concert Series - music of Tchaikovsky & Prokofiev

The PreMadonnas presents “The Leading Man” NCH, John Field Room, €10, 1:05pm

Wed 18th May Tue 24th May Julian Rachlin & Itamar Golan NCH, Main Auditorium, €25-45, 8pm Part of the International Concert Series 2010-11

Sun 8th May Let There Be Love NCH, Main Auditorium, €11-38, 8pm A celebration of Nat ‘King’ Cole

A Sea Symphony NCH, Main Auditorium, €15-30, 8pm Presented by the Culwick Choral Society

Final Year Degree Concerto Performances NCH, Main Auditorium, €10, 8pm More RIAM performers

Movie Classics NCH, Main Auditorium, €11-38, 8pm RTÉ Concert Orchestra play hits from films Sat 4th June

Thu 19th May RTÉ Concert Orchestra - American Salute NCH, Main Auditorium, €11-38, 8pm Featuring music of Gershwin and Bernstein

Ilse de Ziah and Lioba Petrie NCH, Kevin Barry Room, €10, 8:30pm Presented by ICC

Trio Time €7.50, 10:30am, 11.20am, 12:10pm NCH, Kevin Barry Room Workshops for young maestros

Fri 27th May Fri 20th May Classical Cool: Jazz Meets Classical NCH, John Field Room, €15, 1:05pm The Jerry Creedon Ensemble mix things up RTE NSO - Mozart NCH, Main Auditorium, €10-35, 8pm Music from one of the greats

Sun 5th June Stride Plays Ragtime & Stride Piano NCH, John Field Room, €15, 1:05pm Conor ‘Stride’ O’Brien presents ragtime piano music

ECM Perspectives NCH, Main Auditorium €20-25, 7pm A showcase of the worlds finest jazz label

RTE NSO - Full Circle NCH, Main Auditorium, €10-35 8pm With the music of Rimsky-Korsakov and Rachmaninov

Sat 21st May Wed 1st June Meet the Orchestra NCH, Main Auditorium, €10, 12:00pm A special family for school-aged children and families

Richard Marx in Concert NCH, Main Auditorium, €40-46.50, 8pm Schmaltzy singer

Theatre May Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

Righteous Money

The Parting Glass

A wealthy Southern family gathers to celebrate Big Daddy’s 65th birthday. Brick the alcoholic son, married to the beautiful Maggie ‘the Cat’ hasn’t slept with his wife since his friend Skipper died, leaving Maggie sexually frustrated and childless, unlike Brick’s brother Gooper and his wife’s generous brood of children. Gate Theatre, Until 18th June, 8pm, €20 - 35

Dishing out advice on deal-making, stock buying and sleeping with your assistant, a sexually rapacious and insanely rich TV provocateur takes on the tanking economy. Project Arts Centre, May 9th - 14th, 9.30pm, €15/13

After emigrating to Germany to find work during the 80’s, Eoin made a new life for himself with the help of his wife Frieda and son Dieter. Now he returns to an Ireland that has boomed and bust. ‘ Draiocht, May 21st, 8pm, €18

Bloodknot

Rank

The story of two half brothers trapped in the madness of South Africa’s apartheid. Project Arts Centre, May 30th - June 11th, 8.15pm, €18/16

Carl, an overweight Dublin taxi driver, owes Jackie Farrell three grand in gambling debts. Jackie wants the money and he wants it now, not least because an armed robbery he masterminded has just gone badly wrong. Draiocht, May 19th - 21st, 8.15pm, €16

The Beauty Queen of Leenane High in the mountains of Galway liev a lonely spinster Maureen and her devilishly manipulative mother Mag. Maureen longs for the romance that will spirit her away. But if she goes, who will stir the lumps out of Mag’s Complan? Gaiety Theatre, May 11th - June 4th, 8pm, €15 -50 No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs Set in 1981, South London – against the backdrop of Thatcherism,’suss laws’, Brixton Riots, IRA bombing campaign,The Yorkshire Ripper and a Royal Wedding., this play interweaves between factual events and fiction, mixing theatre with installations.New Theatre, May 16th - 21st, 8pm, €15

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Loose Canon is ripping A Midsummer Night’s Dream to shreds, exposing a sordid nightmare of lust, rejection, manipulation and self-denial - a darkly comic re-imaging of Shakespeare’s classic tale for the 21st Century Project Arts Centre, May 31st - June 18th, 8pm, €20/16 The Shaughran The story of how a roguish poacher named Conn becomes embroiled in personal, social and political struggles in county Sligo amid a plethora of comic situations. Mill Theatre, May 17th - May 21st, 8pm, €18/15

Quare Times According to Sydney Frankie Flynn is a northsider with long settled views on everything from child rearing and the role of women, to the quality of the pint in Dublin’s pubs. This doesn’t equip him well to cope with the endless challenges thrown up by his family, friends, and the changing world around him. New Theatre, May 23rd - June 4th, 8pm, €12/15 Dublin Gay Theatre Festival For programme, see www.projectartscentre.ie Project Arts Centre, May 2nd - 14th, €15/13/10

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Sold out in early spring, featuring Rose Henderson in Gerry Lynch’s new work. Mill Theatre, May 23rd - June 3rd, 1.10pm, €14/12 The TInker’s Curse The story of a travelling man who climbs Croagh Patrick to do penance for the sins of a lifetime Draiocht, May 5th - 6th, 8pm, €15/12 Axis Ballymun, May 25th - 26th, 8pm, €15/12

Pineapple Paula is all heart and fire. In a tumbledown flat in Ballymun, she lives for others; her two kids, her mate and her reckless sister Roxanna who couldn’t care for anyone but herself. Paula’s ex fella is a waster, her Ma is hard work and her mates are all being rehoused Axis Ballymun, May 11th - May 14th, 8pm, €15/12

Abbey Theatre, April 27th – June 25th, 7.30pm, €15-40 Somewhere Under the Rainbow Sharon Sexton plays Liza Minelli. An original script written by TG4’s Cillian O’ Donnachadha, an extract of this piece was the hit of the 2009 DIGTF Winter Festival Theatre Shorts. Civic Theatre, May 6th, 8pm, €20-16 The Tinker’s Curse A travelling man climbs Croagh Patrick, doing penance for the sins of a lifetime. Along the way we meet his wife Julia, his daughter Michelle, and Johnny Reilly, a settled man who comes a-courting. Performed by the writer and accompanied by musician Finbar Coady. Civic Theatre, May 12th – 14th, 8pm, €16-20 Grumpy Old Women Join the three stars of “Menopause, the musical” for “an orgy of middle aged mayhem”. Don’t forget your rolling pin and bifocals. Civic Theatre, May 24th – 28th, 6pm/8pm/8.30pm, €25/€30/€28

Blake Magical Comedy Show As part of the two-day tribute Across the Boundaries: Talking about Thomas Kilory, being put on by the Oscar Wile Centre, the Abbey will present a reading of Blake, directed by Patrick Mason in the Samuel Beckett Theatre. Samuel Beckett Theatre, April 30th – May 11th, 8pm

Join and be amazed. Irish magician Jack Wise will treat attendees to a night of food, mystery, and ventriloquism. A three course meal will also be served by the Interval Bistro. Civic Theatre, May 27th – 28th, 8pm, €36 The Witches

Pygmalion Bernard Shaw’s most popular play performed at the Abbey for the first time ever. Linguistic professor Henry Higgins accepts a bet to transform Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle into a lady in this play, later adapted into the famous Broadway musical and Audrey Hephburn film My Fair Lady.

Roald Dahl’s classic, as adapted by David Wood, performed by a mixture of three year olds and adults. Civic Theatre, May 30th – June 4th, 7pm, €10-15

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Clubbing weekly May Mondays Upbeat Generation @ Think Tank Think Tank, Temple Bar, D2 Pop, Rock and Soul 11pm Sound Mondays The Turk’s Head, Parliament St & Essex Gate, Temple Bar, D1 Indie, Rock, Garage and Post Punk 11pm, Free Island Culture South William, 52 Sth William St, D2 Caribbean cocktail party Free Dice Sessions The Dice Bar, Queen St, Smithfield, D7 DJ Alley Free King Kong Club The Village, 26 Wexford St, D2 Musical game show 9pm, Free

The George, George’s St., D2 Free, 9pm All drinks €4 or less 3 Jagerbombs for €10

Takeover Twentyone Club and Lounge, D’Olier St, D2 Electro, Techno 11pm, €5

Tuesdays

John Fitz + The K9s + DJ Mick B Fitzsimons Bar, 21-22 Wellington Quay, Temple Bar, D2 Free, 9 – 1.30am

C U Next Tuesday Crawdaddy, Old Harcourt St Station, D2 A mix every type of genre guaranteed to keep you dancing until the wee small hours. 11pm, €5 Play with DJ’s Dany Doll & Eddie Bolton Pravda, Lower Liffey Street, D1 Soul/Pop/Indie/Alternative. 8.30pm - 11.30pm. Taste Solas Bar, 31 Wexford St, D2 Lady Jane with soul classics and more 8pm, Free Rap Ireland The Pint, 28 Eden Quay, D1 A showcase of electro and hip hop beats 9pm, Free

Soap Marathon Monday/Mashed Up Monday The George, Sth. Great Georges St, D2 Chill out with a bowl of mash and catch up with all the soaps 6.30pm, Free

Groovilisation South William, Sth. William St. D2 8pm, Free DJs Izem, Marina Diniz & Lex Woo

The Industry Night Break for the Border, 2 Johnstons Place, Lr Stephens Street, D2 Pool competition, Karaoke & DJ 8pm

Tarantula Tuesdays The Turk’s Head, Parliament St & Essex Gate, Temple Bar, D2 Disco, House, Breaks 11pm

Make and Do-Do with Panti Panti Bar, 7-8 Capel Street, D1 Gay arts and crafts night 10pm

Sugarfree Ri-Ra, Dame Court, D2 Soul, Ska, Indie, Disco, Reggae 11pm, Free

DJ Ken Halford Buskers, Temple Bar, D2 Chart Pop, Indie, Rock 10pm

Le Nouveau Wasteland The Dice Bar, Queen St, Smithfield, D7 Laid back French Hip Hop and Groove Free

Euro Saver Mondays Twentyone Club and Lounge, D’Olier St, D2 DJ Al Redmond 11pm, €1 with flyer

Star DJs Sin, Sycamore St, Temple Bar, D2 Disco, House, R’n’B 9pm

Recess Ruaille Buaille, South King St, D2 Student night 11pm, €8/6

Juicy Beats The Village, 26 Wexford St, D2 Indie, Rock, Classic Pop, Electro 10.30pm, Free

Therapy Club M, Blooms Hotel, D2 Funky House, R‘n’B 11pm, €5 Lounge Lizards Solas Bar, 31 Wexford St, D2 Soul music 8pm, Free n Dolly Does Dragon, The Dragon, South Georges St, D2 Cocktails, Candy and Classic Tunes 10pm, Free Oldies but Goldies Ri-Ra, Dame Court, D2 Blooming Good Tunes 11pm, Free Austin Carter + Company B + DJ Dexy Fitzsimons Bar, 21-22 Wellington Quay, Temple Bar, D2 Free, 9pm – 1.30am DJ Darren C Fitzsimons Club, 21-22 Wellington Quay, Temple Bar, D2 Free, 11pm Chart, pop, and dance with a twist Piss-up with Peaches

TOTALLY DUBLIN

Jezabelle The Purty Kitchen, 34/35 East Essex St, Temple Bar, D2 Live Classic Rock 7pm, Free before 11pm

DJ Keith P Fitzsimons Club, 21-22 Wellington Quay, Temple Bar, D2 Free, 11pm Classic hits & party pop Wednesdays Songs of Praise The Village, 26 Wexford St., D2 The city’s rock and roll karaoke institution enters its fifth year. 9pm, Free Hump Pravda, Lower Liffey Street, D1 DJ’s Niall James Holohan & Megan Fox. Indie/ rock/alt/hiphop & Subpop 8.30pm - 11.30 pm Dublin Beat Club Sin è Bar, 14 Upr Ormond Quay, D Showcase live music night 8pm, Free Galactic Beat Club The Turk’s Head, Parliament St & Essex Gate, Temple Bar, D1 Disco, Boogie, House, Funk and Balearic 11pm, Free Blasphemy Spy, Powerscourt Town Centre, South William St, D2 Upstairs Indie and pop, downstairs Electro 11pm, €5 Beatdown Disco South William, Sth. William St. D2 Stylus DJs Peter Cosgrove & Michael McKenna - disco, soul, house 8pm, Free Wild Wednesdays Twentyone Club and Lounge, D’Olier St, D2 Frat Party €5 entry, first drink free

Unplugged @ The Purty The Purty Kitchen, 34/35 East Essex St, Temple Bar, D2 Live acoustic set with Gavin Edwards 7pm, Free before 11pm Space ‘N’ Veda The George, Sth Great Georges St, D2 Performance and dance. Retro 50s, 60s, 70s 9pm, Free before 10pm, after 10pm €8/€4 with student ID DJ Alan Healy Buskers, Temple Bar, D2 Chart Pop, Current Indie and Rock Music 10pm Mud The Twisted Pepper, 54 Middle Abbey St, D2 Bass, Dubstep, Dancehall 11pm, €10 (varies if guest) Sexy Salsa Dandelion Café Bar Club, St. Stephens Green West, D2 Latin, Salsa 8pm, Free Rob Reid + EZ Singles + DJ Karen G Fitzsimons Bar, 21-22 Wellington Quay, Temple Bar, D2 Free, 9pm – 1.30am DJ Darren C DJ Darren C Fitzsimons Club, 21-22 Wellington Quay, Temple Bar, D2 Chart, pop & dance with a twist Free, 11pm Space N’Veda The George, George’s St., D2 Free, 11pm Exquisite Mayhem with Veda, Davina & Guests Music on the Rocks South William Swing, jive, cabaret 8pm, Free

Shaker The Academy, Middle Abbey St, D2 11pm, €8/6 A Twisted Disco Ri-Ra, Dame Crt, D1 80s, Indie, and Electro 11pm, Free Synergy Solas Bar, 31 Wexford St, D2 All kinds of eclectic beats for midweek shenanigans 8pm, Free

Glitz Break for the Border, Lwr Stephens Street, D2 Gay club night with Annie, Davina and DJ Fluffy 11pm

Dean Sherry Sin, Sycamore St, Temple Bar, D2 Underground House, Techno, Funk 9pm

DJ Stephen James Buskers, Temple Bar, D2 Chart Pop, Indie 10pm

1957 The Dice Bar, Queen St, Smithfield, D7 Blues, Ska Free

Funky Sourz Club M, Temple Bar, D2 DJ Andy Preston (FM104) 11pm, €5

Soup Bitchin’ Panti Bar, 7-8 Capel St, D1 Gay student night The Song Room The Globe, 11 Sth Great Georges St, D2 Live music 8.30pm, Free

DJs and dancing until 2.30am. Cocktail promotions. 8pm, Free CBGB Pygmalion, South William St, Dublin 2 Crackity Jones & Readers Wives on the decks Free Guateque Party Bia Bar, 28-30 Lwr Stephens St, D2 Domingo Sanchez and friends play an eclectic mix 8.30pm The LITTLE Big Party Ri-Ra, Dame Crt, D1 Indie music night with DJ Brendan Conroy 11pm, Free Mr. Jones & Salt The Twisted Pepper, 54 Middle Abbey Street, D2 House, Electro, Bassline 11pm, €8/5 Alternative Grunge Night Peader Kearney’s, 64 Dame St, D2 Alternative grunge 11pm, €5/3

Groovalizacion bringing their infectious and tropical selection including Cumbia, Samba, Dub, Reggae, Balkan, Latin and Oriental Sound 9pm, Free DJ Jim Kenny Buskers, Temple Bar, D2 Chart Pop, Current Indie and Rock Music 10pm Chewn Crawdaddy, Old Harcourt St. Station, D2 Mincey indie music 11pm, €5 The Beauty Spot Dakota Bar, 8 South William Street, Dublin 2. A new night of Fashion, Beauty, Shopping and Drinks in association with Style Nation and sponsored by Smirnoff. 7pm, Free The Odeon Movie Club The Odeon, Old Harcourt St. Station, D2 Classic Movies on the Big Screen at 8pm. Full waiter service and cocktails from €5. June Dark Comedy. 8pm, Free

Eamonn Sweeney The Village, 26 Wexford St, D2 10pm

Tanked-Up Tramco Nightclub, Rathmines Student Night, Drinks From €2 10:30pm, €5

Jason Mackay Sin, Sycamore St, Temple Bar, D2 Dance, R’n’B, House 9pm

Jugs Rock O’Reillys, Tara St. Late Rock Bar, All Pints €3.20, Pitchers €8 9pm, €5

Fromage The Dice Bar, Queen St, Smithfield, D7 Motown Soul, Rock Free

Thirsty Student Purty Loft, Dun Laoghaire Student Night, All Drinks €3.50 10pm, €5 entry

Davina’s House Party The George, Sth Great Georges St, D2 Drinks Promos, Killer Tunes and Hardcore Glamour 9pm, Free before 11pm, €4 with flyer

Davina’s Club Party The George, George’s St., D2 Free, 11pm Davina Divine hosts with Peaches Queen, Bare Buff Butlers & Special Guests

After Work Party The Purty Kitchen, 34/35 East Essex St, Temple Bar, D2 Live Rock with Totally Wired. 6pm, Free before 11pm

M*A*S*H South William DJs Matjazz, Baby Dave, Lex Woo 8pm, Free Fridays

Thursdays

The DRAG Inn The Dragon, Sth Great Georges St, D2 Davina Devine presents open mic night with prizes, naked twister, go-go boys and makeovers. 8pm, Free

Hed-Dandi Dandelion, St. Stephens Green West, D2 DJs Dave McGuire & Steve O

First Taste Crawdaddy, Old Harcourt St Station, D 2 A new weekly party playing all new and advance music in The Lobby Bar 7pm, Free

Sounds@Solas Solas, Wexford St, D2 9pm-1am, Free Soul @ Solas Solas Bar, 31 Wexford St, D2 Mr Razor plays the best in Soulful beats and beyond. International guests too! 8pm, Free CBGB Pygmalion, Powerscourt Centre, D2 Megan Fox & Niall James Holohan 9pm, Free Extra Club M, Blooms Hotel, D2 Kick start the weekend with a little extra 11pm, €5, Free with flyer

Big Time! The Bernard Shaw, 11 - 12 Sth Richmond St, Portobello, D2 You Tube nights, hat partys... make and do for grown ups! With a DJ. The Panti Show Panti Bar, 7-8 Capel St, D1 Gay cabaret. 10pm n Mofo + One By One + DJ Jenny T Fitzsimons Bar, 21-22 Wellington Quay, Temple Bar, D2 Free, 9pm – 1.30am The Bionic Rats The Turk’s Head, Parliament St & Essex Gate, Temple Bar, D1 Dance, Jump and Skii to Reggae and Ska Free, 10pm

Off the Charts Twentyone Club and Lounge, D’Olier St, D2 R&B with Frank Jez and DJ Ahmed 11pm, €5

DJ Dexy Fitzsimons Bar, 21-22 Wellington Quay, Temple Bar, D2 Energetic blend of dancefloor fillers Free, 11pm

Muzik The Button Factory, Curved St, Temple Bar, D2 Up-Beat Indie, New Wave, Bouncy Electro 11pm

Eamonn Barrett 4 Dame Lane, D2 Electro Indie Free, 10pm

Thursdays at Café En Seine Café En Seine, 39 Dawson St., D2

Global Zoo Hogans, 35 Sth Gt Georges St, D2

Housemusicweekends Pygmalion, Sth. William St., D2 House music magnet with special guests each week 12pm, Free NoDisko Pravda, Lower Liffey Street, D1 Indie/Rock N Roll/ Dance 10pm – 2.30pm. T.P.I. Fridays Pygmalion, South William St, D2 Pyg residents Beanstalk, Larry David Jr. + guests play an eclectic warm-up leading up to a guest house set every week. 9pm, Free Hustle The Odeon, Old Harcourt St. Station, D2 Dance floor Disco, Funk and favourites. All Cocktails €5/. Pints, Shorts & Shots €4 10pm, Free Friday Hi-Fi Alchemy, 12-14 Fleet St, D2 Rock, Funky House and Disco 10.30pm Disco Not Disco Shine Bar, 40 Wexford St, D2 Disco, house, funk & soul 9.30pm

www.totallydublin.ie

Fridays @ The Turkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Head The Turkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Head, Parliament St & Essex Gate, Temple Bar, D1 Live guest bands and DJs 11pm, Free Rotate Solas Bar, 31 Wexford St, D2 Oliver T Cunningham mixes it up for the weekend! 8pm, Free Friday Tea-Time Club Break for the Border, Johnstonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Place, Lower Stephens St, D2 Karaoke with Cormac and Stevo from 6pm. Budweiser promotions. DJs until late.

Bia Bar, 28/30 Lwr Stephens St, D2 Funk, Soul, Timeless Classics Panticlub Panti Bar, 7-8 Capel St, D1 DJ Paddy Scahill Free before 11pm, â&#x201A;Ź5 with flyer, â&#x201A;Ź8 without Music with Words The Grand Social, Lwr. Liffey St, D1 Indie, Ska, Soul, Electro 9.30pm, Free Processed Beats Searsons, 42-44 Baggot St. Upper, D4 Indie, Rock, Electro 9pm, Free

Fridays @ CafĂŠ En Seine CafĂŠ En Seine, 39 Dawson St, D2 DJS and dancing until 3am. Cocktail promotions 8pm, Free

The Bodega Social Bodega Club, Pavilion Centre, Marine Rd, Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin Soul and Disco with Eamonn Barrett 11pm, â&#x201A;Ź10 (ladies free before midnight)

Cosmopolitan Club M, Anglesea St, Temple Bar, D1 Chart, Dance, R&B 11pm, â&#x201A;Ź9 with flyer

Scribble The Bernard Shaw, 11 - 12 Sth Richmond St, Portobello, D2 Funk, House, Dubstep, Hip Hop 8pm, Free

Afrobass South William, 52 Sth William St, D2 Dub, Ska, Afrobeat 9pm, Free Foreplay Friday The Academy, Middle Abbey St, D2 R â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;nâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; B, Hip Hop, Garage 10.30pm, â&#x201A;Ź10 after 11pm Hells Kitchen The Dice Bar, Queen St, Smithfield, D7 Funk and Soul classics Free Friday Night Globe DJ The Globe, 11 Sth Great Georges St, D2 DJ Eamonn Barrett plays an eclectic mix 11pm, Free Ri-Ra Guest Night Ri-Ra, Dame Court, D2 International and home-grown DJ talent 11pm, â&#x201A;Ź10 from 11.30pm Late Night Fridays The Sugar Club, 8 Lwr. Leeson St, D2 Residents include The Burlesque and Cabaret Social Club & Choice Cuts 11pm War Andrewâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Lane Theatre Indie, Electro and Pop 10pm, Free before 11pm, â&#x201A;Ź7/â&#x201A;Ź10 Al Redmond Sin, Sycamore St, Temple Bar, D2 Râ&#x20AC;&#x2122;nâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;B, House, Chart 9pm Fridays at V1 The Vaults, Harbourmaster Place, IFSC, D1 Progressive Tribal, Techno and Trance 10pm, â&#x201A;Ź5 before 11pm, â&#x201A;Ź10 after Sticky Disco The Purty Kitchen, 34/35 East Essex St, Temple Bar, D2 A gay techno electro disco in the club and indie, rock, pop, mash and gravy in the main room 10pm, Free before 11pm, â&#x201A;Ź7 after Sub Zero Transformer (below The Oak), Parliment St, D2 Indie, Rock, Mod 11pm, Free Stephens Street Social Club

www.totallydublin.ie

Room Service Feile, Wexford St., D2 Latin, Funk, Disco, uplifting Choons and Classics 9pm, Free Frat Fridays Twentyone Club and Lounge, Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Olier St, D2 Student night with drinks promos and DJ Karen 10pm

tion is back! Prize â&#x201A;Ź1,000 & Professsional Recording Session followed by DJ Karen Late Night Live Gaiety Theatre Live music 11pm, â&#x201A;ŹTBC Saturdays Shindig Shebeen Chic, Georges St, D2 Each and every Saturday youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll find the Shindig Crew rocking Shebeen Chicâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s quirky Bar with an eclectic mix of music to move to. Free, 8pm Konstrukt The Grand Social, Lwr. Liffey St, D1 DJ Eamonn Barrett. Indie/Electro/Party Anthems. 10pm - 2.30a. Propaganda The Academy, Middle Abbey St. D2 British indie disco conglomerate 11pm, â&#x201A;Ź5 Solar The Bull and Castle, 5 Lord Edward St., D2 Soul, Funk, Disco 11pm, Free Squeeze Solas Bar, 31 Wexford St., D2 Aidan Kelly does his thing. Expect the unexpected. 8pm, Free

John Fitz + The K9s + DJ Darren C and DJ Mick B Fitzsimons Bar, 21-22 Wellington Quay, Temple Bar, D2 Free, 8pm â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 2.30am

A Jam Named Saturday Anseo, Camden St., D2 DJs Lex Woo, Mr. Whippy, Matjazz, Warm DJ & friends. Jazz, disco, breaks, latin, hip-hop, house, afrobeat, funk, breakbeat, soul, reggae, brazilian, jungle. 7pm, Free

DJ Ronan M and DJ Ross Fitzsimons Club, 21-22 Wellington Quay, Temple Bar, D2 Funky Friday and music mayhem Free, 11pm

The Matinee Brunch Club The Odeon, Old Harcourt St. Station, D2 Super family friendly brunch club. Kids movies on the big screen at 3PM. 12pm â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 6pm, Free

Green Sunrise The Turkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Head, Parliament St & Essex Gate, Temple Bar, D1 Funky club house, Elektronika and Disco with some guilty pleasures Free

Dizzy Disko, Andrews Lane Theatre, Andrews Lane, D2 11pm, â&#x201A;Ź10

Fridays @ 4 Dame Lane 4 Dame Lane, D2 Rock n Roll with Rory Montae in the bar while Aoife Nicanna and Marina play House and Latino Breaks and Beats in the club 10pm, Free Basement Traxx Hogans, 35 Sth Gt Georges St, D2 Freestyle club with DJâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Half Dutch and Dejackulate spinning funk breaks, hip hop, ska, reggae and party nuggets 10pm, Free Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Make Party The Village, 26 Wexford St, D2 With DJ Mikki Dee 10pm, Free DJ Barry Dunne Buskers, Temple Bar, D2 Chart Pop, Current Indie and Rock Music 10pm Antoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s X Factor The George, Georgeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s St., D2 Free, 9pm The search for Dublinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s singing sensa-

KISS Twentyone Club and Lounge, Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Olier St, D2 Keep It Sexy Saturdays with DJ Robbie Dunbar 10pm, Free before 11pm, â&#x201A;Ź8 after

DJ Dexy and DJ Aido Fitzsimons Club, 21-22 Wellington Quay, Temple Bar, D2 Dublinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s biggest party night 11pm, Free Saturdays @ Break for the Border Lower Stephenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s St, D2 Current chart favourites from DJ Eric Dunne and DJ Mark McGreer. 1pm, Free

Pentagon POD and Tripod, Old Harcourt Station, Harcourt St, D2 Access all areas at the Pod complex with local residents and special guest DJ slots over five rooms 11pm, â&#x201A;Ź12 Flirt Alchemy, 12-14 Fleet St, D2 Sultry, Funky and Sexy Beat alongside Chart Hits 10.30pm The Weird Scientist Eamonn Doranâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, 3a Crown Alley, Temple Bar, D2 11pm, â&#x201A;Ź8/5 Laundry Hogans, 35 Sth Gt Georges St, D2 Bumpin House, Techno, Disco, Nu Disco 10pm, Free Sugar Club Saturdays The Sugar Club, 8 Lwr. Leeson St, D2 Salsa, Swing, Ska, Latin 11pm, â&#x201A;Ź15

-HYS` *PYK ZWLJPHSZ L]LY` KH` LUQV` \W [V VMM

WT WT 5VUKH` [V ?LKULZKH` WT WT <O\YZKH` [V ;\UKH` Plus get 10% off your bill of â&#x201A;Ź45 or more present this advert Monday Wednesday in May 2011

Or Free glass of Sangria with this advert! (Monday to Wednesday in May) Come for Lunch! Cup of homemade soup & Wrap or Quesadilla only â&#x201A;Ź6.50 Spanish language exchange afternoon Wednesdays & Salsa on Saturdays from 10.30pm

/LVYNLZ ;[ ,\ISPU *VVRPUNZ# "" ^^^ OH]HUH PL

Reloaded The Academy, Middle Abbey St, D2 Commercial Electro 10:30pm, â&#x201A;Ź5 before 12, â&#x201A;Ź8 after Saturday Night Globe DJ The Globe, 11 Sth Great Georges St, D2 DJ Dave Cleary plays an eclectic mix 11pm, Free Space... The Vinyl Frontier Ri-Ra, Dame Court, D2 Soul, Funk, Disco, Electro with DJâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Glen and Gary from Beatfinder Records 11pm, Free Irish Reggae Dance Peader Kearneyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, 64 Dame St, D2 Reggae 10pm, â&#x201A;Ź5

Saturday with Resident DJ Club M, Blooms Hotel, D2 Chart, Dance and R&B 10:30PM, â&#x201A;Ź15/â&#x201A;Ź12 with flyer

The Promised Land The Dice Bar, Queen St, Smithfield, D7 Soul, Funk, Disco Free

Viva! Saturdays The Turkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Head, Parliament St & Essex Gate, Temple Bar, D1 Retro club with house, electro and 80s 11pm, free

Saturdays @ V1 The Vaults, Harbourmaster Place, IFSC, D1 R â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;nâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; B, Soul and Hip Hop with regular guest DJs

Saturdays @ CafĂŠ En Seine CafĂŠ En Seine, 39 Dawson St, D2 DJs and dancing until 2.30pm. Cocktail promotions 10pm, Free

Wes Darcy Sin, Sycamore St, Temple Bar, D2 Râ&#x20AC;&#x2122;nâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;B 9pm

Guest band + DJ KK and DJ Keith P Fitzsimons Bar, 21-22 Wellington Quay, Temple Bar, D2 New live band plays every Saturday night 8pm, Free

/VVK MVVK NYLH[ ]HS\L MYPLUKS` H[TVZWOLYL

Pogo The Twisted Pepper, 54 Middle Abbey St, D2 House, Funk, Techno 11pm, â&#x201A;Ź10 (varies if guest)

Basement Traxx Transformer (below The Oak), Parliment St, D2 Indie, Rock 11pm, Free Downtown Searsons, 42-44 Baggot St. Upper, D4

1305&$5*/( :063 $0.1"/:Â&#x2122;4 */5&(3*5:

"VUIPSJTFE "QQMF QSPWJEFS 8F GJY PG BMM NBLFT PG DPNQVUFST 6OJU ) * 6TIFST *TMBOE %VCMJO 5FM XXX FWBE JF TOTALLY DUBLIN

Indie, Soul, Chart 10pm, Free

House music 10pm

ska, rock, electro and teenage memories. 10pm, Free

Strictly Handbag Bodega Club, Pavilion Centre, Marine Rd, Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin 80s with DJ Mark Kelly 10pm, €10

Beauty Spot Karaoke The George, Sth Great Georges St, D2 Karaoke and DJ Miguel Gonzelez playing super sexy Spanish House. 9pm, Free before 10pm, €10 after

DJ Stephen James Buskers, Temple Bar, D2 Chart Pop, Current Indie and Rock Music 10pm

Toejam The Bernard Shaw, 11 - 12 Sth Richmond St, Portobello, D2 Afternoon: Car boot sales, film clubs, music lectures, t-shirt making etc. Later on: Resident DJs playing Soul, Funk, House, Electro

Basement Club Panti Bar, 7-8 Capel St, D1 Pop and Electro

Rocked O Reillys, Tara St. Launching 9th October with LLUTHER, Rock DJ,All pints €3.20, Pitchers €9 9pm, €5

Saturday @ The Wright Venue The Wright Venue, South Quarter, Airside Business Park, Swords, Co Dublin Rock, Pop, Hip-hop, Dance 10pm

Saturdays @ Purty Loft Purty Loft Nightclub, Dun Laoghaire Funky House & RnB DJs, 10pm, €10

Sidesteppin’ Bia Bar, 28/30 Lwr Stephens St, D2 Old School Hip Hop, Funk 45s, Reggae 8pm, Free Saturday @ The Village The Village, 26 Wexford St, D2 Pete Pamf, Morgan, Dave Redsetta & Special Guests 11pm Whigfield Pygmalion, Sth. William St., D2 House and techno til late, with special guests each week 10pm, Free DJ Karen @ The Dragon The Dragon, Sth Great Georges St, D2

Punch The Good Bits Indie/Disco in one room and Techno/House and Electro in the main room 11pm, €2 between 11-11:30 Saturdays @ 4 Dame Lane 4 Dame Lane, D2 Goldy mixes beats/breaks/hip hop and funk in the bar and Gaviscon plays everything under the sun in the club 10pm, Free Eardrum Buzz Hogans, 35 Sth Gt Georges St, D2 House party vibes with Thatboytim playing mix of dance floor classics with of hip hop, reggae,

Late Night Live Gaiety Theatre Live music 11pm, €TBC Ragin’ Full On The Button Factory Everything from Thin Lizzy to Wu Tang Clan, Van Halen, The Damned & Prince. 8pm, Free Latin Mix Havana Club With DJ Leo and DJ Steve 10.30pm, Free Sundays

Ear Candy Solas Bar, 31 Wexford St, D2 Disco tunes and Funk Classics to finish the weekend. 8pm, Free Jitterbop The Grand Social, Lwr. Liffey St, D1 DJ Oona Fortune. Rockabilly/Swinging Sounds. 8pm - 11pm. (2.30am on bank holidays) The Matinee Brunch Club The Odeon, Old Harcourt St. Station, D2 Super family friendly brunch club. Kids movies on the big screen 3PM. 12pm – 6pm, Free Sundown Bia Bar, Lwr. Stephen’s St., D2 Chill-out house, funk, electronics and acoustic 10pm, Free The Latin Beat The Odeon, Old Harcourt St. Station, D2 Learn to dance Salsa & Samba from some of the best instructors in Ireland. Classes from 6pm, club from 8pm - late, Free Dancehall Styles The Button Factory, Curved St, Temple Bar, D2 International dance hall style 11pm, €5 The Workers Party Sin, Sycamore St, Temple Bar, D2 With DJ Ilk

9pm Session Pygmalion, Powerscourt Centre, D2 40% off all the booze all day & Mr. Ronan spinning only the best Indie, Rock & Roll. Free in before 4pm, €5 after. Hang the DJ The Globe, 11 Sth Great Georges St, D2 Rock, Indie, Funk, Soul 9pm, Free Gay Cabaret The Purty Kitchen, 34/35 East Essex St, Temple Bar, D2 Gay cabaret show 9pm, Free before 11pm 12 Sundays The Bernard Shaw, 11 - 12 Sth Richmond St, Portobello, D2 Funk, Disco, House 6pm – 12am, Free DJ Karen The George, Sth Great Georges St, D2 Pop Commercial and Funky House Free before 11pm, €5 with flyer, €8 without The George Bingo with Shirley Temple Bar The George, Sth Great Georges St, D2 Bingo & Cabaret with Shirley Temple Bar 8.30pm, Free Elbow Room

South William, 52 Sth William St, D2 Jazz, Soul, Disc & Latin 8pm, Free Alan Keegan + One By One + DJ Darren C Fitzsimons Bar, 21-22 Wellington Quay, Temple Bar, D2 9pm, Free M.A.S.S (music/arts/sights/sounds) Hogans, 35 Sth Gt Georges St, D2 Power FM curates a night of sights & sounds with Dublin based Arts collective Tinderbox providing visuals and Power FM’s DJ’s playing Soul to Rock n Roll to Punk 7pm, Free Get Over Your Weekend Panti Bar, 7-8 Capel St, D1 Lounge around with Penny the Hound. All drinks half plrice all day. 1pm, Free DJ Paul Manning Buskers, Temple Bar, D2 Chart Pop, Current Indie and Rock Music 10pm Sunday Roast The Globe, Georges St, D2 9pm, Free Magnificent 7’s 4 Dame Lane, D2 w The Ultimate Single’s Night Free, 7pm

Clubbing once-offs May Thursday 5th May Sunday 8th May Summer Sumo Smack-Down The George, Free, 9pm Sumo Suit Fight Night, prizes for Ultimate Battlers. Special Japanese themed Cocktails on the night Cinco De Mayo Party South William, 8pm, Free A special edition of MASH Friday 6th May Afrobass South William, 9pm, Free Afrobeat, jungle, dancehall, dustup and funky Saturday 7th May Pogo Twisted Pepper, €15, 10pm With Greg Wilson, Prosumer, and Steffi Mr Whippy Soundsystem/Music On The Rocks South William, 9pm, Free Chill upstairs, swing downstairs.

The Queens Visit The George, Free, 9pm Featuring the “Belfast Belles” Bunny & Portia and some special guests (none of whom are Queen Elizabeth). Tuesday 10th May Euro Trashed Tuesday The George, €12, 8pm Get your lipstick on for Jedward Friday 13th May Tom Beary Bernard Shaw, Free, 8pm As part of Scribble Family South William, 9pm, Free Dave Salacious and friends \ Saturday 14th May

Jam The Box presents… Twisted Pepper, €10, Free February & Mars Down on the Farm Fatty Fatty & Radiomade will be busing people from Portobello to their secret farm for a full day of House, Disco & Hip Hop. BYOB as usual. At 1 am, everyone will be dropped back to Dublin for a sweet after party. 12 noon, €25 - covers travel & entrance to farm & afterparty

Sure Shot South William, 11pm, Free Jazz, Funk, Hip Hop, Reggae, Dub, Bossa, Samba and Tropical Sunday 15th May 12 Sundays Bernard Shaw, Free, 4pm With John Daly Friday 20th May

A Guy Called Gerald Twisted Pepper, €15, 10pm House legend, plus Ceephax Acid Crew Electropical Soundclash South William, 9pm, Free With Lex Woo King T’s Audio Sunshine South William, 10pm, Free With Adam F, Dazboy, and Marcus Dunne

Best Foot Forward South William 9pm, Free Choice Cuts DJ Rizm and Colm K play hip-hop, afrobeat, funk, disco and house Kelp South William 10pm, Free DJ Shane Hall and guests play deep and progressive grooves. Saturday 28th May

DJ T-1000 The Button Factory, €10/7, 11pm Aka Alan Oldham of Pure Sonik and Tresor The European Nail Biting Final Slash Thong Contest The George, Free, 9pm With Annie Balls, M.I.L.F. Veda, The Divine Davina Devine und DJ Anto in the haus. Pow Wow South William, 9pm, Free DJs Mark Kelly and Brian Cuddy

Dirty Dubsters Bernard Shaw, Free, 8pm As part of Scribble Juice Box South William, 9pm, Free Chewy and friends Bizarro 2.0 South William, Free, 10pm DJ Fassman and friends. Chicago & Ibiza house, classic disco

Sunday 22nd May Time Tunnel Bingo The George, €TBC, 9pm As part of a new monthly series, Shirley & the girls are heading back in time to celebrate the music, style and events of a previous decade. Friday 27th May

Mr. Whippy South William 9pm, Free You must chill. Filthy! South William 10pm, Free DJs Mark Kelly and Mark Alton

Dazboy Bernard Shaw, Free, 8pm As part of Scribble

Saturday 21st May

Comedy May The International Improv night Mondays,8.45pm, €8/€10 Andrew Stanley’s Comedy Mish Mash There’s free biscuits Tuesdays, 8.45pm, €5 The Comedy Cellar with Andrew Stanley Ireland’s longest running comedy night Wednesdays, 9pm, €8/€10 The International Comedy Club Resident MC Aidan Bishop Thursdays & Fridays, 8.45pm, €8/€10 The International Comedy Club Early and late shows Saturday, 8pm and 10.30pm, €8/10

TOTALLY DUBLIN

What’s New at The International New material night Sunday, 8.45pm, €5 Ha’penny Bridge Inn Wellington Quay, Temple Bar, D2

6.30pm, €44.20 Capel Street, D1 A bear, a bull and a chicken walk into a bar Gay comedy night every Monday. Mondays, 9.00pm, Free

Battle of the Axe Dublin’s long standing open mic night Tuesdays & Thursdays, 9.00pm, €9

Anseo

Capital Comedy Club Hosted by Simon O’Keeffe Tuesdays & Thursdays, 9.30pm, €7/€5

Laugh Out Loud Resident MC Aidan Killian Wednesdays, 8.30pm, €5/€7

Trinity St., D2 Comedy improv with The Craic Pack Thursdays & Fridays, 9.00pm, €8/€10 Stand Up at The Bankers Resident MC Peter O’Byrne Saturdays, 9.00pm, €8/€10

Camden St., D2 Shebeen Chic

The Wool Shed Baa & Grill

Sweeney’s Bar

Parnell Street, D1

Dame St., D2

The Comedy Shed Resident MC Damien Clarke Mondays, 9.00pm, €5

Comedy HaHa Free shot on the door Wednesdays, 8.30pm, €5

Pantibar

The Bankers

Good Mourning Mrs Brown Olympia Theatre, D2 2nd – 14th May 8.00pm, €30-35 Neil Delamere Implement of Divilment & Bookmarks Vicar St, D2 Friday, 6th May 8.30pm, €25

COMEDY ONCE-OFFS Peter Kay The O2 2nd & 3rd May

Thomas Ngijol The Sugar Club, D2 29th May 8.00pm, €18.45

Katherine Lynch Vicar St, D2 13th – 14th May 8.30pm, €28

Inn Jokes with Colm O’Regan Colm McDonnell, Conor O’Toole and guests Patriots Inn Pub, Kilmainham, D8 Wednesday, 18th May 9.00pm, Free

Simon Munnery & Edward Aczel Two truly brilliant alternative comedians The Workman’s Club, D2 20th May 8.00pm, €18

Lucan Comedy Club John Colleary, Kieran Lawless & Simon O’Keeffe Courtneys’ Bar, Lucan 7th May 9.00pm, €10

South Great George’s St., D2 Comedy Crunch Stand-up comedy Sundays & one man Mondays Sundays & Mondays, 9.00pm, Free

Jason Byrne Cirque de Byrne Vicar St, D2 21st May 8.30pm, €28

www.totallydublin.ie

TOTALLY DUBLIN

Visual Art May The Art Park

Clyne Gallery

Back of the Convention Centre Dublin, Mayor Street Upper, D1

Exchange Street Upper, Temple Bar, D2

Maser is HomeMade A new video piece by the street artist Maser, projecting nightly from dusk until midnight. Until May 8 Blue Leaf Gallery The Observatory, 7-11 Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, D2 ‘Line of Fire’ – Ray Sell Taking images and magazine clippings from a vast swath of media over the last 60 years, Sell is determined to create a forum for self-reflection and debate, and question the very ethos by which our culture rears its male brood. By capturing and re-appropriating images of motorcycles and muscle cars, nude women and fierce beasts, cowboys and Indians – Sell has created a different message with his assemblage of fantastic collage arrangement, vivid colours and these poignant relics from media of days past. By removing the images from their original environs, he has stripped them of their intended meaning and given them his own voice. Often whimsical and rarely intended to elicit political response, Sell’s electric, colourful work provides its viewers with an opportunity to really look at what’s being transmitted through imagery and decide how they themselves will respond. April 14 – May 6 Suzy O’Mullane New work May 19 – June 10 Centre for Creative Practices 15 Pembroke Street Lower, D2 Janusz Kapusta – ‘The Captive Mind and other illustrations’ ArtPolonia is honoured to present an exhibition of selected works by Janusz Kapusta including his illustrations of “The Captive Mind” along with his other awards wining illustrations. Janusz Kapusta’s work can be found in the collections of many museums and galleries around the world including Museum of Modern Art in New York, Museum of Modern Art in Lodz, The IBM Collection. His work ranges from small graphic forms, posters, magazine illustrations, graphic design, book illustrations, to set designs and painting. In 1985 Janusz Kapusta also discovered a new geometrical shape – an eleven faced polyhedron, which he called the K-dron, used in fine arts and architecture and in the applied arts. In May 2004, Kapusta won a Grand Prix in an international competition in Ankara commemorating the 80th Anniversary of the Turkish Republic. As a visiting professor, Kapusta collaborated with the newly established School of Visual Art and New Media in Warsaw. May 26 – June 12 Chester Beatty Library Dublin Castle, D8 The Art Books of Henri Matisse The Library is delighted to announce that the Library and Bank of America Merrill Lynch will present this exciting exhibition of the art books of Henri Matisse. The exhibition will feature four of Matisse’s most artistically significant books on loan from the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Collection together with works by Matisse belonging to the Chester Beatty Library. This exhibition is provided by Bank of America Merrill Lynch Art in our Communities programme. May 26 – September 25

TOTALLY DUBLIN

David Folan, This exhibition, entitled Flight Test, includes a series of framed sculptures and installations dealing with ethics in contemporary society by exploring themes such as transience, the commodification of living creatures and complicity. The focal piece consists of a series of resin cast life size quails suspended from the gallery ceiling. The birds graduate in tone from white to black occupying the entire length of the gallery. The two accompanying installations also feature cast life forms. Clear glass bottles hover a shelf displaying rat pups and words, which construct a poem by the artist when seen together. The third installation comprises dozens of white spoons projecting from the wall of the gallery, each of which holding a coloured cast chick. When experienced together the colours form an intended pattern. May 19 – 31

film-maker Alexander Sokurov is structured like a diary; the narrator records and comments on the lives of Russian soldiers guarding the frontier of Tajikistan and Afghanistan in 1994. It is bleak mountainous terrain, the source of some of the highest peaks in the world. Despite the specific social and political context of the film, Sokurov draws the viewer’s attention to the inner spiritual world that lies at its heart. Nothing violent appears on screen; the film’s slow pace, which is both inexorable and gripping, reflects the boredom and anxiety that fill the lives of the soldiers. They are in limbo, with little to do but wait until they can go home to Russia. In every sense this is a film about borders and liminality; the soldiers live in no-man’s-land, in the shadow of continual, if distant, awareness of death. It is not, however, a disheartening story; Sokurov’s commentary is intimate, and the tone of the film is elegiac and dreamlike. April 1 – June 1 Draiocht

Ronan McCrea – Autodidact Ronan McCrea’s first solo exhibition at Green on Red Gallery combines photographs from his recent School Play project with new works that further elaborate themes of play and educational institutions in relation to the photographic and cinematic image, subjectivity, and artist’s ongoing interest in the form and function of highly symbolic social spaces. School Play was a public art commission for Castleknock Educate Together School in Dublin 15, completed in 2009. For this work McCrea made a permanent architectural intervention in the form of a painted set of circles and arcs on the school yard for the (unspecified) use of children at play. This design also then functioned as a kind of ‘set’ for a series of photographs shot from an elevated position of children during break-times. These images reframe the children’s exuberant movements and interactions as a kind of choreography, and in their composition recall the angles and framing of Rodchencko’s photography of the early Twentieth Century. April 15 – May 14

Blanchardstown, D15 Cross Gallery 59 Francis Street, D8 Blue Works by John Boyd May 5 - 28 The Doorway Gallery 24 South Frederick Street, D2 Sentinels by Padraig McCaul. There is a simple beauty in the silent, stone farmhouses that are found along the west coast of Ireland. The peeling whitewash, the cracked walls, give these old buildings each their own character, while the twin chimneys, one at each gable end, give them their unique, distinctive look. They have become part of the fabric of the countryside, in tune with the land they rest on, sympathetic to their surroundings. And that is how I try to capture them, as another element of the landscape alongside the changing skies, the rolling fields and bogs, the mountains and the seas. But there is a sadness and a loneliness about them too. These old houses have borne witness to over 100 years of Irish emigration. Like Sentinels standing guard, they look out to sea, watching yet another generation of Irish men, women and children emigrate in search of work and a better life. Waiting quietly for their return. March 25 – May 30 Douglas Hyde Gallery Nassau Street, D2 Shiva Linga Paintings These rare Tantric images by anonymous modern painters from Rajasthan in northwestern India were intended to further the practice of meditation; they are part of an unbroken tradition in which originality is not considered important. Nevertheless, as in many forms of traditional art and craft, there are subtle and beautiful differences between the touch and sensibility of the individual paintings. Although the exhibition includes a few examples of other imagery from the Tantric canon, most of the paintings depict ‘Shiva linga’. The Sanskrit word ‘lingam’, originally meaning ‘mark’ or ‘sign’, often refers to the phallus or symbol of male creative energy that is complementary to the ‘yoni’, which means both ‘source’ and ‘female’. The term ‘Shiva lingam’, however, describes one of the forms of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction and transformation and one of the trinity of deities that also includes Brahma and Vishnu. It shows him in his unborn and invisible state. April 1 – June 1 Spiritual Voices (From the war diaries) This beautiful documentary by the celebrated

Derelict by Michael Wann Wann’s work is specifically drawing-based and juxtaposes arbitrary or transient images of cleared landscape, with more thought provoking depictions of the dereliction of habitation. The work is as much about a process of mark-making as it is about representing a seemingly neglected landscape. April 8 – May 28 Earliest Memories Through a Pinhole Camera Draíocht is delighted to host this exhibition of photography created by the participants of our Intergenerational Project, who have been working steadily since last November with artist in residence Garvan Gallagher. This photography-based project involves both transition year students from a number of local second level schools and older residents (retired or 65yrs+) of the Dublin 15 area. During the workshops the group discussed themes for the exhibition, made their own pinhole camera, learned about shape, form, contrast and colour and produced photographs in our purpose build Dark Room in our Artist’s Studio. May 8 - 28

John Cronin – Augmented Reality In John Cronin’s large oil on aluminium paintings called Augmented Reality we see the artist at his best. Few Irish artists can achieve the sumptuousness and visual exuberance in pushing the boundaries of technique and possibilities with colour as Cronin shows himself capable of doing here. The continuing Augmented Reality series points to a hyper-overloaded information age. Layer after layer of lurid purples and greens and yellows assert the vibrancy of colour abstraction that persists in his work, healthy as ever. May 20 – June 18 Hillsboro Fine Art 49 Parnell Square West, D1 Michael Canning: New Works April 28 – May 21 Ross Bleckner and Jeff Schneider ‘New York Paintings’ May 26 – June 18 IMMA

Gallery Number One

Military Road, D8

1 Castle Street, D2

Romuald Hazoume Winner of the Arnold Bode Prize at documenta 12, Romuald Hazoumè is one of Africa’s leading visual artists. He has worked with a wide variety media throughout his career, from discarded petrol canisters, oil paint and canvas, to large-scale installation, video and photography. The exhibition at IMMA focuses on his iconic sculptures made from discarded plastic canisters which resemble the primitive tribal masks that were so influential to the early Modernists, such as Picasso and Braque. February 9 - May 15

Bear Bicycles The bicycle exhibition focuses on bicycle lifestyle, and showcases bicycle products, bicycle films, and bicycle art by Matthew Knight – a diverse Irish artist, influenced by Celtic, Aboriginal, Street, and Lowbrow art. According to Bear, the Irish bicycle lifestyle is similar to the Dutch bicycle lifestyle; more than most think. However, Bear observes one big difference: Irish see cycling predominantly as spring and summer activity. In the Netherlands, cycling is for all seasons. Bear sees no reason why winter and autumn would be unfit for cycling in Ireland. To convey that message, Bear introduces ‘Cycle the Seasons’. With Cycle the Seasons, Bear will offer a new bike model for each season in the course of 2011. Bear’s Spring Bicycle will be revealed at the opening of the Gallery Number One exhibition: ‘Embrace the Spring’. Bear’s Summer Bicycle will be revealed on 21st of June – during National Bike Week. Finally, Bear’s Autumn and Winter bicycle will be revealed in September and December, respectively. The design, colour and build of the new models will each allude to the season in which they are launched, but all models retain the distinct Dutch style. Bear’s overarching message: cycling is for all seasons. April 1 – May 31 Green on Red Gallery Lombard Street. D2

Philip Taaffee - Anima Mundi This survey exhibition of the work of the American painter Philip Taaffe, features 34 mixed media, mostly abstract paintings from the last ten years. Taaffe’s work has been celebrated in museums around the world for its rich fusion of abstraction with ornamentation, combining elements of Islamic architecture, Op Art, Eastern European textile design, calligraphy and botanical illustration. The exhibition includes many of the most striking examples of the vivid, complex images that result from Taaffe’s highly individual use of line and colour. March 23 - June 12 Old Master Prints An exhibition of Old Master prints by many of the most famous artists ever to work with print-making. Works by Albrecht Dürer, Francisco de Goya, William Hogarth and Rembrandt van Rijn are all featured in Old Master Prints:

The Madden Arnholz Collection, which is drawn from the Madden Arnholz Collection. It was donated to the Royal Hospital Kilmainham (RHK) in 1989 by Claire Madden, prior to the opening of the Museum in 1991. The exhibition is curated by Janet and John Banville. March 23 – June 26 Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera: Masterpieces of the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection Masterpieces of the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection, presents the iconic paintings of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, the two central figures of Mexican Modernism. Few artists have captured the public’s imagination with the force of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954) and her husband, the Mexican painter and muralist Diego Rivera (1886 – 1957). The myths that surrounded them in their lifetime arose not only from their significant body of work, but also from their active participation in the life of their time, their friendships (and conflicts) with leading figures, their imposing physical appearance and spirited natures. The paintings exhibited include key images by Kahlo such as Self Portrait with Monkeys, and Self Portrait as a Tehuana or Diego in My Thoughts, and the major work by Rivera, Calla Lily Vendors (all 1943). The paintings are supplemented by other works including diaries, lithographs, drawings, pastels and collages – all offering a rich visual experience for the visitor. Also included are striking photographs of Kahlo and Rivera by Lucienne Bloch, Héctor García, Martin Munkacsi, Nickolas Muray and Bernard Silberstein. April 6 – June 26 Les Levine: Three Works from the 1970s Regarded as the founder of Media Art, New York based, Irish artist Les Levine has donated to IMMA three series of etching and photographic works made in the 1970s. In the works, he mixes text and image to reinforce his belief that social and political problems are valid concerns for art. March 23 – June 12 Twenty As part of the celebrations marking the Irish Museum of Modern Art’s 20th anniversary, Twenty, an exhibition featuring twenty artists, opens to the public on the 28 May 2011. The exhibition presents a younger generation of Irish and international artists whose work is seen increasingly on the international stage. Commonalties and dialogues appear between the artworks in Twenty, but the exhibition seeks to allow sufficient space that each artists’ work may be viewed as an individual practice. The show includes installations, photography, painting and sculpture, and featured are artworks from IMMA’s Collection by Orla Barry, Stephen Brandes, Nina Canell, Fergus Feehily, Patrick M FitzGerald, John Gerrard, David Godbold, Katie Holten, Paddy Jolley, Nevan Lahart, Niamh McCann, Willie McKeown, Perry Ogden, Liam O’Callaghan, Niamh O’Malley, Alan Phelan, Garrett Phelan, Eva Rothschild and Corban Walker. The exhibition also features a borrowed piece by Irish artist Sean Lynch. May 27 – October 31 The Joinery Arbour Hill, Stoneybatter, D7 Open to the Public At a time when public and private places coalesce and where private life is blurred by access to the virtual, photography is both reassessing its role and confirming its heritage. Open to the Public, an exhibition of photographs by year two photography students from IADT-Dun Laoghaire explores these notions through a diverse collection of images. From street photographs to contemporary interiors the work tries to assess what is public and what is private.

May 5 – 12 Ark: Suzanne Van der Lingen Using a combination of her own recordings, family documents and public archive film, Suzanne van der Lingen draws parallels between the different ways in which experience is attempted to be preserved through stories, objects and documents. The resulting values attached to these artifacts are as much a product of time as they are of personal signification. By weaving together religious stories and her own family history, her work attempts to expose the situatedness of temporal perception rather than a universal historical truth. The work on show includes a video piece entitled ARK, a photographic series called La Nostalgie des Origines, and an accompanying publication. May 18 – 23 Kerlin Gallery Anne’s Lane, D2 Brian Maguire Through a reading of history and economics Maguire finds entry points that ask us to look again on what constitutes public endeavour. Since leaving his position as Head of Fine Art at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin early last year, Maguire has spent time developing work in Europe and Central America, and this is borne out by the broadening themes emerging through this new body of work. April 8 – May 14 Repo Man Released in 1984, Repo Man is a film produced and set in the economic recession of the 1980s and follows a young punk rocker in L.A. who falls into his first ever job - a repossession agent. Both the role of repossession agent and the film’s underlying theme of youth in revolt present loose departure points to consider the assemblage of respective practices presented in Repo Man at Kerlin Gallery. Sam Keogh, Fiona Hallinan, Ruth Lyons, and Joseph Noonan-Ganley have developed distinctive practices that consider their positions as both artists and political subjects. What is commonly termed in fine art as ‘appropriation’ may also be viewed as ‘repossession’. Time ensures repossession is an inevitable process and although authorship is protected posthumously, future generations will most likely appropriate aspects of work into new contexts, often changing meaning and blurring originality. May 20 – June 25 Kevin Kavanagh Gallery Sarah Dwyer May 7 - 28 MadArt Gallery 56 Lower Gardiner Street, D1 In Your Hands A collection of paintings and sketches created by artist and the owner of MadArt Gallery Sofia Monika Swatek. The exhibition includes expressive female nudes, portraits and mandalas with Celtic and Indian designs. The artist uses a wide range of methods to apply paint to the canvas creating very textured, unique and works full of emotions. Between 6-9pm on May 19, the collection – worth over 20,000 euro – will be given away to visitors for free, no questions asked. May 19 Mother’s Tankstation Walting Street, Usher’s Island, D8 I Want to go Somewhere Where the Weather

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Suits my Clothes – a fall of light on fabric The apparent optimistic simplicity of this exhibition title; Going where the weather suits my clothes…a fall of light on fabric 1, belies a plethora of darker meanings that relates examples of contemporary art practice to (the perhaps-failed idealism of) Sartrian existentialism. A early notion developed by Sartre in Existentialism And Humanism, attempted to place the concept of humanity as being wholly responsible for itself, and in control of our future with a constant regard to the collective good of society. This show examines some case studies where it would appear that the opposite were perhaps more the case, suggesting the greater plausibility of the world being composed of individuals, simply attempting to discover themselves, or ‘to be’, despite the collective good, rather than in advancement of it. Given the time and context of much of Sartre’s writings, the above-mentioned text was, we must assume, a strategically calculated (and certainly idealistic) one, considering the all-consuming guilt of the recent and appallingly destructive world wars. Sartre questioned whether such horrors could have taken place if everyone truly took responsibility for their actions, instead of existing in a culture based upon the assumption of answering to, and being dependent upon the will or whim of a ‘higher power’? April 13 – May 28 NCAD Gallery Thomas Street, D8 Nigel Graham Cheney: Gone to the Dogs ‘Gone to the Dogs’ brings together NCAD lecturer Nigel Graham Cheney’s most recent work, a group of intricately embroidered and quilted textile prints. These richly coloured works feature images of decommissioned banknotes and purebred dogs, reflecting upon associations of value and speculation and playing on notions of the counterfeit. While celebrating the beauty and detail of the imagery of these, decommissioned

banknotes, Cheney’s heavily hand-worked surfaces also invest a new value into the objects. This exhibition showcases a body of work that treads a line between craft, fine art and design. The work exploits both hand operated and computer driven machinery, placing it at the centre of current debates around the role of technology in contemporary craft practice. However, The ‘hand-made’ is also an essential element in this work, with the hundreds of hours spent stitching each piece clearly in evidence. May 6 – 28 Oisin Gallery 44 Westland Row, D2 Seasons by Ronan Goti “My paintings are about harmony within Nature. Last year I created a painting about a tree blossoming in springtime. This spring, as the tree starts to bloom again, the painting will join a section of work produced over the past ten years. These paintings reflect the many seasons of my work as it has developed throughout the years.”- Ronan Goti, 2011 May 7 – 14

has also been the source of inspiration for many of the bird specimens featured in previous work. April 28 – June 9

the last, accumulations of dust gather beneath the writers’ feet. May 6 – June 4 Project Arts Centre

Origin Gallery 39 East Essex Street, Temple Bar, D2 83 Harcourt Street, D2 Geraldine MacDonald Geraldine MacDonald is a Dublin born artist with a previous career in music and song writing. Geraldine’s experience of nature was awakened while living and growing up in Howth at a time when children were free to explore and discover its natural unspoilt beauty. Her time spent in the south of Spain, America, India and North Africa reopened her eyes to light and colour. And this exhibition contrasts the hot exotic colours of these places with the cool blues and greens, greys a nd whites of Southwest Kerry and in particular the area around Ballinskelligs where she had a residency at the Cill Rialaig Project. April 20 – May 8

Sarah Browne Sarah Browne’s new film installation focuses on the small French town of Le Blanc, where a coalition of local artisans and shopkeepers have created one of the last refuges for indigenous currencies. Le Blanc is still accepting the franc as payment for goods and services in certain shops although it is technically no longer legal tender, and will continue to accept it until 17 February 2012 a deadline imposed by the Banque de France. Produced against a backdrop of extreme economic vulnerability, both internationally and in Ireland, Browne’s project hones in on a community story that becomes the lens through which to examine the depth of emotional investment, and resistance to change, in economic systems. May 5 – June 25

Pallas Projects RHA 23 Lower Dominick Street, D1

Oliver Sears Gallery Molesworth Street, D2 Born in 1957, Mark currently lives and works in London. He employs “the language of natural history to frame [his] pictorial fictions” and the results are exquisitely executed hybrid images of birds, flowers and insects. These mysterious almost mythical beasts exist alongside studies of real animals and natural history specimens, but in common they share a painstaking attention to detail and co-exist in a frequently luxurious habitat accentuated by the use of rich paint materials such as gold and palladium leaf. This collection will include a body of new plant paintings entitled The Cuckoo Orchids and a painting entitled Zebra Box which depicts a display case from the Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum at Tring which

Ely Place, D2 Alex Martinis Roe Workshops, archives, white boards and stenographers. The artworks, documents, objects, images (both moving and still) and texts in Alex Martinis Roe’s exhibitions are dependent on the artwork’s interlocutors (workshop participants and exhibition viewers) who record the history of their specific encounter or production without attempting to transparently communicate the content of that experience/activity. The artist employs the act of writing to engage thoughts and fantasies that are embedded within the human unconscious through interactive, performative sessions. Discussions become, via the coded products of a stenographer’s hand, abstract data banks hung on the gallery wall, while participants write upon white boards with white chalk, the next written layer overwrites

181st Annual Exhibition May 24 – June 30 Rua Red South Dublin Arts Centre, Tallaght, D24 New Connections New Connections is a continuation of Alternative Enterainments’ series of exhibitions over the years in which it groups the works of emerging and established contemporary Irish artists in exciting juxtaposition to each other. The pieces - paintings, video, sculpture - explore a synthetic/organic dichotomy in artist expression. Established artists such as Ronnie Hughes, Robert Armstrong and Gillian Lawler share gallery space with emerging

artists such as Alan Butler, Barbara Knezevic and Hugh Delap in this challenging and modern show. Participating artists: Alan Butler, Ronnie Hughes, Robert Armstrong, Gillian Lawler, Barbara Knezevic, Hugh Delap, Susan Connelly, Ann Hendrik, Hugh McCarthy and Helen Hughes. April 9 – May 7

a manifestation of a recent body of work in which equal importance is given to support, medium and action. Through the use of time based structures, contemplative paintings and drawing emerge on carefully manipulated materials. The casting of the support mimics the layering of a painting and allows for control of the work from inception. May 12 – June 14

Rubicon Gallery 10 St Stephen’s Green, D2 Alexis Harding – Tondos & Bi Products London based artist Alexis Harding presents his new Tondo paintings, sculptures and over 60 works on paper. April 7 – May 21 The Science Gallery Pearse Street, D2 Human + HUMAN+ is an interactive exhibition experience looking into the future of the human race. Will enhancement of humans become the norm? What types of enhancements will we choose? What is our genetic future? Will computer technologies continue to change the way we socialise? HUMAN+ will explore the implications of enhancement on how we define ourselves. Could smart pills, personalised medicine, cognitive enhancement, or genetic manipulation change us into something other than human? Will converging technologies in robotics, biotechnology, nanotechnology, information technology and aesthetics create a new race? April 15 – June 24

Temple Bar Gallery & Studios 5-9 Temple Bar, D2 Offline Offline is an exhibition bringing together five artists whose work reflects the documentation and consumption of reality and how it is intrinsically linked with and conducted via online platforms. Much of the ‘Net Art’ produced in the early years of the Internet was made to be viewed on a computer screen, but more recently, the physicality of how we receive these messages has become less important than the psychology of how we understand and experience them. The five artists in this show use the Internet in their everyday lives and, by extension, in their art. Their work uses the Internet as its primary medium and appropriates it’s language and aesthetics . This mode of art making can be seen as a development from the last decade’s move in focus from art producer to consumer, and the transmission to a hybrid producer/ consumer model. April 7 – May 14

Talbot Gallery & Studios 51 Talbot Street, D1 Jane Fogarty - | p nti NG | Jane’s work roots itself in the realm of painting, exploring the ontology and materiality of the medium while placing a strong emphasis on the process of creation. | p nti NG | is

Festivals May Bealtine Festival Celebrating creativity in older age, Bealtine is organised by Age & Opportunity, and is Ireland’s largest collaborative arts festival. Last year saw 2,500 different performances, exhibitions, dances, films, workshops, and concerts, and 101,000 attendees. Programmes like the cultural companions have done much to bring together a network of people interested in arts and culture, while Blow the Dust off Your Trumpet invites older musicians to return to their instruments and perform. May 1st – 31st For more information: http://bealtaine.com

group, the Rathmines Writers’ Workshop will be giving a prose reading from their most dedicated and original writers. May 5th, 6.30pm, Irish Writers’ Centre, Admission Free

class system May 10th, 6pm, Abbey Theatre €3

David Butler and Anatoly Kudryavitsky

Readings from the works of Jack B and WB Yeats with Professor Maurice Harmon and Kathleen Watkins. May 11th, 1pm, National Gallery of Ireland For more information: www.nationalgallery.ie

Poetry Ireland launches Via Crucis by David Butler and Anatoly Kudryavitsky’s Capering Moons. May 5th, 6.30pm, Damer Hall, Stephen’s Green West For more information: www.poetryireland.ie Dublin Dance Festival

International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival With an emphasis on contemporary Irish and International drama, the Gay Theatre Festival will re-examine surrealist art, mental health, the glamour and fame of old Hollywood, and, of course, the stereotypes associated with gender and sexuality. May 3rd – 16th For more information: www.gaytheatre.ie

The good people at DDF have organised a stellar series of performances, which this year focuses on Asian choreography. Get your mitts on some tickets right away, they’ll be going fast. May 13th – 28th, Various locations, including the Grand Canal Theatre, IMMA, the Button Factory, the Alliance Française, and the Light House Cinema. Pygmalion: The Social Class

Rathmines Writers’ Workshop Reading Celebrating 21 years together as a writing

Author Tony Farmar (Privileged Lives – A Social History of Middle-Class Ireland 1882-1989) will lead a discussion on the Irish

Readings from the works of Jack B and WB Yeats

Poetry Ireland Introductions Series 2011 Featuring Ainín Ní Bhroin, Kimberly Campanello, Michael Farry, and Donna Sørensen. May 12th, 6.30pm, Irish Writers’ Centre Amanda McKittrick Ros Remembered The unintentionally hilarious Amanda McKittrick Ros will perhaps be mostly remembered for her stupendously dreadful writing. However, she is also remembered for her self-confidence and obstinate individualism. An event taking place as part of the Bealtine Festival, May 16th, 11am, €5.00, Dublin Writers’ Museum

An integral figure in the world of experimental writing and performance, Gavin Selerie is known for his gritty and brash voice, and his writing which mixes jumbled syntax with elements of fluent discourse. May 17th, 9pm, Cat and Cage, Drumcondra Road

Poetry Introduction Series 2011

Catch Up On Culture Week

Events such as the International Museums Day and European Museums At Night will be taking place this week in May, in a valiant effort to promote museums and cultural institutions. Get thee to www.irishmuseums. org for more info. May 18th – 29th

Dublin City Soul Festival

Dublin Toy and Train Fair

The festival will open with the Soul Picnic in Merrion Square. Entry is free to the event, which will bring local and international musical talent together to perform in a relaxed picnic surrounding. Other events planned include various live music acts, a soul food restaurant trail, a soul cinema club, and soulthemed event planned in the Laughter Lounge, and a Peace, Unity, and Love Parade. May 26th – 29th For more information: www.dublincitysoulfestival.ie

Collectible toys of all kinds, from jigsaws and toy trains to antique dolls and bears will be available, as well as books and manuals from famous manufacturers.

Gavin Selerie

Featuring Eleanor Hooker, Susan Lindsay, Barbara A. Morton, and J.S. Robinson.

all performed by a trio of musicians on violin and guitars. May 26th, 8pm, Airfield, €16/€14 Call (01) 2984301 for bookings Dublin Writer’s Festival

May 18th, 6.30pm, Irish Writers’ Centre

May 22nd, 10am, Clontarf Castle, Price TBC For More Information: http://www.dublintoyandtrainfair.com

Among other top Irish and International authors will be comedian, writer, actor, and television presenter Michael Palin, who will be speaking about his career at the National Concert Hall on May 25th. May 31st – June 5th See www.dublinwritersfestival.com for more information Bloom in the Park Alongside almost thirty gardens from top Irish horticulturalists that will be showcased, there will be live cookery and craft demonstrations, not to mention the gardening advice workshops and mega farmers market. Children attend the workshops for free, so bring your tots to learn about the wonders of obscure strains of geraniums. June 2nd, Phoenix Park

Café Orchestra Café Orchestra is an evening dedicated to jazz, the French musette, salsa, and gypsy swing,

Poker May Fitzwilliam Card Club

Online booking www.fitzwilliamcardclub.com

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Mon €75+5 Texas Holdem Freezeout 8:30pm

Wed €20+5 Texas Holdem Rebuy 8:30pm

Fri €55+5 Texas Holdem Scalps 8:30pm

Sun €50+5 Texas Holdem Freezeout 8:30pm

Tue €50+5 Texas Holdem Double Chance 8:30pm

Thur €95+5 Texas Holdem Double Chance 8:30pm

Sat €120+5 Texas Holdem Freezeout 8:30pm

Special Event Last Thursday of every Month - €250+20 Freezeout. Biggest

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While You’re There...

Skerries Mills Skerries Red Island

Red Island probably gets its name from the dyed sails which were laid out on the rocks to dry, lending them a reddish hue. For years it was a popular camping destination – a Martello tower stands on the barren terrain – but was abandoned as such with the advent of cheap air travel in the 1960s. It remains a prime spot for angling and deep-water bathing.

Ardgillan Castle

Ardgillan Castle, also known as Prospect, overlooks the cliff-flanked bay of Barnageeragh, whose name is a strange cross between the Irish words bearna meaning ‘gap’, and caora – ‘sheep’. The house was extended, with East and West wings and various towers and battlements. There’s even a maze of woodland walks, originally intended for the “women folk”.

Jaunting up the north Dublin coastline on the No. 33 bus or even the commuter train from Connolly of a lazy afternoon is the kind of pleasure to be enjoyed on a bright summer day by any Dub with a taste for exploring their county. Situated a few minutes walk from the centre of town, the Skerries mill is a slice of old world industry restored to its former glories over the last decade by Fingal County Council and the dedicated members of the local community. Their dark satanic days are long gone and these wonderful artifacts of a time gone by ooze a class absent from today’s new-fangled windfarms. In an era where green concerns are at the forefront of every sensible person’s mind, the tour of the mills and the museum of industrial heritage offer a fascinating insight into how the locals utilized (and indeed to a limited extent still utilize) environmental conditions to

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work the land and the crops they raised on them. Containing two windmills and a watermill, the Skerries Mills were long used represent this peaceful coastal village in postcards and paintings over the years and given the scarcity of surviving windmills in Ireland, its easy to see why these impressive specimens became so iconic. Also featured on the grounds is the celebrated Watermill Café, a perfect place to rest your weary bones for a snack and glass or two of wine while you take in the becalming coastal scenery. (Its also worth climbing the 12 metre tall Great Mill for a survey of the nearby land and seaside). The Skerries Mills complex also works as a sort of cultural centre, where you can catch a musical performance on most Sundays at twelve ranging from traditional Irish bands to barbershop quartets, where they also host writing workshops, art classes and exhibitions, so there is just as much here for the local as for the visitor.

Séamus Ennis Cultural Centre in Naul

Named in the memory of the famed musician, folklore and music collector, the Séamus Ennis Cultural Centre is home to one of the country’s best intimate performance spaces. The centre also organises a wealth of poetry, fiction, song and dance workshops, exhibitions, and a film club. Fionn Regan and Lisa Hannigan are playing in July, and the centre will also be hosting various events for the Bealtine Festival.

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What makes Dublin Dublin? TD’s new guide to the best bits of the city...

The Old Jameson Distillery

IMMA

The Old Jameson Distillery is the fount of the real ‘water of life’ in Dublin. An important and fascinating landmark in the history of the city, the old Distillery will also give you a chance to put your taste buds to the test and prove you know your whiskey from your scotch. Offering guided tours daily with a choice of bars to sample a Jemmie, lunch is also served from the mezzanine restaurant. Bow Lane, Smithfield, Dublin 7

Kilmainham’s Royal Hospital has been the home of Irish modern art since 1991, but it stands as the country’s most spectacular 17th century building. Indebted Paris Les Invalides, IMMA’s sprawling grounds and super-maintained cloisters and courtyard are as fascinating as the art contained within. Military Road, Kilmainham, Dublin 8

Glasnevin Museum

National Museum (Collins Barracks)

Leo Burdocks

Seeped in Irish national history, Glasnevin Cemetery is an interactive visitor attraction offers a fascinating view of Ireland’s many renowned figures that shaped the country we live in today. The adjacent Glasnevin Museum also offers guided tours of the cemetery - a must see for anyone interested in Irish Heritage and Genealogy. Glasnevin Museum, Glasnevin Cemetery, Finglas Road, Dublin 11

Collins Barracks is home to the Decorative Arts & History leg of the National Museum. Featuring a wide range of objects, which include weaponry, furniture, silver, ceramics and glassware as well as examples of Folklife and costume in one of Dublin’s most historically important buildings, Collins Barracks is an essential spot for any visit to the city. Benburb Street, Dublin 7

If you like some history with your chips, Leo Burdocks has as much backstory as it does salt and vinegar. Its Werburgh St. branch has been chopping potatoes for almost a hundred years now, and the chips are only getting better. Pay a visit, and ask about their celebrity fans. 2 Werburgh St, Christchurch, Dublin 8

Chester Beatty Library

GAA Museum

Teddy’s Ice-Cream

Nestled in the grounds of Dublin Castle, the Chester Beatty Library is a stunning museum and library, featuring a mindblowing collection of texts and artifacts from religions and cultures around the world. The museum is a cornerstone of cultural Dublin, and one of the finest museums in Europe. Dublin Castle, 2 Palace Street

The GAA Museum at Croke Park houses trophies, cups and medals won by sporting stars Christy Ring, Sam Maguire, Jimmy Doyle, Jack Lynch and Liam MacCarthy to name but a few. Hurleys, jerseys, publications and banners also document the history of the GAA and its unique role as an instrument of Irish nationalist fervour. Croke Park, Jones Rd., Dublin 3

Satisfying the sweet teeth of South Dublin since 1950, Teddy’s Ice Cream hasn’t had to change its formula an iota. A red, white, and blue must for ice-cream eaters of all seasons. 1a Windsor Terrace, Dún Laoghaire

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Mulligans A magnet for both tourist and native, traditional pub and sometime Bachelor’s Walk set Mulligans is as renowned as watering holes in town come. Mulligans perfects the basics and in the grand Irish tradition avoids ‘yer fancy stuff’. It’s nonetheless a welcoming refuge for all patrons. 8 Poolbeg Street, Dublin 2

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REGULARS Pubs and bars

James Toner’s

J. McNeill’s

139 Lower Baggot Street

140 Capel Street

Featuring perhaps our favourite snug in Dublin, if you’re ever lucky enough to get it, Toner’s is a Dublin fundamental. When its petite interior reaches capacity (and it often does) you can spill out onto Roger’s Lane for some fresh air and maybe even an auld sing-song. The perfect launch or landing pad for a visit to Lansdowne Road but still just a hop, skip and a jump from the Green, Toner’s is one of Dublin’s most tried and trusted public houses.

In a former life, McNeill’s plied its trade as a one of Dublin’s most famed musical instrument shops, and a window full of banjos, bazoukis and bodhrán’s still belies that image to the world outside on Capel Street. Inside however, the place has been reborn as the home of some of Dublin most highly-regarded trad sessions with music on a nightly basis, as well as a daycent pint of plain to go with it, as you’d rightly expect.

t: 01 676 3090

t: 01874 7679

The Duke

Neary’s

A classic post-office haunt if ever there was one, barely hidden just between Grafton Street and Nassau Street, the Duke is one of the best places in Dublin to indulge yourself with that well-earned pint of a Friday (or indeed any) evening. Combining a prime location with all the fundamentals - plenty of comfy seats, wholesome carvery grub and honest pints - let The Duke be the recipient of your blown-off steam.

There’s a reason that Neary’s has remained so consistent over the last few decades – the formula works. Housed in elegant slice of Edwardian Dublin with its old-world interior still in pride of place, the early evening buzz in Neary’s is a rare sight to behold. With a crowd ranging from theatre-goers to thespians from the nearby Gaeity to local suits and Grafton shoppers, Dave and his team of old-school barmen will take care of all your needs.

8-9 Duke Street, Dublin 2

t: 01 679 9553

1 Chatham Street, Dublin 2

t: 01 677 8596

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Kehoe’s

Madigan’s

The Palace Bar

9 South Anne Street, Dublin 2

16 Lower O’Connell Street

27 Fleet Street, Dublin 2

3 Harry Street, Dublin 2

Decorated in the traditional Irish pub style with parts of the original pub in tact, a small snug at the front and a larger one in the back, Keogh’s isn’t just for the tourists. A lively place full of banter and conversation, this is the place to be for Dubliners relaxing after a long week. Just be sure to get there before the best seats in the snug are taken.

A popular haunt on GAA match days with live coverage available on a large technicolour TV, Madigan’s is a cosy home away from home with all your mother’s cooking you could want available down stairs from bacon & cabbage, Irish stew, and bangers & mash to salmon with Cajun spices for the more adventurous.

Famous for its literary heritage, the Palace Bar is an unspoiled slice of Dublin’s erudite history. Frequented by Irish Times writers since the dawn of time, and some of the city’s most well-respected authors, the Palace is the thinking-man’s spot for a jar. Despite changes all around, the Palace remains untarnished and popular as ever.

t: 01 874 3692

t: 01 679 9290

McDaids is, if we’re honest, the kind of place where you’d call yourself lucky if you’ve nabbed a seat early in the night. Its much cosier, shoulder-to-shoulder affair where an unbeatable Guinness is only a quick shuffle away and commenting on overheard banter is de rigeur. The perfect place for whiling a night away righting the world’s wrongs with a few close friends or quiet pint in Brendan Behan’s memory.

t: 01 677 8312

The Long Hall

51 S Great Georges St., Dublin 2

Memorabilia-hung and unerringly popular, George’s Street’s Long Hall is the epitome of traditional Irish pub. Just that little bit out of tourist HQ, the Long Hall caters to a healthy percentage of natives, and is best known for one of the highest levels of conversation in town - or maybe the Guinness is just stronger. t: 01 475 1590

t: 01 679 4395

The International 23 Wicklow Street, Dublin 2

Famed for both its earnest singersongwriter nights, as a great place for a close-quarters guffaw with local comedic talent and even as a small theatre venue, the International has always been a bit of an off-beat, if not quite bohemian place. It has served many patrons in its many guises but has always maintained its understated, proper pub vibe. No fancy makeovers here, just an endless stream of stories and laughs to behold. t: 01677 9250

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McDaids

Mulligans

The Oval Bar

Originally a shebeen, Mulligan’s has been legit since 1782, making it one of the oldest premises in Dublin city. A magnet for both tourist and native, traditional pub and sometime Bachelor’s Walk set Mulligans is as renowned as watering holes in town come. Mulligans perfects the basics and in the grand Irish tradition avoids ‘yer fancy stuff’. It’s nonetheless a welcoming refuge for all patrons with an unbeatable back story.

The Oval Bar is an authentic Irish Pub situated idyllically in the heart of Dublin City. Housed by a beautiful Victorian building with most of its period features still intact, The Oval is the perfect place to escape from the hectic hustle and bustle of the city outside.

8 Poolbeg Street, Dublin 2

78 Middle Abbey St, Dublin 1

t: 01 8721264

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There was a time, before casually adding the word ‘extreme’ to things became acceptable in educated conversation, that the idea of sport conjured images of handshakes, gentlemanly conduct and various sizes and shapes of pig’s bladder. Wilful self-endangerment is, naturally, just not cricket. But then the world got safe, and the disaffection of a bored youth let to a situation in which weekend recreational activity could simulate the last ditch effort of a stricken fighter pilot to save his own life. Adrenaline’s there to tell you that you might be about to die, but at some point someone figured out that it didn’t necessarily follow that you would, so thrill seekers began to appear, willing to put faith in the moulded helmet to protect them from life’s ills. It turns out Ireland is a pretty good place to chase these kinds of thrills. On the weekend of the 20th May, The Adventure Weekend takes place in the RDS, devoted to highlighting the various outdoor adventure activities you can partake in in our not-exactly-Californiadude nation. You can show up and try out things with names like zorbing (which is essentially walking around in a Wayne Coyne-style inflatable hamster ball, but with more downhill bits) and extreme trampoline (which is similar to trampoline but, y’know, more extreme). And if you don’t actually enjoy adrenaline rushes for some reason, you can still enjoy BMXing, skating, mountain bike trials and parkour, alongside appreciating the dizzy demise of those slightly braver than you. On top of all this live action fun, the event puts experts in various fields in touch with those who might just want to try something out. Chat to Judy Van Den Ancker, the final year UCD Film and Drama student whose weekends are “mostly taken up by skydiving” rather than skulking around hungover, or Mikey Clancy, who swears that bad weather is no reason to dismiss Ireland’s outdoor adventure credentials when a particularly stormy day makes for the best quality windsurfing. We talked to some of the brightest and best who’ll be there to talk about their peculiar disciplines and exactly how they ended up spending their lives outdoors instead of in.

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Mikey Clancy (windsurfer, 20) “I started out in Malahide, doing a week-long mixed activity course. I actually hated it. I was only 12 and I wasn’t strong enough to pull the sail out of the water, but I kept going back and eventually got a sail and board myself. It’s not dangerous like skateboarding or mountain biking, because if you fall, you land in the water most of the time, not on rocks or whatever. But it is pretty extreme in the sense that you can get some huge jumps off the waves. You can wave-ride like surfing and jump like kite-surfing, so it’s got the best of both worlds in terms of the rush. When I go away with other athletes, they’re always surprised that I can windsurf in a capital city, but Dublin is a great place to do it. There are a lot of strong south and southwesterly winds there so on a stormy day you can go out to Dollymount, Portmarnock, Skerries, Poolbeg on the southside. The wind generates the swell in the sea that you surf off, so bad weather is good. The more wind the better, unless it’s actually a gale or a hurricane or something. Dollymount’s my home spot so that’s my favourite, but Magheroarty near Gweedore in Donegal is another one I like. In terms of going away, Scarborough Point near Cape Town is good. I destroyed my ankle at the last event in 2009, so I spent most of last year on the sidelines rehabilitating the injury. That made me think about needing a back-up, because of how easily you can just get injured and not be able to do it any more. I’m studying Marketing in DIT. In 2009 I went to two World Cup events and ended up 25th overall there. I’ve won the Irish Junior Championships as well. At the Adventure Weekend I’m just going to be there with my gear, showing it to people, maybe talking about how to find the best waves and teaching some techniques.”

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Words Karl McDonald Images Steve Ryan Styling Aisling Farinella www.totallydublin.ie

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Judy Van Den Ancker (skydiver, 21) “About six years ago my dad did a course in Spain because they didn’t have an accelerated freefall course here. He managed to convince me to start about two years later when I was 17, but I’d done two tandem dives before that. It wasn’t that hard to convince me to be honest. I’m kind of a thrill seeker. Even in theme parks, I always wanted to get the biggest thrill, so I was up for it. We have competitions in the Irish Parachute Club with four way teams where you move your bodies into various different positions in sixty seconds during the fall. In summer we get planes from other countries and do really big formations. The biggest was 62 people from four aircrafts, but we didn’t complete that one. We completed 33, which was bellyflying – face down. You can go about 120mph bellyflying. Free-flying, where you’re in sitting or standing position or head down, can be much faster, you can go up to about 190mph. Statistically it’s safer than driving a car. You have a main parachute and a reserve parachute, and there’s a device that will automatically deploy the reserve parachute if you go below a certain altitude at a certain speed, so it’s not that dangerous. The weather in Ireland can be a problem, because you can’t do it when the wind’s above 25mph or the clouds are below 3000ft – that’s when you pull your parachute, so you need to be able to see where you’re going to land. Rain clouds are difficult to dive through as well. A guy in Northern Ireland passed through ice clouds fairly recently and had to be taken to hospital. He was hit with all kinds of ice and his whole face froze. That barely ever happens though, the controls are good. I’m a board director of the Parachuting Association of Ireland, but at the event I’ve asked to work at the Irish Parachute Club stand. I think it’s good to have some young bodies to promote it. If there are too many old school, 60 year old skydivers there, younger people will be put off, and I want people to get interested.”

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Make a Pitch The Pav

Words Oisín Murphy Picture Fuchsia Macaree

‘Bet you’re delighted to finally be leaving this kip, man,’ Anton smiles, without eye-contact, trying to set blades of grass on fire with his lighter as we sit on the fringe of the cricket pitch, watching the sun slowly dip behind the glass top of the library. ‘I hear they organised your exam timetables around the Queen’s visit,’ he prods, spitting on the ground. Anyone studying at Trinity builds up a certain familiarity with the Pavilion bar, whether by drinking there on a regular basis, or simply by observing it in its convenient and photogenic position overlooking the cricket pitch: ‘an institution’ to those immediately nostalgic and soft-minded amongst us and, simply, a fine spot to take a drink for the rest. In the summer months, particularly around exam time (which falls in May), the figurative walls of the Pav expand onto the surrounding grass, with cans available for purchase from the bar the year round (a unique and welcome quality), and a unique atmosphere prevails. O Lord, the sound of leather on willow, the hesitation between each magnificent crack! almost vacuous, as the city’s jeers and wails are carried away on the breeze: does the beer not taste the sweeter, enveloped as it is in the sensuous college air, girdled in academic history and cut through by casual chatter and the

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metallic crunch of each spent can, downwind and downstream from the statue of our George Salmon and by God, do we not owe him it all? There is not much to be said for the interior of the Pav. There has been a ‘controversial’, more modern-looking extension built since I began my studies which encroached onto the outdoor seating (a true ‘institution’ within an ‘institution’). It is a conservatory with a television inside and people who buy actual pints instead of cans sit in it. Otherwise, there is hot food available at a reasonable price, unremarkable seating in an unremarkable ambience and a horrendous painting above the only decent (isolated) table in the place, directly in front of the entrance. The jukebox is perhaps the only reason to stay indoors, assuming the weather is nice, upon which one can choose the same two songs to play on loop if you have enough money. And sure isn’t it outside that the place comes alive, where the poetry can really be heard? Oh and it’s above and beyond your expectations of a bar to sit in company light-hearted and heavy of wallet, to watch the sun sink and coat the silent, static grass in speckled light and you feel as though they’re all breathing through you: Swift, Beckett, Wilde and McAleese, a chorus of history will-

ing along the night’s Bacchae; that what romance of reverie resides in the mind of the student might spill forth amidst the night’s intoxicated revelry, eight coins of single denomination bringing four cans in exchange, and what value for the spirit! The Pav is a unique pub in Dublin. Aside from being on college grounds, it sells cans of lager and cider (4 Bavaria [or similar] for €8 or €2.40 each and cider at €2.80 a can) and is frequented almost exclusively by students. It is also effectively a green area, with a few benches and trees, the occasional cricket match or, in its stead (and that of security guards), people throwing frisbees or passing a football to one another. If the weather is good, there’s nowhere better to have a drink without spending an awful lot of money, while poor weather makes for an uninspiring and dreary indoors environment, simultaneously rendering the reasonably-priced beer something significantly more unwholesome and depressing. One’s company is the making of it. To that pub we owe our youth, ‘the college experience’ as it is truly lived; to that contemporary architecture more palatial than its Gothic or Roman surrounds, and Trinity College: the baytin’ heart of Dublin city. Anton lights up a fag and smokes it in a surreptitious, ‘overhand’ fashion, surveying the thinning crowds in the halflight of sunset. ‘The problem with Trinity, man,’ he nudges me in the side, ‘is that it’s full of Trinity students.’ The Pav Trinity College Dublin 2

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In It For... The Long Hall Words Karl McDonald Picture Fuchsia Macaree

Of all the different types of pub in the world, one of the most interesting is the Type Of Pub You Go To With Someone You Don’t Want To Be Seen With. Mentioned often in online guides to being a player, this type of pub is quiet enough to talk and pleasant enough to be in, but is unlikely to have any of your rowdy friends in it looking to spot you and chant uncharitable things at your potential future spouse. It’s not entirely clear whether the Long Hall is this kind of place, or whether any of the multiple couples sipping quiet pints and chatting had thought about it that much. It’s even less clear if it’s considered acceptable to make like a teen couple in a bike shed on low stools in a bar that doesn’t even have background music. But that certainly did happen on the Sunday evening Totally Dublin stopped in. Regardless of its position in sex politics, the Long Hall’s a good place to sit and have a pint if you’re just looking to sit and have a pint. The Guinness is, apparently, particularly creamy, and there’s a slightly expanded range of draught beer that takes in the safer fringes of non-marquee pints – Erdinger, basically. There’s enough ephemera – clocks, shotguns and samovars – to make the carpeted, deep red interior seem interesting, but thankfully not enough to seem forced. It’s a comfortable place to be, whether you want to talk to friends or just silently sip a pint and eye football highlights on the present but not prominent television. What elevates the Long Hall from simply being “a pub” though, is the curious cast of characters who descend. With none of the knowing Flann O’Brienwannabes of Grogans or get-out-of-my-

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pub dagger-shooters of a slightly dingier place, the Long Hall is welcoming and inviting to people varying from northern English retirees, cougars, people examining prosthetic hands, the aforementioned touchy-feely couple, common or garden Italian tourists, ex-backpackers, traditional barflies and men who basically seem to want to take a nap in a pub with the protection of a pint and a half of Guinness and a newspaper. The variety of the clientele (and the length of the eponymous hall) means that every time you pass through, to the bar, to smoke or to go to the toilet, you become even more acutely aware of the casual juxtaposition at play. “Remember that time we were on that beach in India and I looked away and a seagull ate my sandwich?” I overhear at the door. Three seconds later a middleaged woman with her breasts prominently displayed strokes my back gratuitously as she passes me with a “sorry there love.” And then back to the seat, where the narcoleptic gentleman seems to have consumed some of one of his pints without breaking his slumber. With pints ranging from about €4.20 to €5, the usual stuff being at the low and high ends, the Long Hall is neither particularly inviting nor repulsive from a financial perspective, but it’s an eminently comfortable place to sit and sip. The bar staff are satisfyingly brusque, setting the example for an atmosphere in which everyone seems to be having a good time without particular regard for the world beyond their table.

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The Long Hall South Great George’s St Dublin 2

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gastro

Along with millions of others, I was taught how to cook by the ubiquitous Jamie Oliver. I learned the basics through cooking his questionably authentic Italian-lite fare, with his “just drizzle it in a bit of luverly olive oil and smack on some mozzarella cheese and bish bash bosh you got a ‘mazin’ meal” method. My point is since I’ve learned to cook pasta sauces and make pizza dough moderately well, I’m selective about the Dublin-based Italian restaurants I pay to eat in. There are few things more annoying than paying for a dish that you could do a much better job of at home in an “Italian restaurant”. (N.B. This cynicism applies to restaurants actually outside of the country of Italy. Obviously.) We’d heard so many good things about Stoneybatter’s Plan B that my boyfriend Niall and I broke our Italian restaurant reluctance and went in for a Sunday night meal. A small but bright space, the Plan B vibe is casual dining, wherein you would feel equally at home in a good frock or donning flip-flops. We were led to perhaps the worst table in the house – a tiny table for two unromantically squeezed between a radiator, the bar and a load of boxes, presumably filled with imported pasta or olive oil. In a way, it lended itself to the Lady & The Tramp-esque evening we were after. Our Italian waiter was so understatedly charming that the unwelcoming squeeze was forgotten in around three and a half minutes. He talked us through the menu, apologising that the only pasta available that night were penne and fusilli. As in, all the sauces were available but there would be no spaghetti or ravioli for us tonight. Clearly, they’d had a busy weekend. After we’d placed our order, I asked our waiter to recommend a wine for us. He chose a most delicious Barbera D’Alba (€28), imported by Mr Italian Quarter and football honouring politician, Mick Wallace. A wonderful wine with a depth of flavour delivered in the lightest of ways. Stunning. A grape I’ve kept my eye out for since our meal. Our starters of the Plan B antipasti (€12) and Sicilian bruschetta (€6) were with us in under ten minutes. Our antipasti consisted of some winning fresh pesto, anchovies, sun-dried tomatoes, and hard melting mozzarella wrapped in Parma ham, all very tasty. The gorgeous fresh and crusty bread it was served with almost distracted us from the fact we were being charged €12 for a selection of highquality deli ingredients with little effort on the chef’s part. The Sicilian bruschetta was a massive mouthful of meltingly good mozzarella topped with toasted anchovies and a drizzle of olive oil. It was super. Even better when topped with a few of the antipasti

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No First Place Plan B

Words and picture Aoife McElwain

ingredients, creating a make-shift sambo. For mains, Niall went for the meatballs (€16), which are ordinarily served with spaghetti but were done no harm by mingling with penne. They were delicious. And massive. The tomato sauce was full of depth and the whole experience could only have been improved by the sound of spaghetti being slurped. About mid-way through the meatballs, Niall said “The next time we go out for a meal we’ll have to keep this in the back of our mind as our...heh heh...Plan B... wo-ho-ho!” I would have said that he was in danger of being demoted to a Plan B life partner if I hadn’t been so absolutely consumed with consuming my penne ragu (€15). It was amazing. So richly satisfying and so simple. The flavours that made up the sauce had gotten to know each other so fantastically well that they’d mutated into one powerful flavour entity, intent on exercising even the laziest of taste buds. The dish faltered a little by being slightly over-salted, which only hit the wrong side of intense in the last few bites. For dessert, Niall went for a decent enough vanilla panacotta with chocolate shavings (€5) while I went for the tiramisu (€5). Neither were hugely memorable nor

offensive, instead sitting comfortably in the middle of the dessert fence. The key to Plan B’s slow-burning success is the simplicity of the food. It’s straight-up, well cooked, well sourced, well cared for Italian food. And it tastes delicious. But it isn’t rocket science. Or molecular gastronomy. And I’m not sure how much longer Plan B can justify overpricing their food by what I saw as €2 to €5 per dish. Three courses each, a bottle of wine and a coffee brought the bill to €89. Not horrendously expensive for an enjoyable meal, with the wine accounted for a third of that bill. The prices, however, are prohibitive enough to stop many from dining regularly. Plan B do a Monday to Thursday Early Bird from 5pm to 7pm, with two courses for €20 and three courses for €25. Perhaps check it out within that price range. Trust me, you’ll want to come back for more. Reservations on the weekend are most definitely advised. Plan B Manor Place Stoneybatter Dublin 7 01 670 6431

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bitesize

Words Aoife McElwain

GIY Ireland at Dublin Co-op

I don’t know about you, but I am rubbish when it comes to plants. I know I can do it – everybody can – but I lack the knowhow in getting my broad bean shoots and lettuce buds off the ground. Or off my balcony, at least. I know I’ll be heading to the fortnightly GIY Ireland Talks at the Dublin’s Co-op in Newmarket, Dublin 8 to try to alleviate some of the green disappointment I’ve been feeling of late. Taking place from 12 noon to 1:30pm, the Grow It Yourself meet-ups aim to help those with all levels of budding green fingers share information on how best to make their gardens grow. It’s a chance to go down and pick up a few bits and bobs in the Co-ops Saturday fruit and vegetable market while you’re at it.

Dehli O’Deli

See www.dublinfood.coop and www.giyireland.com for all further details

The northside’s Moore Street has an expansive culinary tradition of old school fruit and veg sellers, fishmongers and butchers. The last few years has seen the panorama of the street change, with an influx of international tastes emerging and changing our lunch time scene for the better. From the outside looking in, however, you’d be forgiven for thinking The Dehli O’Deli is an unwelcoming canteen with nothing special to offer. If you give it a chance, you’ll find incredibly good value vegetarian and vegan food served by wonderfully friendly staff. It is the kind of addition to our city’s lunch landscape that may make you weep with its awesomeness. Even its name is amazing. There’s the Daily Fivers buffet which changes every day of the week (letting you fill up your plate for €5) and the Masala Dosa (€4.95), an outstanding South Indian bread made from ground rice served with an array of curries. Best thing is it’s open from 8am to 8pm, and with only two dishes on the menu priced over €5, it’s a great spot for an early Northside dinner on the cheap. Check out www.dehliodeli.com for a full look at their mouthwatering vegetarian fast food menu.

Food Blogger of the Month

The Daily Spud, otherwise known as Aoife Cox, has been championing the humble spud since 2008, picking up two Best Food Blog Awards for her efforts at the Irish Blog Awards (2009 and 2011). Have a look at her blog for mouth-wateringly original recipes which more often than not give the nod to our old friend The Potato. See www.dailyspud.com

Veg Out - Asparagus Asparagus. Rarely a Come Dine With Me episode goes by without a well-meaning foodie boiling these little beauties into anaemic stems of meh. Apart from over-cooking asparagus, the worst thing you can do is buy it out of season. Irish asparagus has a very short season – all of May and a few weeks into June – but once you’ve tried it in season, you’ll find that it’s worth waiting for. It’s such a good ingredient that it can take any dish off onto new planes of nomness. It’s great in pastas and quiches or with poached eggs and bacon, but equally stands out on its own. Now’s the time to eat as much asparagus

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Pacino’s

There’s a chance you’ve written off Pacino’s on Suffolk Street as a too-close-toGrafton-Street-to-be-good tourist eaterie. Its latest menu, launched at the end of March, goes some lengths to rubbishing that idea. Apart from continuing to strive for Italian authenticity with their dishes, Pacino’s are reflecting our growing interest in the provenance and quality of the food we eat by proudly naming their suppliers, most of whom are Irish. The steaks come from Jack O’Shea’s beef in Cork, who also supplies to Heston Blumenthal in the UK, while the salami and pepperoni featured on their pizzas come from the amazing Gubbeen Smokehouse in Co Cork. Have a look at www.pacinos. ie for a glance at their new menu and for all booking information. And perhaps don’t judge a restaurant by its touristically dog-eared cover.

as you can get into your gob! (And don’t worry if it makes your wee smell funny – it has that effect on almost everyone.) For a wonderful way to eat top notch asparagus, pre-heat your oven to 220C/Gas Mark 8. Pop a bunch of Irish asparagus into a roasting dish. Drizzle with oil, season with salt and pepper and then roast in your hot oven for 8 to 10 minutes. Serve drizzled with some the best olive oil you can get your hands on, a crack of black pepper, a squeeze of lemon juice and a few shavings of good Parmesan cheese. Amaze. Pictured: Monkfish with Asparagus from The Tannery in Dungarvan, Co Waterford. Have a look at loads of Darina Allen’s ideas for seasonal asparagus over on the Slow Food Ireland website at http://bit.ly/darinasaspargus

www.totallydublin.ie

Y L L A T O T

FOOD

Restaurant Guide

Kafka

Odessa

Le Bon Crubeen

On the doorstep of the Swan Centre lies one of Rathmines’ best kept secrets. Kafka offers affordable, wholesome, and well-made brasserie fare at a reassuringly reasonable cost. The sparse, minimal décor goes hand in hand with the delicious diner-style food; free of pretence and fuss. With a varied but not overstretched menu, Kafka touches enough bases to cover most tastes. Appetizers range from delicious chicken wings to golden breaded brie, while the main menu offers up anything from hearty bangers and mash, to porcini mushroom risotto. While their prices are easy on the pocket, Kafka cuts no corners with quality of their food.

Odessa is Dublin’s original dining lounge, a mesh of style and substance. Thanks to its newly-popular Fivers menu, its defining quality has become offering affordable sophistication. The restaurant offers a mouth-watering menu renowned for its tapas-style offerings and an unparalleled cocktail menu, all in a chilled-out atmosphere.

A relative new comer to Dublin’s restaurant scene, Le Bon Crubeen is a refined yet unpretentious brasserie. With food quality at the forefront of their philosophy, the people behind this Talbot Street establishment serve up honest, well sourced, brasserie fare. Impressive rotations of weekly specials accompany a menu that offers up among other things, pork belly, and Steak frite, the benchmarks of any brasserie worth its salt.

236 Lower Rathmines Road, Dublin 6

14 Dame Court, Dublin 2

t: 01 670 7634 www.odessa.ie

81- 82 Talbot Street, Dublin 1

www.leboncrubeen.ie t: 01 704 0126

t: 01 497 7057

The Best Western Dublin Skylon Hotel

Upper Drumcondra Road

The Rendezvous Room Restaurant is open for both breakfast and dinner. Enjoy a delicious meal in the relaxing and pleasant surroundings, with both A La Carte and Table d’Hote Menus available. The Skylon also boasts a superb selection of wines to choose from. Enjoy a drink or a meal in the Cosmopolitan Bar, newly decorated in traditional Irish style. This is the ideal meeting point for any occasion and is a favourite with locals and visitors alike. Evening menu is also available.

Eddie Rocket’s City Diner

Zen

Eddie’s manages to escape the trappings of restaurant franchising - its 100% fresh Irish beef burgers are consistently as excellent as most designer burger joints in town, and its (brilliantly-designed) menu diversifies seemingly by the day, making it the perfect stop for breakfast, lunch, dinner and late-night munchies, parties, and family days out - we couldn’t hope for a whole lot more from an Irish-owned business.

Celebrating its 20th year of serving imaginative, authentic Sichuan food in the unique setting of an old church hall. Real Sichuan cooking is unlike Cantonese, eastern or northern Chinese styles, and unlike any other outside China. Zen is the only Chinese restaurant in Ireland listed in the MICHELIN Guide. Using only the finest ingredients, favorites such as prawns with wild Sichuan pepper and fresh chilli and fillet of beef in hot bean sauce with broccoli have maintained a very loyal following. An early bird menu from Sunday to Thursday, 5:30 to 7:30 offers excellent choice and incredible value.

Citywide

www.eddierockets.ie

t: 01 808 4418

Mexico to Rome

Teddy’s Ice-Cream & Grill

Salamanca Tapas Bars and restaurants, offer fantastic value, great quality food, service and atmosphere. They pride themselves on a wide variety of menus and great value deals, that offer creative, innovative, delicious dishes. Visit either Salamanca and be prepared to be whisked away from the mundane to the excitement of the warm continent ,in either of two prime city centre locations. Salamanca Dame street offers the €10 lunch and the €15 early bird 7 days, Salamanca Andrew st offers the €11 lunch and the Tapas tower early bird menu. Exciting new Tapas launches in both restaurants in Feb 2011.

Mexico To Rome restaurant over looks the historic cobbles of Temple Bar, and is ideallly situated across from the world wide known Temple bar pub. It’s renowned for its combination of Mexican and Italian dishes and its newly introduced grill menu adds to its popularity. At Mexico to Rome they boast friendly, efficient and extremely helpful service. Their unique dishes are prepared in full view of the customer, which adds to the attraction of the restaurant. Great for a group reservation or an intimate meal for two. Best lunch deal around, starter, main + glass of wine or soft drink all for €8.95.The Early bird menu is a starter, main + dessert all for €14.95.

99-cone institution for nearly 60 years in Dun Laoghaire, Teddy’s Dundrum Grill offers another side to one of Dublin’s most-loved establishments – Teddy’s offers steak, spare ribs, and burgers par excellence, without destroying your wallet in the run-up to Christmas. And yes, they still do the best ice cream in town.

t 01 6774799 f 01 6774795 email info@salamanca.ie

t: 01 6772727 f: 01 6774795 mexico2rome@hotmail.com www.salamanca.ie

Eden

Venu

Anne’s Lane, off South Anne St, Dublin 2

63 - 64 O’Connell Street, Dublin 1

The acclaimed, award-winning Eden restaurant serves contemporary food with a distinctive Irish flavour, overlooking the vibrant Meeting House Square in Temple Bar. With a set of mouthwatering dishes available for mains, from mushroom tarts to duck confit, and a stunning location, Eden is one of Dublin’s must-eat experiences.

Venu has enjoyed a loyal following since it opened in 2006 and it has been renowned for its well-executed, varied food menu and for its award-winning cocktail bar. If you are looking for a vibrant place that serves great cocktails and quality ‘home-made’ dishes at reasonable prices it is hard to look much further than Venu Brasserie. Tues - Sat: Dinner 5.30 til late Saturday Brunch: 12pm til 4pm

The relaxed and intimate setting of Café Carlo, coupled with its high-quality, reasonably priced food and friendly, attentive staff has made this restaurant a huge favourite with Dublin diners. Not only is it a popular choice with visitors to our fair city, it's also found a place in the hearts of the discerning locals, who return time and again to soak up the Cafe Carlo atmosphere and enjoy some genuinely delicious food. Free glass of wine with every main course when mentioning this ad!

Meeting House Square, Temple Bar, Dublin 2

t: 01 670 5372 www.edenrestaurant.ie

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t: 01 4979428 www.zenrestaurant.ie

Salamanca

1 St Andrew st, Dublin 2

89 Upper Rathmines Road, Rathmines

23 East Essex Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2

t: 01 67 06755 www.venu.ie charles@venubrasserie.com

Dundrum Town Centre

t: 01 2964799 ek@teddys.ie

Café Carlo

t: 01 888 0856 www.cafecarlo.net

www.totallydublin.ie

The Butcher Grill

Havana Tapas Bar

Bloom Brasserie

The Gravediggers

A new venture from the successful Dillinger’s of Ranelagh, the butcher Grill is a more meaty affair than its sister restaurant. The Butcher Grill offers a wide spread of carnivorous meals cooked on wood-smoked grills, from veal striploin to grilled halibut. With an excellent starters menu featuring oysters, beef carpaccio and Irish rabbit, the Butcher Grill excels in its variety - but don’t worry, the dessert menu is decidedly meat-free. A new jewel in the Ranelagh culinary crown.

Havana is a lively tapas bar and fully licensed restaurant that specialises in simple, appetising food with an authentic Spanish flavour. Open from lunch ‘til late, Havana excels in both its spread of nibbles and its range of wine and cocktails.

Bloom Brasserie is a restaurant with lofty ambitions. With an excellent head chef well versed in the traditions of French cuisine, Bloom’s offers up accessible cuisine that accentuates their quality local ingredients. Head chef Pól Ó hÉannraich has lovingly assembled a menu that sees Angus Beef carpaccio alongside Caramelised King Scallops, and Roast Seabass. All dishes are freshly prepared and cooked to perfection.

John Kavanaghs, The Gravediggers is a part of Dublin since 1833. One of Dublins finest and genuine bars, and best pint of plain, now offers fine food in their lounge. Lunch, Monday - Saturday 12 - 3pm, evening tapas, Tuesday - Friday 6pm 8.30pm. Tapas start from €2.50 to €7.50, all freshly made to order. Fresh oysters every Friday evening, €5.00 for half a dozen, a true dublin tradition. Still in the Kavanagh family today, you’ll often find three generations working together in this Dublin hidden treasure.

92 Ranelagh Village, Dublin 6

t: 01 498 1805

South Great Georges Street, Dublin 1

t: 01 400 5990 www.havana.ie

Tante Zoe’s

Bang Cafe

Temple Bar, Dublin’s own French Quarter - is an appropriate home for this lively Cajun/Creole restaurant where great music meets great food. Try the gumbos, Jambalayas and blackened dishes... You won’t find better this side of the Mississippi. Originated from Louisiana, and is a combination of American Indian, African, French and Spanish cuisines - and it’s Tante Zoe’s speciality.

After a brief hiatus, Bang Cafe is back. Known for its sumptuous Euro-cuisine, superb service, and extensive wine and cocktail list, Bang is one of the city’s finest restaurants. Dine at Bang Cafe and you’ll be always be in the company of artists - with walls adorned with original artwork and rare prints by leading Irish and international artists such as Patrick Scott and William Crozier, Bang stands apart in the Dublin dining scene.

Tante Zoe’s also has private rooms to cater for parties of 20, 40 and 100 people.

t: 01 400 4229 www.bangrestaurant.com

1 Crow Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2

11 Upper Baggot Street, Dublin 4

www.bloombrasserie.ie t: 01 668 7170

Prospect Square, Glasnevin, D9

t: 087 2963713 thegravediggersdublin@gmail.com

Eataly

66A Glasnevin Hill, Dublin 9 3-5 Main Street, Rush

11 Merrion Row, Dublin 2.

Take a trip to Glasnevin or Rush’s Eataly pizzerias and you might mistake the place for Naples. The Eataly team are constantly busy, in a way that only Italians can be in this authentic pizzeria whose owners hail from from Fontechiari, the tiny South Italian village. They have even designed their own ovens that can heat to 450 degrees, so you can imagine they achieve the perfect crispy while moist formula (ovens and pizza bases with Eataly sauce are for sale to the trade). Try the Spicy Barby, or the house special Eataly pizza and you will be transported to birthplace of the most remarkable of Italian cuisine.

t: 01 6794407 www.tantezoes.com

t: 01 857 1888

The Chili Club

The Counter

Salamanca

Just shy of its 20th birthday Dublin’s Chili Club has had a welcome restyling and is now under new management. Quietly hidden away in Anne’s Lane opposite Kehoe’s Pub, the Chili Club was Dublin’s first Thai restaurant and has since its heyday been consistently serving, delicious, authentic Thai food. A recent makeover of cool greens and vibrant fuschia, along with a new bar breathes fresh life into the premises. It has long been a popular spot with local stockbrokers and visiting celebrities and continues to draw an eclectic clientele. A two course lunch is €9.95, three course €12.95 and a recessionary early bird menu is priced at a tempting €14.95. Combine these reasonable prices with cool tunes, friendly staff and a carefully selected wine list, this makes the Chili Club an ideal place for after work supper or a great night out.

Counter’s two outposts in Dublin represent an alternative dining future - patrons are offered complete control over their burger’s fillings. The variety of options is bewildering - you’re in safe hands with the expanded menu of Counter’s own recipes. Their shakes, beer and wine menu is nicely expansive too - if you want to make sure you never eat the same meal twice, Counter’s your Mecca.

1 Anne’s Lane, South Anne Street, D2

Suffolk Street/Dundrum Shopping Centre

38 - 40 Parliament St, Dublin 2

www.thecounterburger.com Suffolk St: 01 611 1689 Dundrum: 01 2164 929

t 01 6719308 f 01 6774795 email salamancadamest@salamanca.ie

t: 01 677 3721 info@chiliclub.ie

Pacino’s

Il Primo

The Farm

For over 15 years Pacino’s has been a family-run restaurant known for its delicious ‘Classic & Gourmet’ pizzas and pastas, steaks and salads. It serves traditional, fresh, quality Italian cuisine. Its beef is 100% Irish, and sourced from reputable suppliers, and its pizza dough made fresh, inhouse, daily. Pacino’s offers a modern dining experience, with an old world vibe – stylish brickwork, wooden floors and soft lighting all combine to create a relaxed, rustic, informal atmosphere.

Il Primo is one of the longest-established Italian restaurants in Dublin’s city centre. For over a decade, Il Primo has been serving rustic Italian food paired with some of the best wines that Tuscany has to offer. Most of its wines are imported directly to Il Primo and cannot be found anywhere else in Ireland. The restaurant is located in a romantic period house, which has been converted into a lively, homely bar area and a cosy and intimate dining room, located five minutes from St. Stephen’s Green. The emphasis throughout Il Primo is on providing some of the finest wines from Tuscany with a range of simple and delicious Italian dishes in the heart of Dublin.

The Farm is about tasty homemade locally sourced free range, organic and fresh food. Healthy vegetables and fresh herbs. All their food is freshly prepared and cooked to order.

18 Suffolk St., Dublin 2

t: 01 677 5651 www.pacinos.ie

16 Montague Street, Dublin 2

t: 01 478 3373 Email: info@ilprimo.ie

www.totallydublin.ie

3 Dawson St, Dublin 2

11 am to 11 pm 7 days a week

t: 01 671 8654 hello@thefarmfood.ie

Le Cafe Des Irlandais

12-13 South Great Georges Street, Dublin 2 Located in one of Dublins oldest and most beautiful dining rooms, Le Cafe Des Irlandais serves French style rotisserie food using the best of Irish ingredients. Open from 8am for a delicious Irish breakfast and brunch at weekends. Lunch from 12-5 serving reasonably prices soups and roast sandwiches. Our a la carte dinner served nightly from 6 with fresh fish and vegetarian specials. Open Tuesday- Saturday 8am-11pm. Sunday 11am to 10pm.

t: 01 677 1584. www.lecafedesirlandais.com

TOTALLY DUBLIN

www.totallydublin.ie

Words Ian Lamont Picture John Darko Director James Wan and writer Leigh Whannel rose to prominence when they created the seemingly endless and endlessly bloody Saw franchise. Having initially teamed up in their film school days in Melbourne, James and Leigh have joined forces again to create Insidious, a contemporary take on that reliable horror trope, the haunted house story. Totally Dublin caught up with them for some ghost stories. Insidious is definitively not a violent film. Was that a reaction to some of the criticism that you have received for being almost too violent, too gory with the Saw movies? L: Yeah, in a way. It was us wanting to prove we could make a film that was really scary without relying on blood and both of us know from all the horror films that we love that you don’t need blood for something to be super scary. You concentrate on the psychological. J: Especially ghost stories and haunted house films, you don’t need to rain blood at all, have limbs cut off, it doesn’t work like that. I think it would be counter intuitive if we were to have made a bloody, gory movie with a haunted house movie. L: The story is only ever seeing someone in the corner [of your eye] and there’s a hint of something that’s going to happen and then that’s it, it never actually happens. Kind of playing on pre-existing fears. L: It is. I mean, it’s a fascination with death I think, in terms of ghosts. It’s the ultimate question, the unknown – what is there beyond death? Telling a ghost story, it piques that and adrenalizes that part of your brain that wants to know the answers to the mysteries of life. So how was it working with what I gather was a relatively small budget? J: It’s not relatively small, it’s super low. L: It means things go fast, that was a good thing about it. J: It also means creative freedom, which was what Leigh and I wanted. I felt like Leigh had written such a great script that I didn’t want people to mess with it. I wanted to make this film where I knew that it would not get bastardized in any way. If there was too many cooks in the kitchen for this, I felt like the scares prob-

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ably would not work, the family dynamic would not be as strong, every little thing might be slightly off-kilter and in the bigger picture, it may not feel like the film we wanted to make any more. So I was very careful, to the point where I really wanted to edit the film myself, because I felt that way I could control every aspect of it and that way I could shoot the film knowing exactly how I was going to edit it later. Which was very economical as well because the film is such a low budget film and we shot in 22 days so that means that we don’t have a lot of time to mess around. So in a way the constraints really aid the focus of the film. J: It aided the process for me, and you in the writing too. L: Yeah it does, because it’s freeing in a way. J: Exactly! It’s like, “Leigh, you can only write a movie that takes place in two houses, now go and be as creative as you can!” So it’s very restrictive but at the same time it sets us on a path saying okay, this is all we’ve got to work with but lets make this incredibly scary and as good as we possibly can. L: It’s interesting because we wrote the first Saw film knowing it would be low budget but I think James went into that film having a much bigger scope in his mind. He’d been storyboarding the film in his head for years and then he got on the set and the cold reality of what you can actually afford for the budget we had came crashing down on him. He had the 1st Assistant Director in his ear saying “You can’t afford that crane shot” so there was a lot of frustration on his part. Whereas, I think, in this film he went into it knowing exactly what the restrictions were so there was no frustration. And so you can concentrate, with less money, on really simple ideas rather than on cinematic power. L: Exactly, I’ve found on big-budget stuff I’ve written to be much harder because you can do anything. All of a sudden your brain thinks, if you can do anything… I could have the world break in half, I could have the universe fold in on itself and you start to become overwhelmed by the choices. One of my favourite things about the entire film was the sound design of the film and the score. How much control over those elements do you have? J: Oh super control! Everything with Insidious is extremely calculated, very

controlled. I flew my sound designer friend from Australia to come hang out with me in LA. He would record the sound of ice-cracking which is the sound of the demon’s claws. Little things like that were so much fun, really harking back to our film-school roots. The score was written by a friend of ours. I worked very closely with him. I did not want a score that was melodious in any way, I wanted it to be very atonal, almost avantgarde, all the piano bangs and screeching violins. Those were the two things I really wanted. Out of tune pianos, opening up the grand piano and hitting the strings with drum sticks and all that. I haven’t really had the chance to give credit to him, but the sound mix of the film, that was really important. Like, how cavernous to make the house sound, what kind of creak do we put on this? Does a ghost make a sound when he walks?! Little things like that. So a lot of thought went into the sound. If anything I think I spend more time on the soundscape than I did on the visual landscape… and I spent a lot of time on the visual end of things. L: That’s just as important, if not more important in a horror film. Think of the low-budget horror films you’ve seen where the sound of it was really the only aspect. Or the silence of it. J: Or what is used to depict silence. In Insidious we wanted a lot of silence but we knew we needed a sound to depict the silence and that’s why I have a lot of ticking clocks, the dripping water taps, the creak of an old room. Did any really creepy stuff happen on the set, Exorcist style? J: Do we wish that creepy stuff had happened so that we actually had a cool story to tell? One last quick one for our apocalypsethemed issue: What movies would you take with you to a fall-out shelter? L: Wow, you’d want a real range there. I’d probably take Jaws because I love it so much. J: You probably wouldn’t want to take an apocalyptic themed movie. L: Although maybe Mad Max 2 would be a great instructional video! I’d take The Big Lebowski for a laugh, as long as we had post-apocalyptic pot and then maybe something romantic to keep the idea of love alive? So maybe… Before Sunrise? I love that film. Insidious is in all cinemas now

TOTALLY DUBLIN

games

Words Zoe Jellicoe Okamiden

Clover Studio – DS

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Okamiden and the DS could have been made for each other. Much more accurate and satisfying than Okami’s PS2 or Wii controls, the DS stylus is perfect. Retaining the original’s sumi-e art style, Okamiden squeezes every drop of power out of the DS to make beautiful visuals – although the hardware limitations make close-ups horribly blocky. Set nine months after Okami, we play as the impossibly adorable wolf pup of the former’s protagonist and revisit many characters and locations on the quest to rid feudal Japan of cheeky demons. The engaging story feels more like a Japanese folk tale than a traditional computer game plot, but is ultimately very similar to that of the first game. The introduction of companions lends more variety to the play as you can guide them to assist you with battles and puzzles. Okamiden feels more streamlined than Okami, making it perfectly adapted for a hand-held console. While it is very samey, this refined sequel to an amazing original will keep you engrossed through its surprisingly long adventure. Okamiden is not perfect, but is not to be missed and may be the last hurrah of the DS in its death throes.

Crysis 2

Crytek – PC, Xbox360, PS3

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The High-Scoring Twenties It’s a familiar story. Successful, adored film is translated into a (more often than not) less successful and adored video game. Though there have rarely been any crossovers between the worlds of literature and gaming, the Great Gatsby game is one such foray. Another attempt is the Dante’s Inferno game, which combined a clumsy butchering of the original text with badly conceived, unoriginal gameplay, attempting to invoke God of War. The Gatsby game, on the other hand, was conceived of as a playful but entirely functional hoax game. Its creator fashioned a mysterious back-story to accompany the NES-styled game, evocative of the haunted Majora’s Mask cartridge (except that the sentiment behind this is not as irritating as that person at the party who insists that their cousin got a giant Cadbury egg mistakenly filled with cream). Software developer Charles Hoey originally claimed that he purchased the Gatsby game, an unreleased 8-bit wonder called “Doki Doki Toshokan: Gatsby no Monogatari”, for 50 cent at a carboot sale. In the end he explained how himself and his friend Pete Smith, an editor at nerve.com, had decided to release the game together. Both were taken aback by the incredible reception

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that the game received. Gamers play as Nick Carraway, launching off your boomerang fedora to take down rogue flappers and drunks, jumping to catch coins and martini glasses that give you a bonus of 100 points, taking down rats and crocodiles in the sewers, and winning boss fights by dodging tears shed by a gigantic pair of floating eyes. Things are kept simple here, thanks not only to the NES inspired setting and music, but also to the actual length of the game, which is only four levels long. Almost everything in this 15 minute long game is strangely and hilariously evocative of Fitzgerald’s novel. Charles and Pete had, when they started, wanted to release an entire set of literary arcade games – they had next planned on creating a Jane Eyre game. While of course there’s room for everything to go horribly wrong, it does feel as if the huge comedic potential of literary games should indicate that something good comes out of this mania. In the meantime, check out the clip made for an imaginary Waiting for Godot game – revelling in the lack of action, the “boss fight” consists solely of a build-up of increasingly ominous music. This is clearly a genre that could go far.

2007’s PC-exclusive Crysis was graphically amazing and the sequel doesn’t fail to impress on this front. Unfortunately the graphics are the only improvement Crytek have made in the past four years. The battles are, like the first game, very engaging – each one being approachable from different angles and even avoidable with stealth. The human enemies are fun to play tricks on using your invisibility cloak and Crysis 2, like its predecessor, is almost a brilliant sneaking game. Then aliens make a reappearance to snatch mediocrity from the jaws of greatness. The control scheme has been dumbed down to be compatible with consoles, and the change of setting to NYC instead of a tropical island loses much of the charm of the original. Maybe it’s the looming ten-year anniversary of 9/11, but it seems like every shooter now has to revolve around an attack on “the homeland”. The tattered stars and stripes must bravely flutter over crumbling monuments while we blast commies/ aliens to pieces – and Crysis 2 is no exception, with Lady Liberty making three decrepit appearances before the woefully anticlimactic final encounter.

Pokémon Black/White Game Freak – DS

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Pokémon Black/White are good games. In 1996, Pokémon Red and Blue were great games, and little has changed. Some irresponsible scientist named after a tree still gives you a fire/water/ grass Pokémon and sends you out to mutilate other kids’ pets and tread the well worn path to the Elite Four. Black/ White try to stand out from their older siblings by introducing a PETA type cult who want people to free their Pokémon, but are probably up to no good. Story has never been Pokémon’s strength and, admirable as these attempts are, its emphasis only draws attention to the antiquated battle system that is yearning for an overhaul. Unless you’re ten, you’ll want to set the text speed to high, turn off the animations and cover yourself in Pokémon repellent, as battles become annoying distractions. Black/White is still addictive, but ultimately unsatisfying, and the new additions to the Pokémon menagerie are mostly unimaginative – some even blatant copies of previous ideas. The hours you could lose to Black and White are a testament to its value for money, but last year’s re-release of Gold/Silver shows that even Nintendo realise this franchise peaked in 2000.

All reviews John Hyland

www.totallydublin.ie

Pre-Raphalite Drawing Colin Cruise [Thames & Hudson] The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood are a band of artists who have received a huge resurgence in critical attention in recent years – their fame reaching a high point (or rather, low point) with the screening of tits-and-drugs packed BBC drama series Desperate Romantics last year. However one area of their artistic oeuvre remains relatively uncelebrated: their drawing. Drawing tends to be a neglected area of art history in general, traditionally being seen as subsidiary or peripheral to the dominant media of painting and sculpture. This is perhaps the case even more for the PRB, whose draftsmanship was criticised by their conservative contemporaries; hostile to anything going against the grain of the Royal Academy’s doctrines. But as shown by this book, and its accompanying exhibition (on at Birmingham Museum until May 15th), there is plenty to be celebrated and marvelled at in this realm. Focusing on Rossetti, Millais, Burne-Jones and Hunt, the book recognises both the similarities and gaping differences in approach found within even this tight-knit band of artists, emphasising close studies of individual works over collectivist generalisations. A wide range of sources are referred to, including personal diaries and letters, lending the study an intimate feel appropriate to what is essentially an examination of unhoned and unmediated creative processes: the long neglected medium of drawing is after all the one which tells us the most about an artist, their thought process and development. Often not intended for public consumption, these works, and Colin Cruise’s accompanying text, offer a rare glimpse into the minds of some of the greatest figures of nineteenth-century art. - RA

Atlas of Remote Islands

Dublin Review

Judith Schalansky [Penguin]

Quarterly [Atelier David Smith]

Islomania is a little-explored affliction that I’ve spent the last few months trying to piece together a feature piece on. A weird psychological tic that, according to the internet, was first identified in 1953 as an irresistible urge to discover, travel to, or own an island - the more remote and arcane the better - resounded with me upon figuring out how much over-time I’d have to work to scrape together enough cash to buy a second-hand yacht and a nice little rocky outpatch off the Galway coast (by my calculations, another 3218 hours of heavy labour and that land is mine). Judith Schalansky’s gorgeous Atlas of Remote Islands might just usurp classic islomaniac fiction (Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, Typee) as the, shall we say, desert island book du jour. Schalansky, a fellow childhood lover of looking at an atlas for hours and letting her imagination unfurl, decided to document 50 different islands around the world that she has never, and will never visit, taking the time to draw some artful cartographical documents of each island and write a semi-fictive story that embodies the history of each island. There is fact in here, but the real fun is in the make-believe. She employs characters real and imaginary, from a Napoleon ostracized on Ascension Island to the anonymous mother of a fevered baby on St. Kilda in short, poetic bursts of narrative. Schalansky’s introduction makes a case for cartography to be appreciated not just for its functionality, but for the inherent beauty of it - her illustrated accompaniments more than vindicate the argument. A sometimes clumsy grasp of descriptive writing aside, The Atlas of Remote Islands is essential a perfect execution of a charming idea. - DG

It is the careful selection of literature which makes the Dublin Review so notable – alongside contributions by many well respected writers, the magazine is also dedicated to fostering the best new talent among authors, poets, and freelancers. It is a uniquely Irish publication, one which, as The New York Times remarks, “feels pleasantly pickled in that city’s brine”. Its 42nd issue is a well-balanced mix of current affairs and short fiction set in Dublin and abroad. Greg Baxter, author of A Preparation for Death, explores issues surrounding waste disposal in Ireland – the problematic connection with wealth and waste. Playwright Elske Rahill writes about Adrian, meditating upon his increasing estrangement from his wife and daughter while he sits on the bus going to work, watching two attractive young Traveller girls with their mother. Donald Mahoney, former Mongrel contributor, is invited by an old colleague to interview a victim of the Celtic tiger. Brendan Barrington, who was editor at Lilliput Press and is also an editor at Penguin Ireland, launched the magazine in 2000. The Dublin Review is now its tenth year, and issue 42 is an excellent example of the calibre of its journalism, fiction, and criticism. - ZJ

RA - Rosa Abbott DG - Daniel Gray ZJ - Zoe Jellcoe

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