Culture Night

There's nothing like a bit of culture, especially when it's free, and there'll be culture to beat the band next Friday, 24 Sept. The city has been conveniently divided up into different Quarters (very European), with late night openings (many til 11pm), special events and loads of fun. There's even free buses to take you there and back. Watch this space for the best bits: visit the Guinness Storehouse or the Jameson Distillery for a complimentary pint or whiskey; take part in the annual Culture Night Treasurehunt around the Francis Street galleries or lose yourself in Gospel Music at Wood Quay. Dublin Civic Trust are displaying The Irish House, a Victorian pub salvaged from Wood Quay, and you can catch Dara O'Brien playing the sitar at the Chester Beatty Library. There's musical/literary/arty fun at the Gutter Bookshop, Oxfam Books and Project, live performance and interactive installations at the Contemporary Music Centre, and sean nos singing and dancing at Gaelchultur. Filmbase is showing Irish short movies, there's a rake of pipers at Na Piobairi Uilleann, leading sculptor Michael Warren is at Hillsboro Fine Art and there's a barbeque outside the Hugh Lane. Burundi Drumming and an outdoor movie at Meeting House Square, dance classes at Dance House, poetry, prose and performance at the Pearse Centre, Scrabble in Spanish at Instituto Cervantes and Poetry Ireland's Open Mike session at the Unitarian Church. Mapping Urban Ireland is at the Royal Irish Academy, Nuala Hayes tells stories from the Tain at the National Museum, and well-known poet Tahar Bekri reads his work to music at the Alliance Francaise. www.culturenight.ie

Get a Handel on This

Temple Bar Cultural Trust has all kinds of free activities planned for its Handel Celebrations on Tues 13 April, the 268th anniversary of the first ever performance of probably the best-known choral music in the world, Handel’s Messiah – and it happened right here in the heart of Temple Bar. The annual Messiah on the Street featuring Our Lady’s Choral Society has by now become something of a cultural institution, but newcomers from 3 Dublin national schools will also join in a Global Hallelujah. Music historian Barra Boydell sheds a different light on familiar streets and buildings in his Handel & Dublin 1742 Walk, while Nicolas Carolan of the Irish Traditional Archive presents Ye Lord Mayors Delight, a talk and recital (featuring 4 renowned traditional performers) focusing on the earliest published collection of Irish music. And to wrap it all up (keep warm), Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 movie Barry Lyndon gets an outdoor screening on Meeting House Square. All events are free but some are ticketed, more info @ www.templebar.ie

Culture Night

Fancy a slice of culture but you haven’t got the cash? Check out Culture Night next Friday (25 Sept) when you can stay out late, travel around the city on special buses and get all the culture that you want – and it’s all free. Co-ordinated by Temple Bar Cultural Trust, this year over 120 cultural venues are opening their doors to one and all, some until midnight, with dollops of visual art, architecture, dancing, family activities, music, poetry, street performance, painting, talks, walks, theatre and traditional culture.

To make things more accessible, the city has been divided into various quarters. Highlights of the Heuston/Museum Quarter include the Guinness Storehouse, the James Joyce House of The Dead and the National Museum at Collins Barracks, where the Dead Zoo will come to life. Lots of galleries in the Historic Quarter are open til midnight and there’s a fair bit of music as well, notably in Christ Church and St Patrick’s Cathedrals, with sound installations and performances at the Contemporary Music Centre. At Dublin Castle you can visit the exotic Chester Beatty Library and be intrigued by the Revenue Museum and Garda Museum (did you even know they existed?).

Oxfam Books, Connolly Books and the Winding Stair (Temple Bar & North of Liffey area) have music and readings, there’s animation workshops in Filmbase, drama workshops in the Gaiety School of Acting, and Seamus Nolan is in Project with his Corrib Gas exhibition. And there’s some great stuff happening in Meeting House Square, including a screening of This Other Eden (1958), a midnight Voyage to the Stars featuring images from the Hubble Space Telescope, and a short CoisCeim-led dance show Night of the Living Debs.

There’s more music in the North Georgian Quarter – you can hear some of Ireland’s leading pipers in Na Piobairi Uilleann; a sprinkling of Joyce and John McCormack at the Teachers Club (they both took singing lessons there); choral music in the Pro-Cathedral; a preview of the Hugh Lane Gallery’s Sunday concerts; Conor McPherson at the Gate; readings at the Irish Writers Centre and Dublin Writers Museum; and free postage at the GPO. In the Trinity College/Docklands area there’s a chance for free tickets for Enda Walsh's play at the Peacock – available from 10.30am. In Trinity you can see Ireland’s Last Great Auk at the Zoological Museum and the Book of Kells in the Library. The Bubbles exhibition is in the Science Gallery, there’s experimental music videos in the Instituto Cervantes and you can hear everything from Bach to the Beatles at the RIAM.

Finally, in the South Georgian Quarter you can take part in an instant orchestra at the NCH, and you can also get free tickets to two RTE concerts (rte.ie/culturenight). Cor na nOg are at the National Gallery, there’s an open-mic session at Poetry Ireland, Sean McSweeney at the Taylor Galleries, Yeats at the National Library, wine-tasting at the Alliance Francaise and an Antiques Roadshow for Books at the RDS. And as if that wasn’t enough Astronomy Ireland are in Phoenix Park, there’s a Giant Whale and a Climbing Wall in Wolfe Tone Park, and 3epkano accompany a live screening of Nosferatu in Dartmouth Square.

Pick up a brochure@ Temple Bar Info Centre or find out more@ www.culturenight.ie