Things To Do: Dissect Bunreacht na hÉireann, observe an Imaginationist, celebrate the Tolka River, buy a ticket for Capitalism

Our Picks

Our recommendations – no sponsored content, or adverts, just stuff we like.

The Peace Process

Last Thursday, the Irish-Swedish electronic trio The Sei released a brand new EP titled We Must Be Still Alive?

If you haven’t heard it yet, head on over to their website here to give it a spin.

And if that resonates with you, it may be worthwhile venturing down to Project Arts Centre in Temple Bar where their adjacent project, The Flora Fauna Project – composed of choreographer Maria Nilsson Waller and artist Stace Gill – is staging an ambitious multimedia performance called The Peace Process.

This durational performance fuses dance, music, film and installation “to create a meditative ecosystem exploring cycles of evolution, conflict and harmony”. Directed by Nilsson Waller and Gill, and featuring an ensemble of dancers and designers, The Peace Process is described as a 10-chapter score that functions as a continuous loop or spiral which invites the audience to move freely through a unique, complex landscape.

In short, you’re going to fulfil that lifelong dream of “becoming reflective participants in a shared ritual for our times”.

The Peace Process began last night, and will run until 2 May. Tickets are available here.

Imaginationism: An Exhibition by Valerie Gannon

This Bank Holiday Monday marks the start of this year’s annual Culture Date with D8 festival.

To kick off the proceedings, over on Meath Street, All You Need Is Death director Paul Duane will be curating an exhibition of paintings by local artist Valerie Gannon.

Gannon moved to Pimlico with her family around 40 years ago, and after studying in Trinity College Dublin, worked at St Patrick’s Mental Health Hospital for many years, all the while painting canvas after canvas, some of which she created in a small bedroom studio, and others while travelling.

The paintings, which are bold, text-driven, richly coloured and visually striking, were rarely made for sale. Many of them she donated to charity shops. They reference world events, local Liberties landmarks, political imagery, opera, music and personal fears. Often, she painted subjects that preoccupied or troubled her, transforming them into dense, layered compositions of colour and commentary.

Throughout much of her life, Gannon confronted challenges concerning her mental health. She has rarely exhibited, although in the late 2000s, her art was shown in former rugby player, pundit and “outsider” art collector Brent Pope’s Dublin gallery. Instead of showing in formal exhibition spaces, her works lived in everyday spaces, like Jack Roche’s fruit and veg shop, Noel Fleming’s newsagent on Meath Street, and the Oxfam on Francis Street, where she regularly donated paintings.

Many of her works were quietly collected and preserved by Fleming, and on Monday evening, a selection of them will be shown as part of the exhibition titled Imaginationisms, which is the term Gannon uses to refer to her practice.

Imaginationisms will open at 6pm at the former Books At One shop at 46/47 Meath Street. Brent Pope will be appearing as a guest speaker at the launch, and the exhibition will run until 10 May.

Capitalism: The Musical

This Monday, musician, writer and theatre maker Deirdre Murphy will be bringing her production of Capitalism: The Musical to the Teacher’s Club on Parnell Square.

Part of the Wilde Stages Queer Theatre Festival, the musical offers a powerful, funny and catchy perspective on our economic system and the culture it creates. Interrogating the cultural moment we are currently experiencing, Capitalism touches on issues like homelessness, income precarity, the military industrial complex, corruption, the use of violence, whistleblowing, heroism and love.

“It invites the weird and the surreal, and shines light on the power of women's wisdom through the ages,” writes Murphy, and tells a story which investigates class struggle, fascism, and freedom through archetype, myth, and music. 

Previously staged at the 2025 edition of Electric Picnic and as part of Culture Night, this latest run will start on Monday 4 May and continue until 9 May.

Tickets are available here.

Off The Scéal

If you’ve been writing or expressing yourself in Irish or any other language recently, and have been keen to give these thoughts an airing with a receptive audience, then the Irish Writers Centre might be the place to be next week.

On Tuesday evening, the centre up on Parnell Square will be hosting a multi-lingual open mic night.

Off The Scéal is co-curated by poet, artist and spoken word performer Daniel Flynn, and broadcaster, writer and Gaeilgeoir Ola Majekodunmi, and was conceived as a space to facilitate multilingual and multicultural artists, poets, musicians, storytellers and comedians.

For this installation of the open-mic night, there will also be special guest performances from the group IMLÉ and the singer Justine Nantale.

The night will kick off at 6:30pm. Admission is free.

Now you have a deadline to edit, sharpen, punch up, or actually write whatever piece of work you want to put out into the world.

For more information, follow Majekodunmi and Flynn over on their Instagram page here.

State, In Relation

Between March 2024 and May 2025, writers and artists Clare Bell, Oein DeBhairduin, Sonya Gildea, Nithy Kasa, Nathan O’Donnell, Annemarie Ní Churreáin and Susan Tomaselli joined up to create a publication that took as its core subject the Constitution of Ireland. Each of them examined and responded to it as a historical document and as a present-day living text that sets out the legal relationship between the citizen and the state.

The result of their workshops is State, in Relation, a self-published book, which offers “constructive reinterpretations” of the constitution. Through poetry, essays, fiction, visual writing and explorative non-fiction, the seven writers sought to subvert, reclaim, reinvent, and challenge our historical understanding of matters like community, family, religion, gender and bias.

Its cover echoes Bunreacht na hÉireann’s design and typeface (which upon reflection bears a striking resemblance to every book published by Fitzcarraldo Editions), but makes slight alterations to comment on marginalised communities, like swapping out the harp on the actual constitution for one that was taken from a photocopy of Report of the Commission on Itinerancy, published in 1963.

State, in Relation was originally released as part of the Dublin Art Book Fair 2025 back in December. But, on Tuesday at 6pm, its creators and collaborators will be in Books Upstairs to talk about, and read from the collection. Attendance is free but booking is essential. You can reserve a space here.

The Tolka, This is Your River

On Wednesday 6 May, Dublin City Finglas Library will be holding a screening of the documentary The Tolka, This is Your River.

Directed by former Green Party leader and Minister for the Environment, John Gormley, the documentary follows up the 2024 Dodder Action group-commissioned film The Dodder, This is Your River. Gormley’s documentary focuses on the work of the Tolka River Environmental Alliance – made up of activists from the Blanchardstown area –  and looks at their efforts to stock the river with brown trout. It also delves into local history, biodiversity, the effects of climate change, flood risks and the impacts that farming has on water quality.

The documentary will be shown at 6:30pm, and will be followed by a panel discussion with Gormley, Toby O’Mahony-Adams of the Treasure the Tolka volunteer group, and former Lord Mayor and Green Party councillor Caroline Conroy.

There are still a few seats, but you may want to act fast. Admission is free, and you can book a spot here.

ADVERTISEMENT

SIGNS present: 

Elikya (Congolese 9-piece rumba/soukous) 
Cormorant Tree Oh (experimental folk, drone, psych)
Farah Elle (alternative singer-songwriter) 
David DeBarra (experimental folk 3-piece) 
+ Telephones DJs, Pablo Santo, Kixx, Little O & more 

West African food by Ibile, 8–11pm.

3 May at The Sugar Club, Dublin 2

Tickets

Noticeboard

Listings of events submitted by readers – you can submit yours for next week's newsletter, via this form.

The Tenters Story Exhibition

On Thursday 7 May, the Aloft Hotel on Mill Street will be hosting The Tenters Story as part of the Culture Date with D8 Festival.

The exhibition features material related to the layers of history associated with The Tenters area and will look at the origins of the community, the Fairbrother’s Fields Housing Scheme, the local shops that served the community and how the “Emergency Years” of World War Two affected the neighbourhood.

The exhibition, which is organised by The Tenters Celebrated Heritage Group, will be open to attend at the Liberties Suite at the Aloft Hotel from 2 to 4:30pm.

Dublin’s first energy advice clinic

On 7 May, Ringsend and Irishtown Community Centre will be hosting a coffee morning to mark the launch of Raytown Energy Dock, Dublin’s first energy advice clinic.

Established by energy agency Codema, the clinic will be open to the public every Thursday morning from 9:30am to 12:30pm, and will offer a range of free services, including: tips on reducing energy use, advice on lowering energy bills and switching suppliers, information on grants for home energy upgrades, and access to a free Home Energy Saving Kit.

The coffee morning will run from 10am to 1pm next Thursday.

For more information, visit the Raytown Energy Dock page here.

Wired: a neuro-friendly club night

A new neuro-friendly club night will be launching in Project Arts Centre in May.

Created by a collective of DJs, designers and facilitators, Wired is a series of three unique club nights, which intend to bring a new accessible space to the city’s nightlife map.

If you’ve ever wanted to go clubbing but get over-stimulated and need to have a quiet sit down and listen to Enya, then Wired may be the spot for you.

The first night will kick off at 8pm on Thursday, 21 May.

Tickets are available here.