Things To Do: Do a panto, lecture the kids on igloo building, view the Netherlands as a metaphor for life

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

Groundswell

On Wednesday afternoon, the city’s arts community held a rally outside Leinster House in support of The Complex, after the venue and studio space was served a notice of eviction earlier this month. As part of the protest, Complex CEO Vanessa Fielding delivered a petition with almost 16,000 signatures to Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers, requesting the state to step in before they have to vacate the warehouse on 14 January.

As part of this campaign, The Complex has organised Groundswell, a three-day gig marathon which began on Wednesday evening and will conclude on Friday night. Beginning at 6pm today and tomorrow, the festival is set to feature performances by the likes of Junior Brother, Kayleigh Noble, Curtisy, Julia Louise Knifefist, Rory Sweeney, Sloucho, Ian Nyquist, E The Artist and many more.

Admission is free and there is a full bar.

For more information and to keep up to date on the campaign to save The Complex, follow them on Instagram here, or visit their website here.

A Dublin Modular Panto

On Friday night, the queer electronic music and performing arts organisation Dublin Modular is bringing its pantomime back to Project Arts Centre in Temple Bar.

Oh yes they are!

Twisted Cables and Tall Tables is Dublin Modular’s alternative panto, a multi-genre, multi-disciplinary, boundary pushing celebration of underrepresented voices and creative expression. Bringing together a slew of emerging live and electronic artists, the line-up is set to feature BLINNE, Qbanaa, Marconi’s Mess, Mooncup, Aoife Nic Canna and more.

The event is on in the venue’s Space Upstairs. It starts at 7:30pm and will run until late, with the final act, Governess, on at 1pm.

Tickets are available here.

Gaza Through Their Eyes

City Hall is currently displaying Gaza Through Their Eyes, a photography exhibition about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which will be on show until Saturday evening.

Organised by Dublin City Council in partnership with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees and the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations, the exhibition is brings together 27 photographs taken by photojournalists who have been documenting life in Gaza since October 2023.

Admission is free, and will be open to the public until the hall closes at 5pm on Saturday, 20 December.

IFI Cold Comfort

If you’re stuck for a few quality lunchtime activities, or are worried that your kids lack essential skills, like igloo building, the Irish Film Institute may have found the solution to these woes in their archives.

Cold Comfort is the IFI’s latest series of free, midday screenings, and they’ve unearthed a few enticing gems to get you through the chilly days ahead.

On Saturday, at 1:10pm, there is a triple bill of shorts. First up is Igloo A Thógaint, a 1949 film made by the National Film Board of Canada, and later translated into Irish to educate Irish pupils on how to build an igloo.

Afterwards, there is a screening of The Moonmen, the first film by director and producer Kieran Hickey. Released in 1965, Hickey’s debut takes as its subject the members of the Half Moon Swimming Club as they cycle through the Docklands to take a swim at the South Wall during the winter of 1964/65.

Third up is Before I Sleep, the 1997 directorial debut of playwright Paul Mercier, and starring Brendan Gleeson as a newly unemployed businessman who despairingly wanders the city during the winter.

Then for those who are unavailable over the weekend, or who feel their children are adequately trained in igloo-making, Before I Sleep will also get a standalone screening on Monday, 22 December at 12:45pm.

Tickets are available here.

Ping Pong Competition

To celebrate the release of Josh Safdie’s new film, the ping-pong period drama Marty Supreme, the Light House Cinema, in its continued pursuit of greatness, is breaking out a few paddles and pitting cinemagoers against one another.

On 27 December, the Smithfield cinema will be staging a ping-pong competition in the downstairs bar. The price of admission is a ticket to the acclaimed Timothée Chalamet film, but the reward is the eternal respect of your peers.

Let The Young Ones Dance

On New Year’s Eve, The Complex will be screening Let The Young Ones Dance, a new documentary about the partygoers and partymakers. Directed by Anna Crowley, and featuring contributions from figures such as Sunil Sharpe of Give Us The Night, People Before Profit councillor Conor Reddy and producer Rory Sweeney, the film examines how economic challenges and crises faced by young people are reflected in the Irish nightlife.

Let The Young Ones Dance will be showing at 5pm, and as part of the screening, there will be works from artist Bassam Issa Al-Sabah and photographer The Belfast Shooter on display, as well as a reading by Esther Fatoye, the editor of Blue Bodies.

For more information, follow the film’s Instagram page here.

The Boy, The Bucket And The Persistent Tide

On 3 January, writer and radio host Charlie Jermyn will launch his new debut novel, The Boy, the Bucket and the Persistent Tide in Slattery’s pub in Rathmines.

From Dublin, but a resident of the Netherlands for the past five years, Jermyn writes about his efforts to submerge himself in this new home in The Boy, the Bucket and the Persistent Tide, using its polders and history of land reclamation as the frame through which he processes its art, culture, eccentricities and ordinariness.

Or at least, that is what I have been led to understand about this work of narrative non-fiction, which his publisher, Bog Bodies Press intriguingly describes as “brilliant and very hard to describe”.

And because they are on the record as saying that it is hard to describe, I am pre-emptively forgiving myself should his summary of the book’s contents prove misleading.

Jermyn’s book, composed of essays and short non-fiction pieces, reminds us “to take note of the mad and brilliant world around us before the tide comes in again”, and as such, my potential inability to accurately explain the text should not be criticised, but rather celebrated as another of our planet’s glorious details.

The launch is at 7:30pm, and Jermyn’s book can be purchased here.

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Nollaig na mBan festival

The 4th annual Nollaig na mBan festival returns to Ballybough and North Strand on 6 January. Throughout the day, and across locations including Charleville Mall Library, Clonliffe House, Cusack’s Pub and St. Columba’s Church, local north inner-city women will be celebrated with an awards ceremony, followed by a live music trail.

The festival starts at 3pm. To book tickets for the music trail, visit the Nollaig na mBan festival website here. For more information, you can contact nollaignambanireland@gmail.com.

Songs of Life and Loss

On 2 January, the Dublin Unitarian Church is hosting an evening of music, from Broadway show tunes to popular classics all in support of Palestinian children’s relief. Tickets are available here.

Clongriffin, Belmayne, Parkside and Belcamp Social Infrastructure Survey

Dublin City Council is conducting a comprehensive Needs Assessment to plan for the future of Clongriffin and Belmayne.

The assessment will identify priorities for facilities such as libraries, community centres, arts and cultural spaces, sports and recreation amenities, parks, and public realm improvements.

You can share your input by filling out the survey here.

Exhibition V, Gallery X

On Hume Street tonight, Gallery X is holding Exhibition V, its final show of 2025.

Opening at 6pm with a performance by Lady Blue Dream, who has been running her BDSM-centred figure-drawing class The Naked Kink throughout the year.

For more information, visit the Gallery X Instagram page here.

Applications Open for Local Enhancement Programme (LEP) 2026 in Fingal

Community and Voluntary Groups in Fingal are invited to apply for funding under the Local Enhancement Programme (LEP) 2026.

The funding aims to provide capital support to community groups and organisations in Fingal with a particular focus on disadvantaged communities in both rural and urban areas.

The LEP 2026 funding will support small-scale capital works, equipment purchases and facility improvements.

Applications are now being sought from Community Groups in Fingal. The closing date is Friday, 27 February.

For more information and to apply, visit Fingal County Council’s website here.