Things To Do: Meet the last Balkan cowboy, accept that Roy Keane has a cinematic universe, praise the basements of Parnell Street

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Rank and File Collective film club

Tonight, Rank and File Collective is convening for its first film club of 2026 in Kirkos on Little Green Street.

They will be showing a new Palestinian short film, A Depopulated Camp, made by BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, and which follows a group of Palestinians displaced from the largely destroyed Tulkarm refugee camp north of the West Bank.

Following A Depopulated Camp, there will also be a screening of the documentary Leila Khaled: Hijacker, directed by Lina Makboul, and exploring Khaled’s role in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and her hijacking of two flights in 1969 and 1970.

Doors are open at 7pm. Tickets are available here. All proceeds from the sales will go directly to BADIL.

The Last Balkan Cowboy

This evening, photographer Dragan Jurišić will be launching her new exhibition, The Last Balkan Cowboy, at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios.

It is the product of a long-term project that follows in the footsteps of Hari Džekson, the cult Yugoslavian film director who was renowned for his interpretation of the Wild West archetypes. It also precedes a feature-length documentary on Džekson directed by Jurišić, due to premiere later this year.

The exhibition is composed of photographs Jurišić took while on three trips in 2024 and 2025 in Bosnia-Herzegovinia, Croatia and Serbia in between location scouting, researching and filming the documentary.

Throughout the project, Jurišić attempts to understand the conflict in former Yugoslavia, what happened in her lost country, how to rationalise her identity, and how to envisage post-conflict restoration through her work.

The opening reception is at 6pm today, Thursday 15 January.

Right now, Jurišić’s work is also being shown in the Kevin Kavanagh gallery as part of Urban Myth, a group show that explores the role of the photograph in a digital society.

That exhibition opened last week, and it will remain free to visit between now and 7 February.

 Shárú

Around the corner on Temple Lane, TØN Dublin will be opening Sharú this evening too.

Launching at 6pm, Sharú brings together the work of 10 artists to explore ideas of identity, roots and ongoing transformation, exclaiming that the everyday practice of art is “an act of transformation”, and that the artist is “someone who transcends”.

The exhibition will be running until 1 February, and featuring in the show are artists Ishmael Claxton, Nadia Dev, Alicia Donnan, Molly Buí Hennessy, Helen Kirk, Gabriel Lobo, Nicole Manning, Nyan O’Connor, Brady Izquierdo Rodriguez and Eva Virkute.

Punk, Goth, Rebel and Queer – the Years of Dance to the Underground

Also opening tonight, photographer Al Fartukh will be launching their debut exhibition Punk, Goth, Rebel and Queer, down in GalleryX.

Between 2022 and 2024, down in the Fibber’s basement, Fartukh documeted the Dance to the Underground club night, “a fantastical land of punk and goth aesthetic, queer transgression and riotous over-the-top performance”. Capturing the scene on 35mm film and analogue video, the resultant exhibition documents convergence of subcultures in subterranean Parnell Street.

To mark the occasion, there will also be a new once-off Dance to the Underground night in Fibber's from 10pm to 2.30am. Entry is €10, and it is cash on the door.

Fartukh has also produced an exclusive 72-page booklet, which you can acquire by pre-ordering a ticket or directly at the venue.

For more information, and to book a space, go to visit GalleryX’s Instagram page here.

The Heart Room Experience

This weekend, the experimental multidisciplinary artist group Outlandish Theatre will be bringing the “theatre of the everyday” to Project Arts Centre in Temple Bar.

The theatre group has collaborated with dance artist James Hosty on The Heart Room Experience, which intends to immerse its audience in the everyday creative process of the artist.

Across Friday and Saturday, Hosty will be leading a series of intimate performances to 24 people at a time, using movement, sound and lighting, and inviting his audience to witness and become a part of “this other reality”. The environment planned will be calm and collaborative, and attendees may engage in whatever way feels comfortable.

It’s an opportunity to experience “theatre as a living sculpture”. What exactly that shall entail isn’t entirely clear. But such is the thrill of an Outlandish performance.

On Friday, 16 January, there will be performances at 1pm, 4pm and 7pm, and on Saturday, 17 January, they will be at 12pm, 2pm and 5pm.

Tickets are on sale here.

Film Scores!

On Monday, the Irish Film Institute is going for a football-themed free lunchtime double bill of films from the IFI Film Archives.

This week, the series will be opening with John Moore’s 1995 short film He Shoots, He Scores, which is “set in an unwelcoming future, where two schoolboys wait for a bus”.

Afterwards, there will be a showing of Rockmount, the 2014 short directed by Dave Tynan, author of the recent book, We Used To Dance Here. Billed as a comedy set in Cork in 1982, the film follows a young boy named Roy as he is trying to get on the starting 11 for his football club “and nothing is going to get in his way”.

Coincidentally, Roy Keane was born in 1971. Hint. So, Rockmount might be a good way of hyping yourself up for a screening of Saipan at 1.55pm (or 6.30pm), given that Glenn Leyburn and Lisa Barros D'Sa’s feature-length film touches on Keane’s childhood in Cork too.

And lo, shall you enter Tuesday heralding the start of the Roy Keane Cinematic Universe, later to be dubbed the Roy Keane-matic Universe once this catches on as a trend, and Disney swoops in with the big bucks.

Moore and Tynan’s shorts will be screened at 1.10pm on Monday, 19 January. To book your tickets, visit the IFI website here.

Lias Saoudi

In case you missed his last gig in Hang Dai during October, Fat White Family, Moonlandingz and Decius frontman Lias Saoudi is back in Dublin next Wednesday, 21 January.

Saoudi is a writer, performer, well-documented hedonist and trailblazer in contemporary post-punk and psychedelic rock. His lyrics are ferociously satirical and his shows are enthrallingly provocative, and sweaty enough that the New York Post once declared that the Fat White Family “stinks”. Literally, not metaphorically.

Naturally, there is no better way to experience Saodi than to see his rawness in an intimate setting like Lost Lane.

Tickets are available here.

And then, if you’re eager for more, why not make this a double bill of transgressive art? Because the next day, Saudi will be around the corner in Hodges Figgis. There, he will be introducing Cameo, the new novel by author Rob Doyle, who has previously chronicled his friendship with Saoudi and their appearing in Hyundai commercials in a Dublin Review essay titled "Tastes good with the money: On selling out [personal history]".

That launch is at 6pm on Thursday, 22 January, and you’ll be able to pick up a copy of Cameo on the night.

Meanwhile, for those who are keen on doing homework to appease the punks and provocateurs, Dublin Review issue 83, from ummer 2021, which features Doyle’s essay, might be on sale in some good books stores and charity shops at a location potentially near you.

Or you can buy it here.

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The Naked Kink

On 24 January, GalleryX is hosting the Naked Kink, a figure-drawing class featuring artists and models who are members of the kink community, and who will be wearing “their finest and fetishest”.

The muses will also be talking about themselves, why they want to pose and their life in kink.

For more information, follow The Naked Kink on Instagram here.

Fingal Artists’ Support Scheme 2026

Fingal County Council Arts Office has announced the return of its Artists’ Support Scheme for 2026.

This funding stream offers professional artists the opportunity to apply for up to €5,000 to support travel and professional development opportunities, a residency, or towards the development of work.

For full details and to apply, visit the council’s website here.

Fingal’s best craft and design businesses at Showcase 2026

Between 18 and 20 January, some of Fingal’s best up-and-coming craft and design businesses will join the 100+ companies at Local Enterprise Showcase during Showcase 2026 in the RDS.

Among those representing Fingal will be Church Lane Ceramics, Irish Whiskey Glass Ltd, Nicola Weldon Art & Design, Rablos Art Studio, Vitalorganico and more.

For more information, visit the Showcase 2026 website here.

LOBE’PARTY

Following a successful first edition, LOBE’PARTY is returning for a second outing to showcase more emerging Dublin artists from across a wide range of musical genres this February.

Due to take place on Saturday, 7 February at The Hendricks in Smithfield, LOBE’PARTY #2 will feature a line-up including; Debbie MacLachlan, Late Met Dawn, Tenzin and LOBEPINE.

Doors open at 7.30pm. Tickets are €5 (online and on the door). For more information, visit the event’s page here.