Things To Do: Take a dive in Meeting House Square, go on an artistic walkabout, pick up an urban field guide, find poetry in plastic

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NCAD Research Exhibition and Programme 2026

Over in the National College of Art and Design gallery, the NCAD Research Exhibition and Programme 2026 is kicking off this afternoon.

Promoting NCAD staff research projects, the exhibition will bring together a wide range of research-based artists including John Conway, Niall Cullen, Sarah Durcan, Catherine Harty, Ramon Kassam, Rónán Ó Raghallaigh, Rachel Tuffy and Fiona Whelan.

Also on the bill are Aoife Ward and Eve Woods, otherwise known as Con:Temporary Quarters, who will be re-exhibiting a piece from their self-titled show in the still incomplete Tivoli exhibition space on Francis Street.

The exhibition will open at 4pm today, Thursday 19 March, and will run until 17 April.

Over the course of the month, the college will also be hosting a series of talks and events to tie in with the show, beginning today with the launch of FIELD Guide - A Terrestrial Lexicon and Multispecies Index.

The guide looks at the 0.4 hectare site located beside the college, which has over the space of a decade been transformed from a derelict urban car park to a guerrilla-composted horticultural project, and more recently, “a semi-structured biodiverse haven for human and more-than-human interaction, creative research, and learning.”

At the launch, the guide will be introduced by Dr. Marcus Collier, Associate Professor of Sustainability Science with the artists Gareth Kennedy and Seoidin O’Sullivan.

Then, later in the week, on Tuesday 24 March at 1pm, Rory Hanrahan will be giving a talk on AI Improvisations, and on Wednesday 25 March at the same time, Jamie Murphy will be delivering a performance lecture titled Contemplating Carbon: Type, Paper and Ink.

The programme will continue until 17 April. To see what else is on the docket, visit the NCAD website here.

A Theatre of Sediment and Strings

While the NCAD staff are exhibiting on campus, a few former students will be right around the corner, holding a group show of their own in Lucky’s on Meath Street this evening.

Made up of eight recent NCAD graduates working across multiple mediums, the Kitchen Sink Collective made their debut last October with Hearth, a group show, which was held in Wexford town as part of the local arts festival. Now, they are staging their second exhibition, A Theatre of Sediment and Strings in Lucky’s pub.

Promising “an evening at the theatre,” the show is set to comprise painting, photography and the written word. A Theatre of Sediment and Strings starts at 5pm today (19 March), and will run until 17 April.

For more information, and to stay up to date with Kitchen Sink, follow them over on Instagram.

Against the Waning Light

Until tomorrow night, the Meeting House Square in Temple Bar will be screening a new video work by artist Paul Murnaghan.

Written and directed by Murnaghan, Against the Waning Light is his debut short film, and is described as taking “a less human-centric view of existence.” Shot using natural light, it follows the world champion freediver Nina McGowan as she is “drawn deeper and deeper into the fathomless ocean”, with each of the submerged scenes being filmed on a single breath.

Featuring a soundtrack composed by Murnaghan, and choreography by Cindy Cummins, the 26 minute film will be on display in the Meeting House Square between 7:30am and 11pm today (Thursday, 19 March) and tomorrow (Friday, 20 March).

The event is not ticketed. All are welcome.

For more information, visit Murnaghan’s website here.

Curtisy at Spindizzy

On Friday, Tallaght rapper Curtisy is releasing Get a Life!, a new mixtape that he made in collaboration with producer Owin.

Back in November, the pair dropped Talk of the Town, their first single from the mixtape,  featuring Wexford rapper Lil Skag, who will also be appearing on two more tracks.

Now, tomorrow evening (Friday, 20 March), Curtisy will be dropping into Spindizzy, the record store in George’s Street Arcade to both sign the record, and perform a few tracks from it too.

Doors are at 5:45pm, and he will be performing at 6pm.

Admission is the price of the Get a Life! LP. If you want to book a space at the in-store event, visit the Spindizzy website and get a copy of the limited edition red splatter vinyl, exclusive to the store, here.

Alternatively, if you can’t make it down to the launch, head on over to Curtisy’s Bandcamp here to buy either a digital or physical copy of the mixtape here.

Save the Arts Walking Tour With Caoilfhionn Hanton

Artist Caoilfhionn Hanton will be leading a walking tour of the city’s art on Saturday morning.

Organised by People Before Profit, the Save the Arts Walking Tour will be an exploration of both contemporary art and art history in Dublin.

The talk will start outside the Arbour Hill Boxing Club, which is where Hanton painted a mural version of artist Spicebag’s work Eviction, the satirical depiction of Gardaí attending to a Famine-era eviction that was scandalised by the Irish Independent’s Fionnán Sheahan as being a piece of “politically motivated” art.

As well as being a celebration of art and art history, Hanton’s walk will also look at the numerous issues and hardships that come with creating art in the city. Participants are encouraged to bring a notebook and their preferred medium as they will be responding to the stops with some drawing. Materials will also be provided on the day for those who either forgot their own or don’t have any to hand.

The walk will start at 11:30am and wrap up at 1pm. Tickets are available here, and all proceeds will go to the People Before Profit Stand up for the Arts campaign.

East Asia Film Festival 2026

The East Asia Film Festival Ireland is returning today for its tenth edition in the Irish Film Institute.

Running until Sunday evening 22 March, the annual festival features a rich bill of films from across China, Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore, and explores themes like displacement, migration, and identity.

Opening this year’s festival is the Irish premiere of Shanghai Daughter today at 6:15pm. The debut feature by Chinese filmmaker Agnis Shen Zhongmin, the film follows Ming, a woman from Shanghai who journeys to Xishuangbanna’s rubber plantation where her late father was sent during the Cultural Revolution.

Afterwards, at 8:45pm, journalist and film critic will be introducing a 4K restoration of the seminal 1989 Hong Kong thriller, The Killer, directed by John Woo and starring Chow Yun-Fat.

Other highlights across the weekend will include a screening on Saturday of The Wild, Wild Rose, Wong Tin-lam’s 1960 Hong Kong musical noir, and The River that Holds our Hands, a docu-fiction feature, which will be followed by a Q and A with producer Ziyang Lin.

Then, to close off the festival on Sunday at 6pm, there is a showing of South Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo’s thirty-third feature length What Does That Nature Say To You. Set on the outskirts of Seoul, as a young poet drives his girlfriend to her parents’ home, the film promises the director’s trademark clumsy interactions, quiet cruelty and calm carnage as it transpires that her parents were unaware of their daughter’s three year relationship.

To see what else is showing as part of EAFFI 2026, and to book tickets, visit the IFI website here.

Plastic by Matthew Rice

On Tuesday, the Belfast-born poet Matthew Rice will be in Books Upstairs to discuss Plastic, his book-length poem.

Published in late January by FitzCarraldo Editions, Plastic is set during a single twelve-hour night shift in a factory, and draws on Rice’s own experience working in a plastic moulding factory for ten years. Blending memoir, satire and ekphrasis - a vivid, poetic description of a work of visual art - the long poem examines the alienating experience of labour in a “post-industrial, post Troubles” society.

Joining Rice to discuss the poem will be Tara McEvoy, the communications manager at the Irish Writers Centre and a contributing editor at the Tolka literary journal.

The launch is at 6:30pm. Attendance is free, but booking is essential. Reserve your seat here.

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Fallow, Issue 3

On Wednesday evening 25 March, the literary journal Fallow is launching its third edition Fallow 03: Spring 2026 in Books Upstairs.

It will be the first opportunity to get a copy of the new issue, and there will be readings from contributors Christodoulos Makris and Charlotte Buckley.

The launch is at 6:30pm. Attendance is free but booking is essential. Reserve a seat here.

Flesh and Fantasy: Two One-Act Plays

Dublin Shakespeare's Society will be presenting two one-act plays at The Teachers Club on Parnell Square next week.

On 27 and 28 March, they will be staging Bobby Gould’s In Hell by David Mamet, and directed by Suzanne Walshe, and 27 Wagons Full of Cotton by Tennesse Williams, and directed by Brigid Sweeney.

The two modern morality plays will open at 8pm on 27 March, with performances at 2pm and 8pm the following day (28 March).

To book your tickets, visit the Eventbrite page here.

The Non-Mainstream Music Education Bursary Scheme

Minister for Education and Youth Hildegarde Naughton TD has announced the opening of applications for grants from a total fund of €100,000 for organisations delivering non-mainstream music education. 

The grants allow organisations with limited or no access to other forms of public funding to pay for music classes, instruments and other equipment outside of school settings. 

Interested and eligible organisations are invited to make their applications for grant funding under the Non-Mainstream Music Education Bursary Scheme 2026 by 5pm on 6 April 2026.

For more information and to get the application form, visit the scheme’s page here.

Vintage Suite

Visual artist Sylvia Hill presents Vintage Suite, a collection of paintings exploring the beauty of the Irish “Big House” and other interiors relating to the past at Rathfarnham Castle Gallery.

Using a rich and vibrant oil palette, Hill’s work draws on themes of nostalgia, comfort, loss and fantasy through works which offer a personal window into the beauty of the past and a plea for the preservation of all things antique for the future.

Vintage Suite opens on Friday, 20 March and will run until 4 May. Admission is free, and the exhibition is available to visit from Wednesday to Sunday between 10:30am and 5pm.

For more information, visit the Heritage Ireland website here.