The Dublin Community Blog

The Luas Red line (Connolly-Tallaght) will only operate to and from Abbey Street from mid-June until early autumn (exact start and end dates unknown!). Work will be carried out during this time on a new three way interchange at Amiens Street to facilitate the Luas extension to the Point. Updates should be posted here as the project progresses – here’s hoping they get it done on schedule!

Continuing and combining the theme from the last couple of posts this weekend a group of us are having a photomeet around the Dublin Maritime Festival. There’ll be a market, tall ships and all sorts of wonderful things going on. So if you are interested in photography please grab your camera and come along. We are meeting at 1pm on Sunday, June 1st at the Harbour Master pub, behind Connolly Station in the IFSC. We have a Facebook event page which you can check out and you can also check out the images from our last photomeet on Flickr.  Any and everyone is invited.

If like me you are photography crazy, and like to keep an eye on photoblogs from in and around Dublin and the rest of Ireland, you life has just become a lot easier. Donncha has done the Irish Photoblogging community a great service by developing irishphotographers.org a site where all of the best photographers from around the city and country can submit a feed of their blog so that everything appears in one nice, neat centralised place! I think it’s a fantastic idea, and I’m only raging that I didn’t come up with it myself sooner! But, big shout out to Donncha for putting it together, and I really think that you should go check it out and sign up!

Dublin Docklands is host to a Maritime Festival this coming bank holiday weekend.

A spectacular fleet of tall ships; exciting maritime-related street theatre and musical entertainment performed by Waterford-based arts group Spraoi; Dublin’s largest outdoor market offering fine food, clothing, jewellery and plants; and boat trips along the river are just some of the delights awaiting visitors.

Sounds like fun. And its all free.

A conference on Cluster Munitions has been taking place in Croke Park since May 19th, hosted by the Irish Government. Last night, the conference members finalised a draft convention to ban the use of cluster munitions.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Michéal Martin, T.D., has warmly welcomed the successful conclusion of the negotiations on the treaty to ban cluster munitions. The Minister said “this is a very strong and ambitious text which nevertheless was able to win consensus among all delegations. It is a real contribution to international humanitarian law. I am proud that Ireland has been able to play a central part in its adoption. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Ambassador Daithi Ó Ceallaigh, President of the Conference and his team for all their work”

The treaty, which will be formally adopted on Friday, imposes a comprehensive ban on cluster bombs and will offer significant assistance to victims and for clearance of affected areas. The Diplomatic Conference, from 19-30 May, has been attended by about 900 delegates from 111 Participating States, 18 observer States and a large number of NGOs and representatives of international organisations.

Great progress, but a shame that the United States and China haven’t participated.

Further information here:
Dept of Foreign Affairs
Stop Cluster Munitions site

I don’t think anyone has posted this already and if they have, many apologies. Restored for some time now following its destruction back in November 2004, the Olympia Theatre canopy looks great. I couldn’t resist snapping it the other night as it is the first time I’ve seen it back in all its glory.

Dust off the tartan picnic rug and get yourself to The People’s Park in Dun Laoghaire this bank holiday weekend for Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council’s ‘Movies in the Park’.

There will be something for everyone including Monster’s Inc and Madagascar for the young and young at heart, Indiana Jones and The Bourne Ultimatum for the action fans and Little Miss Sunshine for some comic relief.

Screening times are at 3pm, 5pm and 8pm each day on Saturday 31st May, Sunday 1st June and Monday 2nd June.

For more information and a full list of the movies on show, check out – http://www.dlrevents.ie/events.htm#movies

Africa Day at Dublin Castle took place yesterday and was great craic altogether. A celebration of African culture and tradition, the place was packed to the brim – there was a 20 minute queue to get in when we arrived at around 3pm. According to RTÉ, over 7, 000 people attended. There were stalls displaying traditional crafts, clothing and everyday utensils, short films and exhibitions, South African wine tastings and sporting events. The main stage hosted a great mix of African and Irish acts – from traditional Malawian Dance Performances to Irish hip hop group Millionaire Boyz and Irish trad lads Kila.

it ended with performances from Mundy (who opened his set by saying “Should I just sing Galway Girl and go home?”), Republic of Loose and Sinead O’Connor.

According to the 2006 census, almost 42,000 of the people living in Ireland were born in Africa.

There are a few more pics on the Dublin Blog Flickr.

Some pretty cool stuff going on in Dublin this weekend if you’re about.

The second annual Dublin City Soul Festival is in full swing and lots of events will be taking place in various venues around the city.  These include a Soul Jam and a (completely free) Soul Picnic! Click here for a programme.

Then there’s Africa Day @ Dublin Castle. Another great, free event, you enter through an African village, filled with stands from Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda. Then there will be some cracking live performances from Sinead O’Connor, the wonderful Kila and those crazy but brilliant boys from Republic of Loose. There’s lots more and you can download a PDF of the programme here.

Over the weekend a big gang of photobloggers met up at the George Bernard Shaw pub Toe Jam carboot sale. Its a small venue with a small number of stalls selling all sorts of weird and wonderful things and certainly one to look out for, I think the next one is planned for July, so if you are a member of Facebook you can join the group (in the above link) and get notified when the next one takes place.

In keeping with the outdoor market theme we then headed to the Temple Bar farmers’ markets for more snaps. Here’s some shots of the day and you can see more of everyone’s in the dedicated Flickr group, go on and get lost in some excellent photography. And if you fancy joining us the next time, keep an eye out as I will post details here.