The Dublin Community Blog

Just a quick post to remind everyone that Peoples Photography 2009 is on tomorrow and Sunday around St Stephens Green. The People’s Photography Exhibition is a unique opportunity to enjoy a showcase of striking images in a relaxed atmosphere in the heart of Dublin city. This summer’s event features a diverse selection of work from enthusiasts, clubs and international award winning professionals. Themes on display include landscape, monochrome, photojournalism, portraiture, creative, nature, analogue, digital and abstract. The originality and creativeness of the many imaginative displays will be greatly appreciated not only by those looking for a fun day out with a great atmosphere in the city but also by anyone who has a keen eye for all things arty. This exhibition is the ideal option to do something different at the weekend and what’s even better, it benefits good causes.

I’ll be taking part again this year so if you are in town on Saturday or Sunday call over to space 70 and say hello.

As part of the upcoming Dublin Theatre Festival , the south and west sides of Liberty Hall are being turned into a giant animation canvas. Members of the public can create animations with sound and music via the Playhouse website. These animations will be broadcast on Liberty Hall during the festival from September 24th until October 11th.

Powering the display are 100,000 low-energy LED lights, installed into 330 windows on the south and west faces of the building. These lights can illuminate each window as a solid colour turning it into a tiny pixel that’s part of a giant display.

The project was born from a series of conversations and connections made in the Science Gallery in Trinity College Dublin. Originally inspired by the Blinkenlights installation in Berlin, Playhouse raises the technological bar with the ability to produce colour animations.

Photo above and more can be found on the Playhouse Flickr stream here.

What a wonderful idea.

Want to take a ride with 7 times Tour de France winner and all round good guy Lance Armstrong in Dublin tonight? If so, be at the roundabout of Fountain Road and Chesterfield Avenue in the Phoenix Park at 530 this evening to meet with Lance.

This is Lance’s tweet about it

The August installment of Discovered in Dublin bears a more sombre tone than the previous articles. This time we are featuring an upcoming folk band, if you wanna call it like this. The Spook of the Thirteenth Lock are weaving rock sounds and traditional influences together into what the Evening Herald calls “haunted, rabble rousing folk” – I’d call it folkrock with a dark twist. Quite fittingly for a band who calls themselves after a haunted canal lock. After releasing their self-titled debut in 2008, the band played a tour in Japan in the beginning of this year and has played together with New York’s O’Death in Whelan’s recently. Dublinblog spoke to band-mastermind Allen Blighe.

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If you’re one of the 20,000 commuters who take the train to work in the city every day, from any station north of Malahide, you no doubt know by now that there was a collapse of the rail bridge over the Malahide estuary on Friday evening, resulting in the suspension of all rail services from stations north of Malahide into the city.

This disruption is likely to last for three months (though I’m willing to take bets on the fact that it may be a lot longer!) and will cause considerable headache to both rail commuters, as well as people using their cars and buses due to added traffic on the roads.

I’m not going to post information on the alternatives available here, as that is likely to change quite a bit over the coming days and weeks, best advice would seem to be to keep an eye on the Irish Rail website – www.irishrail.ie

Commencing next Saturday is this year’s Festival of World Cultures. Featuring the (un)usual mix of music, food, fairs, theatre, dance and street art from all over the world (and Ireland), this is a perfect occasion to hop on the DART and pay a visit to Dun Laoghaire. The foody that I am, I’m especially looking forward to the Feast Americana and the International Food Traders. You can download the full festival programme (PDF) here, and you can also become a fan on Facebook.

Today would have been Phil Lynotts 60th Birthday. Happy birthday Philo.

This weekend is the start of Heritage Week in Ireland, with free tours, exhibitions, and other events happening across the country, as well as in other countries across Europe.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “So they’re trying to get Irish people to come out and see all the things that they’ve never seen before that tourists from around the world travel thousands of miles to see? Sounds horribly dull, actually.”

Unfortunately, the website doesn’t help much. The stated purpose of Heritage Days is “to promote awareness of our built, natural, and cultural heritage and to promote Europe’s common cultural heritage.”

“Right,” you say, with the enthusiasm of a museum curator. “I think I’d rather gnaw on the leg of this pub table.”

But before you throw out the idea completely, I’ve done a bit of looking into the whole thing and can recommend that you at least consider the following “TOP 5 HERITAGE WEEK EVENTS IN CO. DUBLIN.” (And if you don’t like my list, have a go for yourself. CLICK HERE to see all 48 events in Co. Dublin or HERE for other counties across Ireland.)
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Today’s Sunday Business Post is reporting that the ESB is considering demolishing the twin chimneys of the Poolbeg power station which have been a feature of the city skyline for 30 years. While no official decision has been made about the future of the chimneys the station will be decommissioned next year and Dublin City planners have already rejected a proposal to put a preservation order on the chimneys.

Personally I think it would be a shame to demolish the chimneys so long as they are safe and can be maintained. Not everything on the Dublin Skyline has to be designed by an architects competition and built on the continent.

If you are around Temple Bar on Sunday make sure to check out events at Meeting House Square where Dublin’s first Ukulele Festival takes place.

Along with the main Ukulele Hooley gigs, which will cost €15 to attend, there are musical workshops planned for Saturday 15th in the Odessa Club, an Open Mic session that same night in Shebeen Chic restaurant on Georges St.

Further details about the Hooley can be found here.