The Dublin Community Blog

Be sure to have a look at this year’s Temple Bar Trad Fest programme lineup if you haven’t already. Looks to be another great festival (27th-31st January). While you’re having a look around the site, be sure to check out the food trail. It’s certainly an enticing way to get people down to Temple Bar for the festivities. (Excuse me while I wipe the drool off my keyboard.) What better way to spend a cold, dark, wintery evening than in a pub taking in some phenomenal Irish music!

Here’s a ‘food trail’ sample:

While we’re on the subject, I’ll leave you with my personal favourite trad sessions in Dublin.

The Wishing Well: Every Monday night, a group of friends gather together in the small, dimly lit back room of The Wishing Well pub in Blackrock to put on a jaw-dropping performance. As you look on and drink your pint at one of the small round tables, you realize that this group of 5-12 (depending on the night) would be here playing to their hearts’ content, even if there were no audience. Which is what makes this session the real deal.

Johnny Foxes: While Johnny Foxe’s is another legendary (if not uber-touristy) option, it never fails to be another great night of entertainment. There’s something going on there just about every night of the week. Despite it’s reputation for marketing itself to the tourist masses (as the coaches in the car park testify to), you’ll usually also encounter plenty of locals from Bray or Enniskerry and the surrounding areas.

Another good trad session that I can personally recommend is The Palace Bar on Thursday and Saturday nights. In the last couple of years they’ve re-modeled the upstairs to give it that old-world feel and improve the acoustics. I’m sure this classic, historic pub on the edge of Temple Bar will feature quite a bit in the Trad Festival lineup.

If you can recommend other trad music experiences in and around Dublin, feel free to spread the love in the comments below! Stories and feedback of your Trad Festival encounters will also be appreciated.