The Dublin Community Blog

Dublin has had a Lord Mayor as its first citizen, only surpassed in authority by the President, since Sir Daniel Bellingham in 1665. However the first citizen of the city has been in place since 1229, just without the Lord part of the title. The Lord Mayor is elected at Dublin City Council once a year though there is a campaign for the term to be lengthened. The current Lord Mayor is Cllr Paddy Bourke. I imagine there are many highlights being Lord Mayor, one being getting to ride in the City’s coach for the St Patrick Day Parade.

The official residence of the Dublin Lord Mayor is the Mansion House which is located on Dawson Street and was built in 1710 by property developer Joshua Dawson. While Joshua lived in the house the powers that be decided to purchase the house for the city at a cost of £3,500 and a yearly rent of 40 shillings and a loaf of double-refined sugar weighing 6lbs each Christmas.

Joshua Dawson also agreed to build another room, the Oak room, to be used for civic receptions. The Oak Room is to this day still used for civic functions and is decorated with the crests of all the Lord Mayors. The bottom photograph shows the crest of Daniel O’Connell who was Lord Mayor between 1841 and 1842.

Most of this information was cogged together from the Dublin City Council website and you can find out lots more about Dublin’s history at the council website.

Photos: 1. Inside the Lord Mayor’s office, the chain. 2. Inside the Oak Room. 3. The front of the Mansion House. 4. The Oak Room crests showing Daniel O’Connell’s crest (top left). 5. Portraits of previous Lord Mayors including the current Taoiseach Bertie Ahern who can be seen in the image.

This clip has been doing the rounds recently and is proving extremely popular (on YouTube, at least).

If you like what you see, be sure to get down to Grafton Street this coming Saturday afternoon, when the Dublin Improv Movement will be attempting a similar feat on the stretch between Marks & Spencers and Brown Thomas. The fun starts at 4:30pm, and if you’d like to take part yourself, details can be found on this Facebook group. Definitely not one to miss, as a spectator or a participant!

Oisin Gallery presents sculptures of Willard Wigan.

Thanx to poet Nell Regan I’ve learned yesterday about this spectacular exhibition.

The show is really eye catching because you have to look at art pieces through the microscope!! It started just last Friday and unfortunately tomorrow is the LAST DAY.

So hurry up, go to Westland Row an the back of Trinity College to get stunned as well.

14th February 2008 @THESHED – ST VALENTINE’S ASHES
Door’s 10:00pm
€ 8,00 donation + bring your own drinks and food as you like

music AMY DANIO (america)

http://www.myspace.com/deniomusic

music/performance EWA GIGON (poland)

http://www.myspace.com/ewagigon

poetry NELL REGAN (ireland)

Music/poetry/performance interactions.
it will be lovely…

if you like to participate please book by text message @ 0877954727
or email mcbett@gmail.com

THE SHED

The Shed is a new workshop space and venue in the city centre, off Connolly Station, Dublin 1.
Following a specific policy, this ten month pilot project has been created to give a location to foreign artists resident in Ireland and their unconventional approach to art and communication.
The purpose of this project is cultural exchange, and the hope is to facilitate interaction between contemporary artists from different cultures and disciplines through the “Stranger than Paradise” programme, to promote diversity.
This is an independent project.

Foreign artists active in Dublin in various disciplines, who are interested in having a workspace within the venue and/or to be involved in the management of regular events, can be shortlisted presenting their CV/Portfolio and proposal to:

McBett,
The Shed
@ 17/21 Foley Street Dublin 1

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For those of you unfortunate enough to miss the first run, the Ross O’Carroll-Kelly play will have a reprise in April!  ‘The Last days of the Celtic Tiger’ is a play based on the books of Paul Howard about hasbeen Rugby talent/womanizer who still expects a call from Eddie O’Sullivan any day now and is living off his parent’s trustfund untill that happens.

In the meantime he has to balance his time between his illegimate Northdide son, drinking, cheating on his wife with the nanny and visiting his dad in Mountjoy prison.

I saw the play a few months ago and was crying with laughter.

So put on your Leinster jerseys, fake tan and Ugg boots, straighten your hair and head off to the Olympia!

Tickets start at €25 and are on sale through Ticketmaster 

The Chinese New Year festivities are about to begin in Dublin as the city welcomes year 4076 of the traditional Chinese Lunar year. Chinese New Year is considered to be the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays and falls on the first day of the first month of the Chinese Lunar year. This year the New Year day arrives on February 7, 2008. It will be the year of the Rat, which is the first of the 12 year cycle of animals that form the Chinese Zodiac related to the Chinese New Years.

The Dublin Chinese New Year Festival Association (DCNYFA) has organized various events to celebrate the holiday. The first of these begins tomorrow (February 1, 2008) with the launch of a Chinese film ‘Still Life’ by directory Jia Zhangke in the Irish Film Institute, Temple Bar. This film is part of a seven-day Chinese film festival. Other events in various locations around the city include a Chinese arts and crafts show, an event celebrating Chinese literature and music, launch of a 2008 Beijing Olympic pack at UCD Sports Centre, international table tennis and badminton tournaments, dragon boat racing, lion dances, stage plays, and a three day Chinese carnival in Smithfield. The closing ceremonies will take place on Monday February 11, 2008 at 6m in Smithfield Square.

I believe that this is first time that a Chinese New Year festival is being held in Dublin and I have no doubt that it will be successful. We should all welcome the festival and make an attempt to attend at least some of the various events. We wish a very Happy New Year to the Dublin Chinese community!

A complete brochure with more details about the festival is available here.

Grand Canal Square, originally uploaded by HolaHolaCherryCola (Nathalie Márquez Courtney).

This looks pretty cool – it’s a “festival of light” that’s taking place in the crazy neon green, red stick laden Grand Canal Square next week. What with the walky men on O’Connell Street and now this – it’s all about the light shows at the moment isn’t it?
It’s called the Hive, and has been created by KMA (Kit Monkman and Tom Wexler), who, I’m told, are the digital artists behind some v. cool installation in London’s Trafalgar Square. It will take place between the 1st-9th of Feb from 5pm to 10pm as part of Lightwave, the TCD Science Gallery festival (more on this later). Say the Docklands dudes:

“This is a newly commissioned public artwork consisting entirely of projected light and sound through which you, the audience, come and go. By entering you take control of one part of an interactive fantasia driven by your movements and the changing rhythms and timbres of the music. Drawing you in to explore the rich mix of sound and light, the Hive imagines a number of encounters with otherworldly life forms and environments.”

Woo woo.

When you hear new music perhaps everyone starts to search in the head for tha latest tunes of Rihanna. But no. New music is the phrase for all these ‘avangarde’ followers of classic music. It’s not Bach, Mozart or Verdi. Think Messiaen, Stockhausen, Part or the recently famous Gorecki.

And so we had a rare opportunity to listen to Gorecki’s music last Sunday at National Gallery. It was Ireland-Poland Cultural Foundation event for the closing of Polish painting exhibition. The performeres were members of Concorde – an Irish ensable performing contemporary music.

The concert was devided into 3 sets of 30 minutes long music. It was brilliant idea because Gorecki’s music is very contemplative and you need break to admire it. Another good idea was comparing Gorecki’s pieces to another Polish composer: Marta Ptaszynska. The strange thing was that the music did not represented period of time of the paintings, though Polish music of this period has two brilliant composers: Szymanowski and Karlowicz.

In time when Coca-Cola considers its tv ads as art (thank you, Andy Warhol) it is good to have opportunity to listen music less ordinary. All audience like the performance. They were ususally surprised of what they heard. And perhaps they will drop in to next Concerde show in The Hugh Lane Gallery on February 10th.

Photo: courtesy of Kasia Kurta.

Friday will see another edition of the Hoot night at the Sugar Club on Leeson Street. Hoot Nights are an opportunity for local bands to take the stage and perform slightly different stuff than they normaly would…. On a Hoot Night, two major artists or bands are the ‘Theme of the Eve’ and each performing local band will be playing one song of each artist.

This Friday the battle is on between the songs of Kylie and R.E.M. and 12 bands will be having their way with anything from ‘Can’t get you out of my head’ to ‘Nightswimming’

The fun starts at 7.45 sharp, entrance is €10 and location is The Sugar Club on 8 Lwr Leeson street.

First of all I am very glad to announce an exposition of Claude Cahun in Douglas Hyde Gallery at Trinity College. She is famous for her surrealistic self portraits. It is open 25 January- 6 March 2007. Opening hours
Monday – Friday, 11am-6pm; Thursday, 11am-7pm; Saturday, 11am-4.45pm.

Another expo at the same gallery is by Lothar Hempel.

Some music for the weekend:

Stagger Lee launches their single at RadioCity on Friday at 8PM. Congratulation guys!! Waiting for the album!

The Revellions will play at Eamon Doran’s on Saturday 26th January at 8PM. Adm. 10 e. It is some surf music at Temple Bar!! Strongly advised.

Have a craic!