The Dublin Community Blog

I hope that this year St. Patrick impersonator will be the same person that last year. I call him ‘de Niro’

With St Patrick’s Day (March 17th) coming closer and closer, the question is what on earth are you going to do over the five-day festival?

Whether you are from Dublin, living in Dublin or just coming for the craic there is bound to be something for everyone. Now an annual feature the funfair in Merrion Sq will run from Friday March 14th until Monday March 17th, there is a Babyrave in Temple Bar running from Friday till Sunday and the Ceili Mor will be held in Earlsfort Terrace on St Patrick’s Day itself.

But there is more, Kila play the Olympia on St Patrick’s Day, Mary Black is in the National Concert Hall. There are various Irish language and culture workshops and Irish language tours as well as speed dating As Gaeilge so brush up on your coupla focal.

You can find out lots lots more on the Festival website. You can book tickets for different events on the website though some things are already sold out. However don’t worry about not getting tickets for something you wanted, there will be something else to take its place. And let us not forget the stalwart of every St Patrick’s Day, the parade, two hours of fun and frolics and a long way away from the parade that used to happen when I first moved to Dublin 17 years ago. Then it was just groups of tourists with shamrock hats walking in formation waving, marching bands and being very very cold looking at the back of the people in front. Trust me it is a lot more fun now The festival map is located on the website at this link.

All of this is of course only a fraction of things that are taking place, different things will be happening all over the city and they will be hard to miss, just follow your nose.

Last year some of the Dublin Blog contributors were out and about taking pics and here is what we had to say last year. No doubt you can expect more of the same and probably even better this year. You can also see lots of images of St Patrick’s Day from all around the world on Flickr and don’t forget to keep an eye out over the festival on photographs as they are uploaded to our own Dublin Blog group on Flickr.

 

If you are wondering what is on the picture the answer is very Dublinish: Guinness!!

Michael Davidson of Florida University makes beer photos using microscope. What to say more? Check his beer website. 

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.

There are all sorts of things happening for Chinese New Year, you can find out more at Dublin.ie. Meanwhile here’s some pics from yesterday’s fun on Georges Street. There are more pics on Flickr.

If you are not into all that popular music you can see in TV or hear on the radio or if you just want to take a brake form all that noise, you should search for some concert of Ewa Gigon. Recently she performed at BoomBoomRoom . A nice guy with a guitar who played before her, seemed not to impress the audience and the noise in the room only could confirm that.

The first notes of Ewa’s performance calmed down the crowd imediately. But who would not pay attention to skilled soprano voice multiplied by some electronic devices. A very strange feeling just after another guitar player.

In another song Ewa guided surprised audience to darker moods of her imagination using digital noise samples and empty beer glasses. After that part followed a cover song of Talk Talk with nicely multilplied ‘talktalk’ phrace to add the rythm.
Unfortunately the gig finished as suddenly as it started. Ewa took everyone’s attention so 45 minutes performance seemed to last just a while. She sang one more song and disappeared.

We have to wait for her upcoming album this yea and check her website http://www.myspace.com/ewagigon for more gig information.

Ewa Gigon at BoomBoomRoom.

For who?

Bjork fans, ‘reaserching electronica’ lovers, free jazz and dark moods aficionados.

Over the weekend I met up with some of the members of the Meet Dublin group on Flickr. Flickr meets are where a group of people (mostly members of Flickr) go around and take photographs and my idea of bliss. This month (January) the group is exploring Dublin 7 with different events each weekend, last weekend was the turn of the Horse Fair in Smithfield.

The Smithfield Horse Fair meets once a month in Smithfield, on the first Sunday of the month. There were nearly as many photographers as horses last weekend as well as the presence of Gardai and the DSPCA. Dublin City Council would like to move the fair out of Smithfield but so far it remains in Dublin 7.

Flickr meets are an excellent opportunity to meet up with people whose work you have been admiring on Flickr. Not only are they are a great social outing but you can also learn lots from others. It is fascinating to see how different people approach the same shot.

So if you fancy some photography projects and a bit of craic too, check out Meet Dublin on Flickr as well as their Facebook group.

Anyway here’s some of my favourite shots of the day, you can check out more here and more in the Meet Dublin photo pool here.

Happy New Year 2008 – I thought I would post some of the images I captured from around Dublin during Christmas as a way of easing myself back into the Dublin Blog after a ridiculous absence, no excuse just busy and sorry about that So here’s to a great year, Sláinte everyone.

It seems it is all happening in Stephen’s Green these days, not only is there Shakespeare in the Park but there is also a wonderful photography exhibition, Spirit of the Wild, on the pathway around the inside of the park by Steve Bloom featuring some of these works. It will be on show until October 7th and has been running since the middle of August apparently. But what a great idea, lots of wonderful images, printed BIG and exhibited outside, I was in heaven.

Arrghhh run there’s a bear chasing you (thanks to my model Geffrey Wang who agreed to pose for me) Unfortunately I only took one shot (note to self, again, ensure you have your shot) and there’s more than a little camera shake – eh we were eh running away from the bear *ahem* but you get the idea

Anyway there’s lots of amazing wildlife images, wonderful, so it is well worth a look. I was there just before 7pm and the light was starting to go but the shots are incredible.

I’ve come over all showbiz pap after going to TV3′s Autumn Schedule launch last night. There were all sorts of famous faces there, like eh Eric Pollard from Emmerdale, Donal MacIntyre and Shayne Ward who, it appeared anyway, performed for all the ladies in the audience. Here’s some pics from the evening, the others I can’t show because it was free drink all evening and it wouldn’t be fair