ZOË’S DUBLIN DIARY: WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK: DECEMBER 9, 2015 →
Wednesday, 9 December – Pop-Up Independent Bookshop Christmas Party, Free and BYOB, 18:30, 47 Drury Street
The Independent Bookshop is back for December 2015, this time with a beautiful street-level shop window and a location that is treacherously close to Grogan’s. For its official Wednesday launch, there’ll be festive treats, mulled wine and more books that you can shake several sticks at. Fourteen independent publishers have come together to stock and staff the Christmas pop-up, including New Island Books, Liberties Press, Little Island, Lilliput Press, The Stinging Fly Press, The O’Brien Press, Roads Publishing, Irish Academic Press/Merrion Press, The Salvage Press, The Swan River Press, Mercier Press, UCD Press, Columba Press and Four Courts Press. Open now, launching today and running until Christmas. Facebook event here.
Thursday, 10 December – A Celebration of Traveller Music, €5, 20:00, The Cobblestone
Though they constitute about 0.5 percent of Ireland’s population, with an estimated population of 25,000, Travellers remain a marginalised minority facing a staggering level of prejudice, veering from the casual to the vicious. This evening will be an opportunity to celebrate the rich oral tradition of songs passed through generations of Traveller families, with performances from Thomas McCarthy, Stephen Pecker Dunne, Paddy Dunne, Jack Delaney, Trish Nolan, Bridget Doyle Collins, John Connors, Bernie McDonagh and Katie Theasby, and open-mic singing sessions. Organised by Poster Fish Promotions and Blanchardstown Traveller Development Group, proceeds for the evening will be going to those affected by the Carrickmines tragedy in October, in which ten people died in a halting site fire. More information here.
Friday, 11 December – Drainland, Unyielding Love, Black Spring, €7 and BYOB, 20:00, Tenterhooks
Nihilistic grindcore experts Drainland are back with a new line-up and their first gig in some time. They got the attention of the prestigious Southern Lord label, who reissued And So Our Troubles Began back in 2011. Unyielding Love and Black Spring will also be playing, with speed-driven death metal and sludgy dirgecore in equal parts. Facebook event here. Have a listen here, here, andhere.
Saturday, 12 December – Helena Hauff and Sunil Sharpe, €10/€13, 23:00, Button Factory
Helena Hauff comes off as having such a thoroughly anarchic temperament that her September release, Discreet Desires, is made all the more surprising by its restraint. Her first full-length album has a retro-revival feel in almost the same vein as the Drive soundtrack, except instead of being catchy, it is hypnotic, and minus the camp but with added menace. There’s no doubting the skill, but if you too have obsessively tracked recordings of her live sets, you’ll be curious as to what happens when she’s in charge of a room. Sunil Sharpe will be setting an appropriate tone, and warm-up also comes from Daire Carolan of First Second Dublin and All City Records. More information here, tickets purchasable from here.
Sunday, 13 December – The Brownbread Mixtape, €10, 20:00, Stag’s Head
The Brownbread Mixtape is a long-standing monthly soirée of spoken word, music, and comedy. Resident poet Kalle Ryan will be on emcee duties, assisted by musician and sound-man Enda Roche. Proceeds for the night will go to a charity of the audience’s choosing, and music will be from Ross Breen, Sinéad White and Pearse McGloughlin, with spoken word from Paul Timoney and John Cummins, and comedy from the Brownbread Players. More information here.
Monday, 14 December – Good Game Ireland Games Night, Free, the Black Sheep
Ireland’s first open gaming night will have four screens in the basement of the Black Sheep available for you to play on. Good Game Ireland will provide plenty of their own consoles but you’re also welcome to bring your own, or just come for cards and chats and avail of the night’s drink and food deals. The Facebook page for the event is here, website here and Good Game’s calendar here.
Tuesday, 15 December – Ella DeBurca/Ruth Clinton/Niamh Moriarty: Transhistorical Terrain, 10-18:00, Draíocht
Linda Shevlin has curated this year’s Amharc Fhine Gall X, in which a curator and artist(s) work together to bring their art to a wider audience. Oral and archival histories inform these specially commissioned works, and with them come the implications of hearsay and memory out of which our experience of the present is created. The various historical material is overlapped with non-time-specific narratives. The aim is to examine the active role that visual culture plays in the construction of our temporal self. More information here.
