Weekend Guide: 8 great events happening around Ireland

Board Dublin official opening weekend

18-21 January, Harold’s Cross, Dublin

A bar with absolutely zero booze, the brand new Board Dublin are celebrating their official opening across the weekend with a selection of great events. A board games bar and café in Harold’s Cross serving up the best in all things non-alcoholic, events include quizzes, bingo, painting, and pottery. They’ve got pizzas, pastries and salads, and over 200 board games to choose from. The only rule? The loser buys the next round.

Dry January Festival

Across the weekend (and month!), all around Dublin

Giving you the opportunity to try out a new craft, exercise, explore, create, and meet new people, all while doing something a little different with your time this month, Dry January Festival’s curated programme of events include everything from storytelling, live music and magic shows to captivating art events, unique gatherings, and cultural events. Find a full list of events happening this weekend right here.

The Rocky Horror Show

Until 20 January, Bord Gais Energy Theatre

Ready to thrill you with fun and naughty moments, Richard O’Brien’s legendary rock ‘n’ roll musical, The Rocky Horror Show is being brought to the stage of the Bord Gais, featuring timeless classics like ‘Damn it Janet’, and the pelvic thrusting show-stopper, ‘Time Warp’. For those who haven’t seen the original, the story follows two squeaky clean college kids as their car breaks down outside a creepy mansion, where they meet the charismatic Dr Frank’n’Furter. It is an adventure they’ll never forget, filled with fun, frolics, frocks, and frivolity.

Music for Galway’s Midwinter Festival

19-21 January, The Hardiman Ballroom & St. Nicholas’ Collegiate Church, Galway

This year’s midwinter festival, curated by pianist Michel Dalberto alongside MfG artistic director Finghin Collins, marks the centenary of French composer Gabriel Fauré’s death in 1924 and features three chamber music concerts and a performance of the popular Requiem. Michel is joined by the charismatic Swiss baritone Benoît Capt and two young string virtuosi from Paris, as well as Galway’s own ConTempo Quartet.

Damian Browne: Man Vs Ocean

21 January, The Black Box Theatre, Galway

A spoken word performance by Damian Browne, Ireland’s foremost extreme adventurer and the only person in history ever to row 3,000 miles across the ferocious North Atlantic from Manhattan, NYC to Galway, Ireland. In an enthralling night of inspiration, entertainment and enrichment, Damian shares extraordinary stories of catastrophe, courage and mental fortitude, intertwined with the life lessons etched into his being from the brutality of one of the world’s most unforgiving environments. Damian Browne’s story is a captivating exploration of how one man uses extreme physical and mental challenges to forge his true potential.

Andy Warhol Three Times Out

Until 28 January, Hugh Lane Gallery

Time is running out to get to experience this unique exhibition at Hugh Lane Gallery. Containing more than 250 works borrowed from museums and private collections in the US, Canada, Europe and the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, this exhibition celebrates Andy Warhol’s new artistic vision which saw him combine commercial processes with fine art production. He experimented with silkscreen printing on canvas, film, photography, publishing, performance, video and television. Warhol challenged conventional canons in art, dismissing traditional distinctions between fine art and popular culture.

Jack and the Beanstalk

Until 21 January, Cork Opera House

If you’re still in the form for a panto after the Christmas break, you’ve still got one last weekend to experience the joy of Jack and the Beanstalk at Cork Opera House. Full of fe-fi-fo-fun for all the family, join Jack, Nanny Nellie, and a host of lovable companions in a spectacular show packed with amazing colour, spellbinding costumes, magical live music, breath-taking dance, and a tonne of belly laughs.

They Gave The Walls A Talking

Until 18 March, EPIC: The Irish Emigration Museum, Dublin

A very special pop-up exhibition dedicated to The Pogues and Shane MacGowan, They Gave The Walls A Talking illuminates the evolution of The Pogues, the rise of punk rock, and the role of the Irish diaspora on the British music scene – as well as the genesis of the marvellously iconic ‘Fairytale of New York’. It features contributions from Victoria Mary Clarke, Siobhan MacGowan, Jem Finer, Nick Cave, Damien Dempsey, Cáit O’Riordan and the family of the late Frank Murray, the band’s original manager.

Featured image via Brian McEvoy