The Jeanie Johnson, docked at Custom House Quay on the north banks of the River Liffey in Dublin’s city centre, is a replica of a Famine ship which brought impoverished Irish people from  from Tralee in County Kerry to America in search of a better life between 1847 and 1855. Visitors can board the Jeanie Johnson to  experience what the cramped conditions were like on these “coffin ships” for the millions of people to made the voyage to the New World during the Famine and its aftermath in Ireland. See www.jeaniejohnston.ie for more information.

This stunning photograph of the Jeanie Johnson was taken at night, with the lights of the Dublin Docklands behind, by Infomatique.

The new Gibson Hotel. Photo by Donal Murphy.

The theme of this year’s festival is “The Architecture of Change”, a subject that the organisers hope will reflect the turbulent times that Ireland, and the architecture industry itself, are currently enduring. Dr Sandra O’Connell, the curator of the event, said: ““Our programme examines both the new architecture that emerges from our times of great change and how architecture in itself can be a catalyst for positive change from the small but skilful residential intervention to the urban master plan.”

One of the most interesting events at the festival this year will be a walking tour discussing the “Destruction of Dublin”, the potential of NAMA-owned properties, and an “Urban Check-Up of inner city areas. Other tours will examine recent additions to the Dublin landscape, including newly opened buildings on the Trinity College campus, and refurbished Martello Towers along the Dublin coastline.

Government Buildings, Dublin.

Aspiring young architects of the future will also be well catered for, with an exciting Open House Junior programme for children, teenagers and families. Hands-on construction workshops for kids will take place in the Hugh Lane Gallery, and a furniture design workshop is being organised in the National Museum. Other city tours devised with children in mind will take place in Merrion Square and Trinity College, and families can also download a self-guided city tour from www.luas.ie to explore the architecture of the city by LUAS, the city’s tram system.

All events are free, but some require pre-booking: see www.openhousedublin.com for a full programme.

Images courtesy of Open House Dublin.

The River Liffey is the life force of Dublin city, and there is no better light in which to view it than at sunset, when the sky’s oranges, pinks and blues mingle and shimmer in the water below, framed by the reflection of the Georgian buildings which flank the river on either side. The iconic image of the sun setting over the Liffey has been repeatedly used down through the years in the opening and closing credits for Ireland’s most popular television soap, Fair City.

Dublin Bus

Dublin Bus has an extensive network of routes through the city centre and out to the suburbs. You can purchase tickets in advance in any newsagent, or pay on the bus if you have the exact fare (no change is given by the driver). Fares cost between €1.20 and €2.30 for adults depending on distance. If you intend to use the bus service a lot during your stay, it is worth buying one-day passes for €6, or a bus and rail pass (which includes DART and LUAS) for one or three days (€10.70/€21). Regular Dublin Bus services run from 6am to 11.30pm, but there are Nightlink services which run Thursday to Saturday until 3am on certain routes, costing €5 – most depart from the College Green area. See www.dublinbus.ie for routes, timetables and ticket information, or you can pick up a free printed timetable or buy tickets at the Dublin Bus office at 59 O’Connell St.

LUAS

The LUAS is Dublin’s tram system, which operates regularly along two lines (which unfortunately don’t join up). The Green Line runs from Stephen’s Green to Sandyford, and the Red Line from Connolly Station to Tallaght via Abbey Street and Houston Station. Tickets cost €1.50-2.70 single or €2.90-5 return, and can be purchased at the automatic machines at any LUAS stop before boarding. See www.luas.ie.

DART

The DART is a light-rail system which snakes around the Dublin coastline from Howth to the north of the city to Bray and Greystones in Wicklow to the south, passing through Connolly, Tara Street and Pearse Street stations in the city centre. A trip on the DART is an attraction in itself for visitors, affording lovely views of the Dublin coastline and suburban areas. Howth, Malahide, Sandymount, Dun Laoghaire, Killiney, Bray and Greystones have pleasant seaside walks, all of which are served by the DART. See www.irishrail.ie.

Taxi

There is now an oversupply of taxis in Dublin, so you shouldn’t have a problem picking one up off the street in the city centre at any time of the day or night, the exception being around 3am on a Friday or Saturday night when you may have to wait a short time at a taxi rank. Fares cost €4.45 for the first km and then €1.35 per km after that, with rates increasing slightly after 8pm, on Sundays or for journeys of more than 15km.

Dublin Bikes

Dublin Bikes are Dublin’s newest and most fun way of getting around the city, and the bike share scheme, which has been running for about two years, is now deemed to be one of the most successful in Europe. Bike stations are dotted around the city centre, and you can easily sign up for a three day (€2) or annual pass (€10) at the station using a credit card.  See www.dublinbikes.ie for details on bike stand locations, and info on how to sign up.

Images courtesy of www.dublinbus.ie, www.irishrail.ie, www.geograph.ie and www.dublinbikes.ie (bikes photo submitted by Irina Maximova).

Dublin Airport is located 10km north of the city centre on the M1 motorway, and is now well served by public transport.

Dublin Bus

The cheapest way to get to the city is to take a Dublin Bus. The numbers 16A, 41, 41B and 41C depart every 10-20mins from the bus stop to the left as you come out of the Arrivals hall, and take about 45mins to get into the centre, depending on traffic. They take a slightly circuitous route, stopping regularly in residential areas along the way which increases the travel time, but at just €1.85 per adult, it is by far the cheapest option. See www.dublinbus.ie.

Dublin Bus also runs an Airlink service(numbers 747 and 748) which go direct to the city centre, terminating at Busaras, which is the main bus terminal for Bus Eireann inter-city services.The trip takes about 30 mins, and tickets cost €6 single or €10 return.

Aircoach

The Aircoach is a faster and more luxurious ride run by a private company, with reclining leather seats and air-con. It stops at all the major hotels along the main route from the airport into the city, before continuing on to serve the suburbs on the southside of Dublin, along the coast to Greystones. Aircoaches depart from a bus stop directly opposite the main Terminal 1 Arrivals hall exit, and cost €€7–13 single or €12–20 return depending on distance. They also run a cheap and comfortable coach all the way to Cork for €15 single or €22 return. See www.aircoach.ie.

Taxi

Taxis are plentiful – there is a taxi rank to the right of the Terminal 1 Arrivals door. A trip to the city centre will cost about €25-30 depending on the number of people, time of day and distance, and if you are travelling in a group this may work out cheaper and more convenient than taking the Aircoach.

Car rental

There are many different car rental companies with offices at Dublin airport. Budget and Thrifty often have good deals if you book online in advance. You will exit the airport onto the M1/Ni motorway; the city centre is well signposted.

Marie Mullen in Testament

One of the most eagerly anticipated shows this year is the wold premier of Colm Toibin’s new one-woman play Testament, featuring Marie Mullen (left) and directed by the internationally renowned theatre director Garry Hynes, which explores the theme of belief through the life of a woman who was forced to bear an unimaginable burden in tumultuous times.

Juno and the Paycock

Sean O’Casey’s well-known play Juno and the Paycock, which sets the lives of one tenement family against the social and political turmoil of Ireland’s War of Independence, will be performed on the Abbey stage, directed by Howard Davies and starring Risteárd Cooper and Sinéad Cusack. The play will be of particular interest to visitors to Dublin for its portrayal of inner city life in the early years of the last century.

In an exciting new venture, some of this year’s plays will be staged in locations around the city where theatre has never been performed before. Of the 28 shows scheduled for this year, nine will be performed in venues appropriate to the theme or subject of the play. The most talked about so far is Laundry, directed by Louise Lowe, which is the second installment of a series of four site-specific works exploring the social history of a quarter mile area in Dublin’s north inner city. It presents what life was like for the women who worked in the Gloucester Street Magdalene Convent on Sean McDermott Street, by inviting the audience in to experience what the conditions were like for themselves. Each performance is limited to three people, and is participatory in nature.

The Lulu House

Trade, a new play by Mark O’Halloran, will be staged in a run down inner city guesthouse, where a middle-aged man with blood on his shirt sits with a young rent boy, and The Lulu House, which features the singer Camille O’Sullivan, invites the audience to become detectives and piece together the disappearance of a screen icon in the James Joyce House at Usher’s Island.

This year’s festival runs from 29^th September to 16^th October. For a schedule of performances or to book tickets, see http://dublintheatrefestival.com/

After almost two years in gestation, the inaugral Dublin Contemporary visual art exhibition kicked off in Dublin this week. Hailed by the organisers as one the most ambitious art exhibitions ever staged in Ireland, more than 150,000 visitors from around the world are expected to attend the city-wide event, which runs for 8 weeks until 31

This year, artists will be interpreting the theme of Terrible Beauty – Art, Crisis, Change and the Office of Non-Compliance. The inspiration for the exhibition is drawn from W. B. Yeats’s famous poem “Easter 1916”, which was written in response to momentous political events in Ireland in the early years of the twentieth century.

Earlsfort Terrace

The 90 artists from all over the world who are participating in this year’s Dublin Contemporary – which is curated by Franco-Peruvian artist Jota Castro and New-York based writer Cristian Viveros-Fauné – will attempt to highlight the potential of art to interpret current events in Irish life through new commissions and small solo exhibitions.

The main exhibition venue is in the grounds of the National Concert Hall on Earlsfort Terrace, on the southside of the city close to Stephen’s Green, with smaller exhibition venues in the Dublin City Gallery, Hugh Lane Gallery, the Royal Hibernian Academy and the Douglas Hyde Gallery. A series of sound works can be heard in The Annex warehouse building, adjacent to the Earlsfort Terrace exhibition site, and the neighbouring Iveagh Gardens will host a sculpture park.

Wang Du, Le Berceau (The Cradle), 2007, steel, mattresses, televisions. Courtesy of Galerie Laurent Godin.

Visitors are encouraged to participate in a programme of free tours, talks, seminars and debates which will take place in the main exhibition centre as part of the exhibition’s education programme – there’s a Collection g the Contemporary series for art afficionados, but novices can opt for the Introducting Contemporary Art course, or one of the Ten Minute Talks held every lunchtime, or one of the daily Highlights tours.

There’s plenty for kids to do too, with parent and child mornings, art workshops for all ages, and Art Sparks, a programme which encourages children to “expand their aesthetic sense” and their ability to interpret and express their opinions about the works of art on display.

Tickets cost €15 per adult per day, or €8 for children. Admission is free for the under-fives.

For more information about participating artists, a programme of scheduled events, or to book tickets, see www.dublincontemporary.com.

Images courtesy of www.dublincontemporary.com.

Pop-up street performances will surprise and thrill onlookers around the city from 5pm till late, and visitors can watch painters, sculptors and other artists working across a broad media spectrum up close in various locations and studios – see www.culturenight.ie for a list of venues. There will be live choral and orchestral performances in St Patrick’s Cathedral and Christ Church Cathedral, with the Contemproary Music Centre presenting more modern works, “a sonic experience of live and electronic music inspired by the past, shaped by the future”.

The highlight of this year’s event is two specially commissioned exhibitions which will use an Augmented Reality (AR) smartphone app to allow spectators to experience the work of some of Ireland’s up-and-coming artists, designers and craftsmen in a whole new way. Users of the app, which will be available to download free of charge from www.risecreatives.ie, will be able to see Batman on the GPO or the Hilk charging down O’Connell Street in the Off the Page exhibition, or see smaller, more intricate work blown up on a huge scale in the courtyard of Collins Barracks in the Among Giants showcase.

In addition to the unique events specially organised for Cuture Night, some of Dublin’s major tourist attractions such as Dublinia, the Guinness Storehouse and Jameson Distillery will be waiving their normally hefty admission fees on the night, and allowing visitors free entry to the sites, including a guided tour. With 156 venues and organisations taking part, this year’s Culture Night is sure to be the best and most exciting yet, so check out www.culturenight.ie and start planning your evening.

In Ireland on 23^rd September but staying outside Dublin? Don’t worry, there are 29 other regions around the country celebrating Culture Night 2011, including Cork, Galway, Belfast and Limerick.

Images courtesy of www.culturenight.ie.

For the cheapest and most authentic Chinese dishes, head to Parnell Street on the north side of the city, which is lined with small casual eateries and restaurants offering food from all over Asia. The Chinese restaurants are patronised by Dublin’s Chinese community, and the menus feature (often amusing) translations of favourites from spicy Sichuan hot pots to Cantonese dim sum. Adventurous eaters will be in their element here, with all kinds of exotic fare on offer from boiled chicken feet to fried eel. Some have hot plates on the tables where you can cook your own food, and others have kareoke rooms upstairs that can be reserved for no added cost for larger parties. Dishes average around €8 and large bottles of Tsing Tao beer are less than €3, making these restaurants the cheapest places to eat and drink in the city by far. It is hard to recommend one over the other, so follow your nose and choose a place packed with Chinese people.

For more upmarket Chinese dining, it is hard to beat The Good World restaurant on George’s Street, which is famous for its dim sum, pork dumplings and duck rolls. The surroundings are opulent with plenty of dark wood and white linen, and the service is excellent. Wongs are a popular chain of Chinese restaurants dotted around the suburbs with a similar standard of food and service – see www.wongs.ie – they have branches in Ranelagh and Blackrock to the south of the city and Clontarf to the north.

Images courtesy of Divine in the Daily.

Ghost Bus Tour
The Dublin Ghost Bus runs tours all year, but there’s no spookier night to learn about the darker side of Dublin than on the eve of All Hallow’s. The gothic bus takes visitors on a spellbinding tour through the city, narrated by a live storyteller who recounts the origins of Dracula, and the tale of the physician whose spirit is still seen walking the corridors of a haunted old college building carrying a bucket of human entrails. The unsuspecting will also be taken to the spooky site where the victims of Walking Gallows, the city’s notorious hangman, met their fate. See http://www.dublinsightseeing.ie/ghostbus/index.aspx for more information.

Bride of Frankenstein
James Whale’s 1935 classic horror film The Bride of Frankenstein will be screened in the National Concert Hall at 8pm on Halloween night. The haunting score to the film will be performed live by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, one of Ireland’s most famous musical ensembles. For information and bookings, see www.rte.ie/concertorchestra.

Hellfire Club Tour
Hidden Dublin organises an annual Halloween torch-lit tour to the Hellfire Club in the Dublin mountains, where a burnt out hunting lodge has long been associated with Satanism, the supernatural and the occult. The guides claim that it is not unusual for people to experience strange sensations in their chest and head as their subconscious tunes in to the terrors witnessed by this haunted place – you have been warned. Over 16s only. See http://www.hiddendublinwalks.com/DUBLIN-halloweenspecial.php for more details.

Dublin City Marathon
Ghosts, ghouls, devils and wizards will make spectacles of themselves while running this year’s Dublin City Marathon, which takes place on 31st October.  Many of the runners, especially those participating for charity, are guaranteed to be dressed in costume.  For details on the route or to sign up for the race, see http://dublinmarathon.ie/.

Fancy Dress Parties
The Irish love to dress up, and on Halloween night, almost every reveller in Dublin city will be adorned with a broomstick, horns, fangs and cloaks. Pubs and clubs play host to fancy dress parties, with competitions and prizes for the best costume.

Happy Halloween!

Images courtesy of lobo235