Gig of the Week: Cúirt International Festival of Literature
April 4th-10th, Galway
Some of the best writers from Ireland and beyond will be converging on the City of Tribes for this year's Cúirt, including Edel Coffey, Sara Baume, Claire Keegan, Raymond Antrobus, Lucy Foley, Louise Kennedy and Rumaan Alam. This year's festival theme is "at the intersections" and many of the events will be looking to make interesting connections and find common ground in the unlikeliest places. Events will take place at the Town Hall Theatre, The Mick Lally Theatre on Druid Lane, An Taibhdhearc, Charlie Byrne's Bookshop, The Cornstore and the Palás, while O'Carroll's Bar will host the revamped festival club. Here's a chance to write an exciting new chapter in your life by spending quality time at Cúirt.
The Art of W/Rights
April 9th and 10th, St Enda's Park, Rathfarnham, Dublin, 1pm and 2pm, €12/€10, smashingtimes.ie
Take a walk on the wild side at the Pearse Museum with some site-specific events to celebrate the history of the locality, specifically those figures linked to the area who fought for human rights. In this guided promenade performance, you'll encounter storytelling, poetry, songs and readings in the company of Mary Moynihan, Michael McCabe, Rob Harrington, Gemma McGowan, Lisa McLoughlin-Gnemmi and Sinead McCoole, as they tell the stories of Anne Devlin, Robert Emmet, Sarah Curran, John Philpott Curran, William Butler Yeats and three women from the Pearse family. The Magic Lantern puts the love story of Sarah Curran and Robert Emmet into verse, while Tales from an Afterworld reflects on the life of Yeats. More walks in the park are planned for Easter week, April 15th-18th.
Pauline Scanlon
April 8th, Mick Lally Theatre, Galway, 8pm, €22.50; April 9th, The Duncairn, Belfast, 7.30pm, £15; Apr 14th, Pepper Canister Church, Dublin, 7pm, €29.90, paulinescanlon.net
The acclaimed singer and activist launches her new album, The Unquiet, with a nationwide tour that takes in Galway, Belfast and Dublin, with further dates in Castlebar, Co Mayo and Killarney, Co Kerry in May. The album is inspired by her work as a very vocal advocate for Irish women in the arts, and showcases her "superb mix of china cup fragility and steely strength", using traditional songs and styles to reflect the realities of life for women in the 21st century. The songs are loosely based on the life of Scanlon's mother, Eileen, but women everywhere will find a resonance in these powerful and superbly crafted tunes.
Franco-Irish Literary Festival
April 8th-10th, Dublin Castle and Alliance Francaise, free admission, francoirishliteraryfestival.com
Taboos are the theme for this year's celebration of Irish and Francophone literature, which will focus on how writers have transgressed boundaries in their books and challenged society's cultural, religious and social constraints. For the organisers, it's a fitting way to reopen the pages after two years on the proverbial shelf, and in an age of cancel culture and increasing pressure to self-censor, the time may be right to examine the many taboos which still pervade in even the most liberated societies. Guest writers including Estelle Benazet Heugenhauser, John Boyne, Niamh Campbell, Jan Carson, Hervé le Tellier, Fanie Demeule and Kevin Power will engage in lively discussions on such topics as family, race, health, sexuality, gender and wider cultural values, and of course literature itself.
Joyce DiDonato: Eden
April 9th, National Concert Hall, Dublin, 8pm, €75, €57.50, €44.50, nch.ie
Fancy a taste of paradise without having to buy a Bounty bar? Acclaimed US mezzo-Soprano Joyce DiDonato curates and performs this unique musical celebration of life, nature and spirituality, designed to not only cheer us up after two years of doom and gloom, but to light up our souls with a fresh joy in the beauty of the world and a new hope for the future. That's a tall order, but with help from the superb il Pomo d'Oro ensemble conducted by Maxim Emeyanychev, and a programme that includes compositions by Rachel Portman, Charles Ives, Mahler, Copland, Handel, Wagner and Christoph Willibald Gluck, DiDonato promises a transformative night of music and spiritual reconnection.
Solidarity
April 10th, Abbey Theatre, 7pm, €25/€30/€40/€50/€75/€100, abbeytheatre.ie
A diverse group of independent Irish artists will gather on the Abbey stage for a special event to support the people of Ukraine who have been forced to flee their country as Russia continues to wage unprovoked war on the country. Panti Bliss will be your host, with live music performances from Camille O'Sullivan, Kila and Maria Doyle Kennedy, and readings from playwright Mark O'Halloran, author Sinéad Gleeson, performance artist Amanda Coogan and actor Stephen Rea. Purchase a ticket at a price point you can afford – all proceeds will be donated to the Irish Refugee Council, Doras and the Irish Emergency Alliance. A special limited edition artwork from Dublin's Hang Tough gallery will be available to purchase on the night, with proceeds going to the Scoop Foundation, and there's bound to be more special guests added to the line-up, so don't miss this chance to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the people of Ukraine in their time of great need.
Sparks
April 10th, Vicar St, Dublin, 7pm, ticketmaster.ie
Ron and Russell Mael have been at the cutting edge of avant-pop for nearly 50 years, when other bands of their vintage are content to simply riff on past glories. The muso siblings were the subject of an acclaimed documentary by Edgar Wright, The Sparks Brothers, and also wrote the story, screenplay and music for the film Annette, directed by Leos Carax and starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard. This show in Vicar St will feature songs from their recent albums Hippopotamus and A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip, but if you ask them nicely, they might just dig out a few old hits such as The Number One Song in Heaven and This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us.
Marti Pellow
April 10th, Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin, ticketmaster.ie
The fans spoke and Marti listened. During lockdown, the Wet Wet Wet singer set up his own online sessions, which were tuned into by 12 million people, and was inundated with requests to perform live just as soon as this pesky pandemic started to wane. Now, Pellow is answering the call with a greatest hits tour that arrives in Dublin's Bord Gáis Energy Theatre on Sunday. He'll be digging out the nuggets such as Sweet Little Mystery and Love Is All Around, along with some of the favourite songs he liked to cover in his lockdown sessions, plus tracks from his latest album, Stargazer. And don't forget, there's no party like a Marti party.
