Monday
I'll sing you a song from around the town - Amanda Coogan
Somewhere in the Middle - Maggie Madden
Limerick City Gallery of Art, Carnegie Building, Pery Square, Limerick Until January 29 gallery
limerick.ie
A reshaped edition of Amanda Coogan's terrific survey show originally presented at the RHA Gallery, offering an intense, startling and energising view of her wide-ranging work. It's ingeniously partnered with the work of an entirely different sensibility. Maggie Madden's pieces can be so subtle as to verge on invisibility, but they are always quietly persuasive, beautiful and conceptually rich.
Tuesday
Dermot Byrne, Steve Cooney and Trevor Hutchinson
Clonmel Folk Club, Town hall, Clonmel, Co Tipperary 8.30pm €18/€15
eventbrite.ie
Altan's founder member and renowned box player Dermot Byrne continues his extensive tour in the splendid company of Australian guitarist, composer and renaissance man Cooney and Lúnasa's double bassist and producer Hutchinson. Distilled perfection.
Wednesday
The Courteeners
Academy Dublin 8pm €22
ticketmaster.ie
Ten years of pushing the indie aesthetic hasn't done this Manchester act any harm. Their profile may have slipped in the wake of 2008 debut St Jude, and its 2010 follow-up Falcon, but over the past 18 months The Courteeners have shown the kind of resilience that makes you love a band. Fifth album, Mapping the Rendezvous, will be showcased.
The Color Bars Experience plays Nick Drake
Vicar St Dublin 7pm €35
ticketmaster.ie
Usually, we would steer clear of 'tribute' bands paying homage to their favourite songwriters or singers, but this one is completely different. With musicians of the calibre of Midlake's Eric Pulido, Ride's Mark Gardener, and Giant Sand's Brian Lopez – not forgetting for a millisecond a 10-piece chamber orchestra – expect beautifully rendered versions of Nick Drake's melancholic songs.
Prix Pictet: Disorder
Gallery of Photography, Meeting House Sq, Temple Bar Until January 22
galleryofphotography.ie
The organizers of the Prix Pictet photographic award knew a thing or two when they settled on the theme of the 2015 competition. 'Disorder' sums up the current state of things a little too accurately. French photographic artist Valérie Belin, who has specialised in phantasmagoric images embracing excess and disorder in a disorientating, hallucinatory way, has just scooped the prize, worth 100,000 Swiss francs. You can see samples of her work, and that of the other 11 shortlisted artists, in this show.
Thursday
MATERIAL(s) - Ronan McCrea
Green on Red Gallery, Park Lane, Spencer Dock, Dublin (100m from SD Luas Stop) Until January 21
greenonredgallery.com
Old technologies give way to new. Ronan McCrea came across a batch of instructional 16mm films on mechanical engineering, plus some other topics, produced by the BBC in 1972, discarded by a college engineering department. He set to work cutting and splicing the found material, refashioning it into the forms and tropes typical of the structural films and Conceptual art of the same era. Projected in the gallery, the sources gain a new, unexpected lease of life.
Aleka
Bello Bar, Portobello, Dublin 8pm, €10/€8
bellobardublin.com
Adventurous Romanian-born Dublin-based vocalist, cellist, and composer Aleka mixes jazz, eastern European folk and high-brow classical influnces in her songs, and they take on more layers and grooves when she channels them through her talented group that includes rising guitarist Chris Guilfoyle, bassist Peter Erdei and drummer Brendan Doherty. New EP available on the night. With support from guitarist Charlie Mooney's quartet.
