A few hardy souls venture into the freezing cold of the bleak mid-winter to . . . party. Scarves and warm coats are the order of the day in a week that features the occasional shower of hailstones and a lunar eclipse.
The first occasion to party is the opening of the Fourth Dublin International Theatre Symposium at the Samuel Beckett Centre in TCD. Theatre types are a hardy bunch, surely. Even the odd lunatic is allowed run amok at the opening of the six-day event - in the guise of Ridiculusmus. Check them out.
Standing in out of the breeze are Dr Thomas Mitchell, provost of TCD, and California man Prof Dennis Kennedy, head of the university's drama department. They chat about the University of California at Berkeley as they wait for the Minister for the Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, Sile de Valera TD, to arrive. Gavin Quinn, festival director and the sharpest dresser here, in a hip blue suit, is hovering also. More than 3,000 people are expected to attend the week's mix of talks, demonstrations and performances. "It's a chance to get to know their work," says Quinn of the visiting theatre companies from Sweden, Poland, Italy, Austria, France and Britain.
The four theatrical Swedes - including Ann Petren and Anna Takanen - have already been to Beshoff's on Westmoreland Street for fish and chips for their first taste of Dublin. An artist and writer, Leo Connolly, from Lancashire, and photography student Josie Ayers, are here too to check out the symposium's line-up.
Here to congratulate the organisers and support the event are Madeline Boughton, of the Abbey Theatre, and Emer McGowan, who worked with the Babaro International Festival for Children until recently. Aedin Cosgrove, co-artistic director of the event and co-founder, with Gavin Quinn of the Pan Pan Theatre Company, which presents the symposium, is ready to greet the Minister and welcome us all to the opening event. The week's last show, which takes place tonight at the Samuel Beckett Theatre, starting at 8 p.m, is a world premiere that has been specially commissioned by the organisers. It is Camera Echo from the Il Pudore Bene in Vista company in Italy.