What’s on in Dublin this week

Where to go in Dublin: events, concerts and shows worth your night

Dublin is a city that goes out to hear things: music in pubs that have hosted sessions for decades, a national theatre that started a literary revolution, comedy rooms where the country’s best-known comics test new hours, and one of Europe’s busiest arenas on the docks. Below is where to go in Dublin for a night out, with addresses, and what tends to be on when.

Concerts and live music in Dublin: Whelan’s, Vicar Street and the 3Arena

Whelan’s (25 Wexford Street, Dublin 2, whelanslive.com) is the pub-venue where Irish bands break: 570 capacity across the main room and upstairs, live music seven nights a week, and a front bar for the night after. Vicar Street (58–59 Thomas Street, Dublin 8) is the step up, 1,050 seated or 1,500 standing, with the best sound in the city and a comedy programme to match its concerts. The 3Olympia Theatre (72 Dame Street, Dublin 2), an 1879 music hall, takes the shows that want a Victorian balcony behind them, and the 3Arena (North Wall Quay, Dublin 1) on the docks holds 13,000 for the arena tours. The National Concert Hall (Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, nch.ie) is home to the National Symphony Orchestra.

Dublin nightlife: Camden Street, Temple Bar and the late bars

Camden Street and Wexford Street, south of St Stephen’s Green, are where Dubliners go: a run of pubs, late bars and small clubs within a few hundred metres of Whelan’s. Temple Bar is the tourist quarter, loud and expensive but with a couple of genuine venues, the Button Factory and the Workman’s Club among them. Pubs close around 11.30 pm on weeknights and 12.30 am at weekends; late bars run until 2.30 am, clubs a little later. Traditional sessions happen most nights in pubs across the city, usually from about nine, and cost nothing.

Theatre and comedy in Dublin

The Abbey Theatre (26 Lower Abbey Street, Dublin 1, abbeytheatre.ie), the national theatre founded by Yeats and Lady Gregory in 1904, still sets the agenda for Irish drama, with a second, more experimental stage, the Peacock. The Gate on Parnell Square does the classics and the Gaiety on South King Street the musicals and the Christmas panto; the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre in the docklands takes the big touring productions. Comedy is in the pubs and at Vicar Street, where the country’s best-known comics play multi-night runs.

Museums and galleries in Dublin

The Irish Museum of Modern Art (Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Military Road, Dublin 8, imma.ie), in a 1684 hospital building with formal gardens, is free to enter and hosts summer concerts on its lawns. The National Gallery on Merrion Square and the Hugh Lane on Parnell Square, with Francis Bacon’s reconstructed studio, are also free. Culture Night, one Friday in September, opens hundreds of venues across the city until late for nothing.

Dublin festivals and events by season

• Spring: St Patrick’s Festival around 17 March, five days of parades and concerts; and the Dublin Dance Festival in May.
• Summer: Bloomsday on 16 June; Longitude in Marlay Park and the summer concerts at Kilmainham, Marlay Park and the 3Arena in July; and Dublin Pride at the end of June.
• Autumn: Culture Night and the Dublin Fringe in September, the Dublin Theatre Festival in October, and the Bram Stoker Festival over the Halloween weekend.
• Winter: the Christmas markets and panto season from late November, and TradFest, the traditional music festival in Temple Bar, in late January.

Things to do in Dublin tonight and this weekend

The listings above are the live version of all this: every concert, show, club night and exhibition on in Dublin tonight, tomorrow and this weekend, with times, prices and tickets, updated every hour.