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From the Newsroom
Dublin Inquirer Summer School 2026 tickets are on sale now
On 27–28 June, we’re running seven different sessions aiming to offer skills and knowledge useful to journalists, and others trying to make the city a better place.
5 min read
Join us for this year’s Dublin Inquirer Summer School, on Saturday 27 June and Sunday 28 June.
In seven sessions, members of our team will work with groups of up to 15 people on skills and knowledge that could be used in journalism, but also just by people who are involved in their communities and trying to make them better places.
Classes will mostly be held at 10-13 Thomas Street, in the Digital Hub, in Dublin 8 – although there's one session that'll be a walking tour, and another that'll be online. Participants are also invited to an end-of-school meet-up on Sunday afternoon, just down the street at Arthur’s Pub.
You can sign up now, via this page, for any or all of the sessions.
Tickets are €50 per class, and the money will go into our budget to keep running Dublin Inquirer. If the price doesn’t suit you though, we’ve a few free places available, just let us know.
The Sessions
Day 1
- Navigating local government. Trying to figure out who is responsible for what and how to contact them to push for change and improvement can be difficult. Dublin Inquirer editor Sam Tranum will offer a primer on the structure of local authorities like Dublin City Council, the difference between what council staff do, and what elected councillors do. How to find out who your councillors are and watch them at work on committees and during full council meetings. What information the councils publish publicly, and how to find it. And more. This class will be on Saturday 27 June, from 10am to 11.30am, at 10-13 Thomas Street. You can get your ticket here.
- Walking tour: Local government in concrete. Walk along with Dublin Inquirer deputy editor Lois Kapila on a tour around the Liberties, visiting a series of locations that illustrate how local government works, debates and responses. The locations will include: The Eight Building in Newmarket, Bridgefoot Street Park, the council’s Civic Offices on Wood Quay, and the Oliver Bond flats. This class will be on Saturday 27 June, from 12 to 1.30pm, starting at 10-13 Thomas Street. You can get your ticket here.
- Who even owns that? Have you been wondering who owns that vacant or derelict building in your area? In this class, Dublin Inquirer deputy editor Lois Kapila will show you how to start to satisfy that curiosity, by using public records to answer questions about your neighbourhood, and offering insight into the changing rules around ownership transparency. This class will be on Saturday 27 June, from 2pm to 3.30pm, at 10-13 Thomas Street. You can get your ticket here.
- Free online event: Tracking your local councillors’ votes. A few years ago, we launched a platform recording how councillors vote on key issues in the Dublin City Council area, with CouncilVoteTracker.ie. Since then we've expanded to cover Fingal County Council too. But we can’t do every council area in the country – perhaps you want to help? Join us to learn how to use our platform to track what your local councillors are voting on, and how each individual councillor is voting – and make it easily publicly accessible and shareable on social media. This class will be online on Saturday 27 June, from 4pm to 5pm. You can get your ticket here.
Day 2
- Master FOI and AIE: Freedom of Information requests and Access to Information on the Environment requests are two useful tools to get records out of public bodies. Dublin Inquirer reporter Laoise Neylon will walk you through how to make an initial request, how to file an appeal for an internal review, and how to appeal to the Office of the Information Commissioner, offering tips and examples from her years of experience with this process. This class will be on Sunday 28 June, from 10am to 11.30am, at 10-13 Thomas Street. You can get your ticket here.
- Where do we even start? Trying to navigate ethical tech as local researchers and journalists can be difficult. What tools should we be using in our reporting and research, what are the considerations? What should we be asking ourselves? This will be a panel discussion, moderated by Dublin Inquirer deputy editor Lois Kapila. This class will be on Sunday 28 June, from 12 to 1.30pm, at 10-13 Thomas Street. You can get your ticket here.
- Launching your own small publication. From finding a market, to choosing a platform, and means of distribution, and possible ways of making money from your effort, and the nuts and bolts of running a company. In this class, Dublin Inquirer co-founder Sam Tranum will talk through the practicalities of starting a small publication, in print, on a website, on social media, or as a newsletter. This class will be on Sunday 28 June, from 2pm to 3.30pm, at 10-13 Thomas Street, Dublin 8, at 10-13 Thomas Street. You can get your ticket here.
School social: If you participate in any of these sessions, you'll be invited to join us at one of the pubs near the venue, from Sunday 28 June at 3.30pm till whenever. Come and meet people from across Dublin, for a casual debrief and chats.
The people
Lois Kapila is co-founder and deputy editor of Dublin Inquirer. Before that, she wrote for The Statesman in Kolkata. She was shortlisted for Orwell Prize for Journalism and Prix Europa's European Journalist of the Year in 2019.
Laoise Neylon is a journalist with the Dublin Inquirer with an interest in housing, homelessness and social affairs. Together with Lois Kapila, she contributed to an international investigation on the financialisation of housing, which won a European Press Prize Innovation Award in 2022. She has also written for the Sunday Times and The Journal.ie.
Sam Tranum is co-founder and editor of Dublin Inquirer. Before that, he worked as a reporter for daily newspapers, covering local government at the Charleston Daily Mail in West Virginia and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, and then as a reporter for energy business newsletters from Energy Intelligence in Washington DC, before taking a role as a sub-editor at The Statesman in Kolkata, and teaching journalism at the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek.
Directions
Most sessions will be in Studio 2, in 10-13 Thomas Street, Dublin 8, D08 PX8H. It's on the Digital Hub campus, near-ish the corner of Crane Street, on the south side of Thomas Street, across from the Masonry Building.
It's a short walk down the road from the James's Luas stop, or across the river from the Smithfield one. It's on several bus routes. And there's plenty of bike parking around.
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