Things To Do: Acknowledge editorial design, answer the call of the corncrake, hear cries from a market

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Our recommendations – no sponsored content, or adverts, just stuff we like.

Modhanna

This evening, a new group exhibition which wonders what artists can learn from one another is launching over in Tøn Gallery on Temple Lane.

Modhanna brings together four female artists, and explores how familiar artistic methods can be reimagined through embroidery, natural materials, scientific processes, experimental photography and colour.

Curated by Ishmael Claxton, the exhibition features works by Kamille Catala, Hazel Coonagh, Julie O’Brien and Maria McSweeney, the latter of whom is presenting a range of works created during her artistic residency out in the Loughshinny Boathouse.

For those who missed it, back in May, McSweeney opened her studio up to the public to show works that looked at the Rush-Skerries seaweed war of the late 1800s, and as part of Modhanna, she is set to continue her study of the colonial, cultural and environmental history of the seaweed industry along the east coast.

The exhibition launches at 6pm today, Thursday 12 November, and will run until 28 November.

Creating the News of the Future

On Friday, up in TU Dublin’s Grangegorman campus, the School of Media and School of Art and Design will co-host a series of talks that examine the changing world of editorial design.

This, dear reader, is another of our incredibly niche recommendations which you cannot afford to miss.

Organised by Typography Ireland, Creating the News of the Future highlights editorial design and the vital role it plays in reaching and engaging readers. The event seeks to foreground and debate the role of design in contemporary news dissemination, and discuss its challenges and developments.

Among those on the line-up are Mark Porter, the former creative director of the Guardian and art director of Wired; as well as Francesco Franchi, the author of Designing News: Changing the World of Editorial Design and Information Graphics. Afterwards, Scott Burnett of the strategic design firm Wove will be up in the East Quad to speak. Then, joining them for a climactic panel discussion are James Kelleher of advertising agency Publicis Dublin, and Dublin InQuirer reporter, School of Media lecturer, and guest dancer in 2022’s Dublin Fringe show Anatomy of a Night Stephanie Costello.

Creating the News of the Future will kick off at 3:30pm, and run until 6:45pm on Friday.

Tickets are free, and can be booked here.

An Clogán

Then, on Friday evening, socialist republican magazine An Clogán will be launching its second issue in the Sugar Club.

Titled After Capitalism, issue two promises to explore what a future beyond capitalism might look like, and to mark the occasion, its team will be hosting two panel discussions.

The first of these examines the “Irish cultural revival in the age of the far right”, and will discuss the renewed interest in Irish music, language and culture. Among those set to speak are Róisín Barrett from the group The Mary Wallopers, Andrew Clarke from the Tanistry Instagram account, and Róisín Nic Liam and Nuala Ní Scolláin from the Irish language organisation Glór na Móna.

Afterwards, Sinn Féin MEP Lynn Boylan, Jacobin editor David Broder and co-author of From the Bog to the Cloud: Dependency and Eco-Modernity in Ireland Patrick Bresnihan will be asking if we can still imagine a better future, and how we might build one.

Finally, Breandán Mac Cionnaith, who led the Garvaghy Road residents' campaign during the Drumcree disputes, will be down to speak with Paddy Prendeville, the former editor of the Phoenix.

The launch kicks off at 6:30pm. Tickets are available here.

The Write Time Festival

The latest edition of Fingal’s Write Time Festival of Creativity and Writing is returning to the Carnegie Free Library in Swords this weekend.

Beginning at 12:30pm on Saturday 14 November, Panenka author Rónán Hession will be dropping in to chat with Henrietta McKervey. Afterwards, autofictionalist Rob Doyle will be in discussion with poet Dave Lordan, and the poet and essayist Doireann Ní Ghríofa will be chatting with the journalist and novelist Belinda McKeon.

Finally, Don’t Touch My Hair: What White People Can Do Next and Disobedient Bodies author Emma Dabiri will be sitting down with festival curator and novelist Kevin Curran.

Sunday is largely sold out but there are still a handful of tickets left for a conversation between journalists Edel Coffey and Lauren Murphy. You can still get some tickets for a talk on debut novels featuring Seán Farrelly who penned Tom Burke Has Left The Chat, and Wild Iris author Ruth McKee, hosted by writer and librarian Jackie Lynham.

Tickets are free, and can be secured here.

Answering the Call

Over in the Irish Film Institute, a new documentary on the corncrake, one of Ireland’s most endangered birds, will be screening as part of the cinema’s ongoing Irish Focus series.

Directed by Martin Danneels, Answering the Call traces the efforts of ecologists, farmers and volunteers to restore the corncrake’s habitats and revive its elusive nocturnal call. Venturing from the Atlantic coast to central Africa, the film also studies the migratory path of the bird and “the global interdependence of ecosystems.”

Answering the Call is billed as a portrait of a species in peril, and a meditation on patience, devotion and the human capacity to mend what we’ve broken, and it will be showing on Saturday, Sunday and Monday (14 to 16 November).

The screening on Saturday at 3:30pm will be followed by a Q&A with director Danneels and ecologist John Carey, and will be moderated by the journalist and forester Catherine Cleary.

Secure your tickets here.

Swift’s Dublin: Women Who Cry Apples

On Monday evening, Antonia Hart, Dublin City Council Culture Company’s historian-in-residence, will be out in Ringsend Library to discuss the work of the writer and satirist Jonathan Swift.

Part of the ongoing 300th anniversary celebration of Dean Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Dr. Hart’s will be delivering a talk titled Women who cry apples. Making reference to Swift’s poem "Market Women’s Cries", her talk will examine Swift and the market traders on Patrick Street.

The talk will start at 6pm. Admission is free, but you’ll need to do some old school booking. Either you can reserve a seat in-branch, or by emailing ringsendlibrary@dublincity.ie.

For more information, visit the Dublin City Libraries event page here.

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November screening at the Douglas Hyde

On Tuesday, the Douglas Hyde is hosting a free screening of the Estonian folk/horror film November, which they will be presenting in association with Edith Karlson’s exhibition Well, Well, Well.

Set in the 19th century, in a small Estonian village, villagers invoke pagan rituals to survive the harsh winter. Director Rainer Sarnet will be present to introduce the screening.

The screening is at 6:30pm on Tuesday 17 November, in the Robert Emmet Lecture Theatre in Trinity College Dublin’s Arts Building.

Book a ticket here.

The 1916 Stories of Ranelagh & Rathmines

Ranelagh Arts is looking for support in funding a new project which brings the hidden history of the 1916 Rising to life through the streets of Ranelagh and Rathmines.

The project will explore the lives and local connections of the 1916 leaders and revolutionaries who lived, worked and gathered in the area.

Currently, the small team behind the project are making a documentary combining historical research, archive material, interviews and contemporary footage. Alongside the film, the team will develop community-led historical walking tours with local historians, taking people to the homes, buildings and locations connected to the revolutionary period.

For more information and to support the project, visit its crowdfunding page here.

TU Dublin Ballymun Music Programme – 30th Anniversary Concert

The TU Dublin Ballymun Music Programme, supported by Dublin City Council and Creative Ireland, invites audiences to a special concert celebrating 30 years of music-making and its transformative impact on children and young people in Ballymun. This special concert in TUD's Concert Hall on Monday 30 November will mark three decades of music-making, opportunity and achievement in Ballymun.

For more information, and to book tickets, visit the event page here.

Annual Collectors Evening 2026 at Black Church Print

Black Church Print Studio is opening the door to first-time art buyers and established collectors alike with its annual Collectors' Evening, taking place on Thursday 19 November at The Library Project in Temple Bar.

Tickets for the event are €200 per head and everyone who purchases a ticket will take home an original artwork.

Tickets are available here.