Things To Do: Find meaning among the pigeons, visit the School of Hibernia, see the cinematic re-wilding of a farm

Our Picks

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

Obedience

We’re now halfway through the Liberties Festival, which kicked off on Monday evening, and if you’re looking for something to catch today, it would be wise to pay a visit to the former Books at One shop at the top of Meath Street.

Obedience is the new group show by artists Ishmael Claxton, Hollie Gilson, Aoife Ward and Eve Woods, otherwise known as Con:Temporary Quarters, and filmmaker James Redmond. Co-curated by Woods and Claxton, Obedience explores the changing face of the city through photography, painting, mixed-media and large-scale mapping. It asks who shapes our urban future, and reflects on loss, regeneration, and the right to the city.

Obedience is the second exhibition to take over the former book shop following the Paul Duane-curated retrospective of artist Valerie Gannon back in May. Among the highlights in the show are Claxton’s ghostly monochrome photos that line the shelf inside the window, and Gilson’s painting ‘We’re on the Road to Nowhere’ in which an inner-cityscape folds into itself inside a vivid yellow void.

Like the festival, Obedience opened on Monday. But, at 6pm today (Thursday, 23 July) the artists will be hosting a drinks reception. Then on Friday, also at 6pm, there is a screening of Redmond’s latest documentary Displace: The Battle for Dublin.

It won’t be the only opportunity to catch Displace though. Fortunately, Redmond has it looping on an old silver Philips TV in the shop too. So depending on your mood and schedule, you can either enjoy it as a film or appreciate it as an art installation.

Obedience is free to visit daily between 1 and 5pm. The exhibition closes on Sunday, 26 July.

You and Me, Day and Night

Artist Carl Hickey returns on Friday with You and Me, Day and Night, his third solo exhibition in Herman’s Auctioneers on the Lower Rathmines.

Following Double Swan, an intimate portrait of Hickey’s home in Clondalkin, back in October, You and Me, Day and Night widens the lens once more to reflect on his deep bond with the city as a whole, while also considering his relationship with the paintbrush.

Hickey made a name for himself as an oil-on-canvas documentarian of the oddness in everyday urban life, drawing inspiration from the likes of Edward Hopper and Kendrick Lamar, and discovering his cast of eccentric subjects on strolls, bus rides or viral clips. Here, he looks to capture the city’s more quiet moments: “the shifting light of day, the atmosphere of evening, and the intimate dialogue between artist and place.”

You and Me, Day and Night is Herman’s Auctioneers’ latest show to continue its new concept of pairing a physical gallery exhibition with a timed online sale.

The exhibition will open at 6:30pm tomorrow (Friday, 24 July), and will run until 7 August. For more information, or if you want to register to bid visit the Herman's website here.

An Irish Atlantic Rainforest

From Friday, the Irish Film Institute will be screening the new Gary Lennon-directed documentary An Irish Atlantic Rainforest.

The film tells the story of Eoghan Daltun, the sculptor, conservator of sculpture and climate activist who is attempting to save native Irish rainforests in the face of climate change. An adaptation of Daltun’s 2022 memoir of the same name, Lennon’s documentary charts his life, from being raised in inner-city Dublin to his recent work re-wilding of an old farm out on the Beara Peninsula in West Cork.

While tickets for the advanced screening of An Irish Atlantic Rainforest this evening are sold out, the film will be showing daily in the IFI.

Tomorrow (Friday, 24 July), Daltun will also be in attendance to introduce the 8:55pm screening.

For more information on screen times and to secure your tickets, visit the IFI website here.

Vision

Earlier this week, a new contemporary photography exhibition celebrating the 27 member states of the European Union opened at Farmleigh Gallery, in the Phoenix Park.

Organised by the Office of Public Works with the various embassies of EU countries and various cultural organisations across the continent, Vision comprises a single photographic work from each member state, and includes contributions from photojournalists, documentarians and artists.

The Irish contribution is The School of Hibernia (after Raphael) by all-female artists collective Na Cailleach and photographer Ros Kavanagh. The School of Hibernia… reimagines Raphael’s 16th Century fresco, The School of Athens which depicted a congregation of 50 philosophers, mathematicians and scientists, among them Plato and Aristotle, and all of them, male.

Kavanagh swaps the genders, and replaces Raphael’s subjects with major female figures in contemporary Irish society, including former president Mary Robinson, housing activist Rita Fagan, poet Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin and the first Trinity female provost Linda Doyle.

The exhibition forms part of Cultúr 2026: Sharing Ireland’s Culture, the Irish EU Presidency Culture Programme, and it will be free to visit in the Farmleigh Gallery until December.

For more information, visit the exhibition page here, or if you want to browse the collection ahead of any visit, take a virtual tour of Vision here.

The Pigeon Factory

Some descriptions will either sell a play to you in a second, or send you running for the hills. Aaron O’Neill’s one-man show The Pigeon Factory is exactly that sort of play.

Currently being staged in Project Arts Centre, The Pigeon Factory trails after Walden. He has a pretty good life. He is happily married to a mannequin, and he works his pigeon children into the ground, feasting on their eggs for sustenance. He is doing everything that he is supposed to, and yet, he feels so empty.

Can his fantasies about his pigeons sustain him, or must he face up to a great hurt done to him in the past?

Written and performed by O’Neill, and directed by Dee Finn, The Pigeon Factory explores ideas like work, family and finding one's purpose in a broken society through an absurdist lens. It debuted at Cork Midsummer Festival back in 2024, and was subsequently taken to the Smock Alley Theatre that same year.

The production will be staged this evening at 7pm, and then at the same time on Friday, 24 July and Saturday, 25 July.

For more information, and to secure a ticket, visit the Project Arts Centre website here.

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The Season of Light

This evening, Ranelagh Arts is launching The Season of Light, a new group show curated by Dino Notaro and Caroline Cassidy.

Featuring the works of Thomas O' Connor, Ishmael Claxton and Karen McLaughlin, the exhibition opens at 6pm today (Thursday, 23 July) and will continue daily until 1 August.

For more information, follow Ranelagh Arts on Instagram here.

We Love July

Dublin City Council is inviting sports fans, families and communities over to Fairview Park on Saturday, 25 July for the fourth and final event in their month-long celebration of the city’s culture, creativity and community spirit.

Beginning at noon and running until 6pm, We Love July - Heart of Movement is a free celebration of sport, movement and community, timed to coincide with All-Ireland Senior Football Final weekend.

Visitors will have the opportunity to meet some of Gaelic Games' best-known names, including Fiona McHale (Mayo), Padraic O'Hora (Mayo), Darren O'Sullivan (Kerry) and Aislinn Desmond (Kerry) joining host Michael Darragh MacAuley throughout the day for interviews and audience Q&As.

Join Balbriggan Sustainable Energy Community CLG

Balbriggan Sustainable Energy Community CLG is now open for membership. If you want to join them as they work towards energy efficiency actions and renewable energy use, you are now able to sign up here.

Have your say about community safety in the city

The five Local Community Safety Partnerships in Dublin city, which were recently-ish set up, are running a survey right now "to gather information to develop our local community safety plan that will be rolled out across Dublin".

These recently-ish set up LCSPs are designed to be the main forums for councillors, senior gardaí, and a range of others to talk about how to make the city safer.

They’re meant to replace and improve upon the old joint policing committees (JPCs) by bringing in a broader group of stakeholders.

You can tell them what you think here.