Things To Do: Read all about Vincent Browne, enjoy some avant-garde Japanese tap dancing, discover a 1970s underground queer helpline, visit Rush in 1926

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Our Picks

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

Lesbian Lines

From Friday, Lesbian Lines, a new documentary by Notes from Sheepland director Cara Holmes will be screening in the Irish Film Institute.

Lesbian Lines tells the history of a voluntary underground network of telephone helplines that were set up by a community of lesbians who offered comfort, advice and friendship to others who felt isolated by their sexuality in Ireland during the 70s and 80s.

The conversations were preserved by helpline volunteers in handwritten notes, and Holmes brings these interactions to life through an ensemble of those former volunteers and actors.

Lesbian Lines is scheduled to show in the IFI until Thursday, 15 October. For more information on screen times and tickets, visit the IFI website here.

From Out My Heart

Also on Friday, author Sue Rainsford will be launching her new novel From Out My Heart in Hodges Figgis.

From Out My Heart tells the story of Phyllipa, a scholar who is chasing the “lingering pulse” of Edgar Allen Poe. During this search, she learns of Lana, a woman living in an isolated religious community who claims to be visited by the spirit of Poe’s first cousin and wife, Virginia Clemm. Travelling to the remote village, Phyllipa begins to record her possessions, until the boundary between scholarly pursuits and desire dissolves.

From Out My Heart is described as a gothic tale of flesh, motherhood and inheritance, and is officially out today, Thursday, 8 October.

The Hodges Figgis launch will begin at 6pm tomorrow, Friday 9 October.

Admission is free.

1926 Census: The families of Rush Then …and Now

We’re getting into some niche territory now.

On Sunday afternoon (11 October), Rush Tourism will be leading a guided walk that dives into the stories of the different families living around Rush who were recorded in the 1926 census.

Organised with Fingal County Council, the tour will offer attendees a chance to discover the people who called the seaside town home one hundred years ago. Using information from the census records which were published by the National Archive back in April, the walk explores the families who lived, worked and raised generations in the area.

The guided tour will start at 2pm from Rush Community Centre, and will last approximately 90 minutes.

Attendance is free, but booking is advised. Reserve a spot here.

REONA

Frequent readers of Things To Do will know that this newsletter tends to be on the cutting edge when it comes to our avant garde Japanese percussion recommendations.

On Monday evening (12 September), the Tokyo-based tap dancer and metal percussionist Reona will be dropping into Kirkos’ venue Unit 44 on Little Green Street ahead of the launch of her eponymous debut album.

Reona is a choreographer and composer who draws heavily from improvised free jazz and who tap dances on sheets of metal, while also using a plethora of found objects for percussion. Those objects include, according to the liner notes of her album; a festival bell, an old transport company signboard, an oil pot, basins, chains, nets, a toy drum, a loudspeaker, and “two signboards from Okinawa — one handed to her by a man who told her, please step on it; [and ] the other used during unexploded bomb disposal.”

Doors open at 7:30pm, with support coming from Enola Christ Metalizer, Gynophobia and Fiachra Carey.

Admission is €10. Tickets are on sale here.

For more information, or to see Reona in action, follow her Instagram account here.

Fearless! Vincent Browne’s Magill and Ireland in the 1980s

On Wednesday evening, 14 October, author Kevin Rafter will be up in Books Upstairs to discuss his latest book, Fearless! Vincent Browne’s Magill and Ireland in the 1980s.

Rafter, who authored 2022’s Taoisigh and the Arts, drew on extensive interviews and archival material to delve into the dramatic history of the political and current affairs magazine Magill and its editor Vincent Browne. Launched in 1977, Magill featured investigative journalism and reportage from writers including Colm Tóibín, Fintan O’Toole and Gene Kerrigan.

The conversation will kick off at 6:30pm. Admission is free. But booking is advised and can be done here.

Nyahh Records and Reception Weekend

From next Thursday, Project Arts Centre will be hosting the latest edition of Reception Weekend, a three-day festival that is devoted to contemporary music and performance.

Run by Reception, the long-running Dublin-based concert series, Reception Weekend presents music from across the spectrum, including club music, jazz and folk. To celebrate its tenth anniversary, this year’s programme will include three of the country's most adventurous, forward-thinking record labels; Nyahh, Krimkram and Fort Evil Fruit, each of which will present their own specially curated event alongside two concerts programmed by Reception.

Reception will run from Thursday 15 October to Saturday 17 October with a full breakdown of its line-up available here.

Our festival tip is the opening event, which will be presented by the Nyahh label. Founded in 2021, Nyahh has featured a wide array of underground music, including Kurdish-Syrian bouzouki player Mohammad Syfkhan’s acclaimed record I Am Kurdish, E the Artist’s debut LP Six and composer Roger Doyle’s We Who Live Under Heaven.

The Nyahh night will feature the first-ever duo performance by violinist and composer Joanna Mattrey and multi-instrumentalist Natalia Beylis, the Irish debut of Butte County Free Music Society composer Seymour Glass, and a solo set from fiddler Ultan O’Brien.

Doors open at 8pm. Tickets are €22 and can be purchased here.

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Unravel

This evening, Thursday 11 October, mixed-media artist Cath O’Sull will be launching her debut solo exhibition, Unravel, over at REDS Gallery on Dawson Street.

Curated by Tony Strickland, Unravel explores themes of love, wonder and awe within the human experience and is informed by myth, folklore, storytelling, language and culture.

The launch will begin at 6pm, and will be introduced by Director of Public and International Affairs at Dublin Chamber, Aebhric McGibney.

Unravel will run until 14 October.

Sacred Harp Singers of Dublin

Shapenote singing, the sound of Appalachia, is coming to Dublin 8.

Come to the Robert Emmet Community Development Project on Usher Street and lend your voice to this unique form of communal, acapella singing of old American “shapenote” songs. This is not a performance but an invitation to participate.

The Sacred Harp Singers of Dublin meet every Friday from 7 to 9pm.

For more information, visit their Facebook page here.

3 Years of Genocide – National Palestine March taking place in Dublin this Saturday

This Saturday 10 October at 1pm, the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, supported by more than 160 Irish civil society groups, will hold a National Demonstration for Palestine to mark three years since the beginning of Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Protesters will assemble at 1pm at the Garden of Remembrance on Parnell Square, and will march from there to Leinster House for a rally outside the Dáil.