Published on 

Minister Josepha Madigan To Visit Culture Night Venues

Ireland’s annual nocturnal cultural extravaganza, Culture Night, returns for its fourteenth year tomorrow, Friday September 20th, and Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Josepha Madigan, will visit four venues in Dublin.

Culture Night is brought to you by the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht with the regional arts offices, local authorities, and cultural organisations throughout the island of Ireland. This year over 4,000 events will take place in venues large and small across the country. Organisers expect upwards of 400,000 people to come out and enjoy the best of Irish contemporary culture.

Speaking about Culture Night, Minister Madigan said:

Culture Night is always one of my favourite evenings on our cultural calendar. I’m very excited to visit these venues in Dublin tomorrow evening and get a taste of the wonderful events they have planned for Culture Night. There are so many different events being held in all corners of the country, for all ages and interests, and I would encourage everyone to explore the programme at culturenight.ie and come out and support our culture creators. Perhaps you’ll discover a new genre of culture which you haven’t experienced before.

Kicking off her Culture Night tour, Minister Madigan will visit the National Museum of Ireland – Decorative Arts & History at 5.30pm where she will meet with members of Aslan, one of the performers from RTE’s Open Air Concert at Clarke Square. The annual concert, which begins at 8pm, promises an evening of family entertainment featuring an exciting mix of live music, spoken word and dance in the company of the RTÉ Concert Orchestra. Other acts performing include Wallis Bird, Jafaris, the Kilfenora Céilí Band, and Celine Byrne.

At 6.30pm Minister Madigan visits Conradh na Gaeilge at 6 Harcourt Street for a tour of the historic building. 100 years ago it housed the Department of Finance and on the night of September 12th 1919, after Dáil Éireann was declared illegal, Michael Collins was busy working as Minister for Finance when troops burst in. Culture Night visitors will enjoy a reenactment of this key scene of the War of Independence, in the room where it happened, with the script written using witness statements from the Bureau of Military History.

Following this, the Minister visits the brand new MoLI - Museum of Literature Ireland on Stephen’s Green at 7pm, which opens its doors for the very first time on Culture Night. A partnership between UCD and the National Library of Ireland, MoLI is located in the original home of UCD and features immersive exhibitions, priceless Joycean artefacts from the NLI collections and a beautiful café set in one of Dublin’s most tranquil gardens.

Minister Madigan finishes her tour back at the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Kildare Street where visitors on Culture Night can enjoy tours of the building, as well as traditional music and dance arranged in partnership with Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann and readings from contemporary writing arranged by Culture Ireland in partnership with Literature Ireland featuring authors John Boyne, Mary Costello and Sarah Davis-Goff.