A host of cultural and entertainment events are happening this weekend around the country, as pleasure seekers and culture vultures head North, South, East and West for music, craic and spooky street spectacle. We've rounded up TEN of the best.
Cork Jazz Festival
There is an impressive array of jazz practitioners playing at select venues Leeside this weekend, including Darius Brubeck Quartet, singers Stacy Kent and Grace Kelly and many more. The festival also has a string of non-jazz acts to keep everyone entertained: Aslan, featuring the irrepressible Christy Dignam, play the Savoy tonight, while The Coronas are in the Cork Opera House on Saturday.
As if that wasn't enough, Something Happens are in Cypress Avenue the same evening, singer-songwriter Ryan Sheridan is at the Savoy on Sunday, and for something decidedly more retro, 1980s Electro god Gary Numan plays Cork Opera House also on Sunday.
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The Coronas take on Cork
Macnas – Galway and Dublin
This year’s Macnas Parade in Galway begins at 5.30pm, on Sunday October 25. The show, entitled The Shadow Lighter celebrates transformation, life, death and rebirth. Macnas’s Young Ensemble involves over 80 young people from all over the city involved, and ballerinas from Youth Ballet West play the part of the enchanted Forest Troupe. On Monday October 26 - also beginning at 5.30pm - Macnas present Alive! Awake! a Macnas, twilight procession which starts from three locations as part of Dublin’s Bram Stoker Festival.
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Bram Stoker Festival
Dublin will be treated to Four Days of Living Stories and Four Nights of Deadly Adventures over the Bank Holiday Weekend. By day, the festival programme presents gothic intrigue at family-friendly events, talks and interactive experiences. At night, the city will embrace the darkness as a host of venues deliver deadly adventures for festival goers in search of macabre thrills and late-night parties.
Highlights include a special Gothic edition of Smithfield Market Fair and a screening of Bram Stoker's Dracula at the Lighthouse - also in Smithfield - on Bank Holiday Monday at 3.30pm. And you might meet a vampire, a headless mummy, or a vast spider at the Scary Trail which takes place at Marsh's Library, St Patrick's Close on both Friday and Saturday, 11.00am to 5.00pm.
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Sligo Live
Billed as Ireland's Folk, Root & Indie Festival - `Intimate Music on the Wild Atlantic Way’ - and running from October 21-26, Sligo Live’s headline acts include velvet-voiced crooner, Rufus Wainwright who plays Sligo IT’s Knocknarea Arena on Friday 23. The Waterboys (above) play the same venue on Saturday 24, while Jools Holland and his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra swing by on Sunday 25. Sligo Live is also hosting traditional sessions and free concerts in pubs and cafés, Traditional legends, Altan, fronted by Mairéad Ni Mhaonaigh play Hawkswell Theatre at 8pm on Sunday October 25.
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Mairéad Ni Mhaonaigh from Altan
Wexford Opera
Well, yes, The Opera is what it’s all about, of course, but the picturesque, bustling town has a plenitude of other events happening. Wexford Fringe runs until Sunday, November 1, with in excess of 300 events, over 17 days including cabaret, comedy, circus, dance, film, theatre, puppetry, music, and visual art. Many of the events are free. Meanwhile, Mundy and Paddy Casey play the Paradiso Spiegeltent on October Saturday 24, while legendary country rock artist Steve Earle and his band The Dukes play the same venue on Sunday October 25 in a fully-seated show.
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Mundy plays the Paradiso Spiegeltent in Wexford
James Bond: Spectre
It seems like the next installment of the Bond franchise has been a long time coming - it finally opens this Bank Holiday Monday. Directed by Sam Mendes Spectre stars Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Monica Bellucci, Andrew Scott, Dave Bautista and Naomie Harris. This time Bond is on the hunt for the leaders of the sinister organisation known as SPECTRE.
Daniel Craig As James Bond
IFI Horrorthon
Director Wes Craven died in August and his memory will be honoured with a double-bill screening of The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988) and The People under the Stairs (1991) at this year's IFI Horrorthon, which runs from October 22 - 26 at the Irish Film Institute.
This year’s festival opens with the Irish premiere of The Invitation, a tense and unnerving thriller which sees Will and his girlfriend attend his ex-wife’s dinner party, only to realise there are ulterior motives to her kindness.
Other disturbing delights include premieres of Howl, Turbo Kid and Children of the Night, focusing on a remote orphanage populated by child vampires.
For more information click here
Wes Craven
Halloween Fest at Westport House
Taking place at Westport House from 11am to 5pm daily from October 24 - 31, expect ghastly ghouls, jumping Jack O'Lanterns and hair-raising hocus pocus.
There will be plenty of fun and games on offer for little ones, plus workshops and activities inside the devilishly decorated House. Listen to the wily white witch's spirited story time, play musical statues at the daily kiddies' disco, delve into the Spooky Spoons workshop with repulsive recipes made from bat wings and the eyes of toads, and carve a Jack O'Lantern.
If that's not enough to get the knees knocking, you can bust some zombie moves in the Thrille' dance workshop. The gruesome good fun continues outdoors with the wicked Westport House Express train ride and the frightening Pirates Plunge!
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Pumpkin Workshops at Westport House
Kerry Film Festival
The Kerry Film Festival continues this weekend with a bumper line-up of screenings taking place. Tonight's highlight has got to be a screening of Buster Keaton's classic silent movie The General, with live score by electronic duo Radiomentale. It's regarded as one of the greatest silent comedies, and Keaton's own favourite from his back-catalogue. Tomorrow night there's an open-air screening of Alfred Hitchock's 1959 spy thriller North By North West starring Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint. Make sure to wrap up and take extra blankets! The festival concludes on Sunday with a series of screenings of shorts and awards ceremony.
For more information click here
Radiomentale provide the score for The General
Tayto Park Halloween Fright Fest
Tayto Park opens it’s doors for a Hallowe'en fright fest on Saturday. For the first time, thrill seekers can enjoy a Tayto Park After Dark Experience with the terrifying Cú Chulainn Coaster in the dark of the night. There's also the House of Horrors, which sees the Lodge at Tayto Park transformed into a spine-chilling experience with ghosts, goblins and all things gruesome. It's the perfect way to gear up for Halloween!
For more information click here
Ghosts and ghouls at Tayto Park
