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Event guide: Olivia Rodrigo, Van Morrison, and the other best things to do in Ireland this week
Event of the week
Olivia Rodrigo
Tuesday, June 24th, Marlay Park, Dublin, 4pm, €119/€89.90 (sold out),
Olivia Rodrigo
's debut single, Drivers License, shattered one streaming record after another when it was released in 2021. Her life, she said at the time, 'shifted in an instant'. Rodrigo's combination of lyrically insightful piano ballads and streamlined pop-punk has helped to make her one of today's biggest stars. This open-air Dublin gig is the singer's second stop in the city on her Guts world tour, which is about to segue into a summer of outdoor dates that include Hyde Park in London and the pyramid-stage headline slot on the final day of this year's Glastonbury Festival, on Sunday, June 29th. Fans can expect a 20-song set featuring hits such as Good 4 U, Traitor, Bad Idea Right?, Happier, Enough for You, Drivers License and Brutal. Support comes from the excellent English singer-songwriter
Beabadoobee
and the rising Irish band Florence Road.
Gigs
Ani DiFranco
Sunday, June 22nd, NCH, Dublin, 8pm, €55/€45,
Ani DiFranco
By the age of nine
Ani DiFranco
was busking and playing cover versions of Beatles songs at bars and cafes in Buffalo, New York. Within a few years she was writing songs – and by the age of 15, when her mother moved to rural Connecticut, she was legally living as an emancipated minor. Since then DiFranco has lived by her own rules. In 1989 she founded the independent label Righteous Babe Records and developed a singular creative output that blends opinion, discourse, and manifesto. In other words? Pay attention.
Van Morrison
Monday, June 23rd, and Tuesday, June 24th, Europa Hotel, Belfast, 6pm, £331 (sold out)
Rumour on Cypress Avenue has it that
Van Morrison
is back in the game. With his recent album Remembering Now – his 47th studio work – gathering plaudits, and his 80th birthday on the horizon – it's on August 31st – there is an expectation that the prolific songwriter and performer will revisit his classic-era recordings for these two homecoming shows. The atmosphere is more that of a softly lit nightclub than of a sweaty venue, however: the ticket price includes a three-course gala dinner, plus birthday cake. With new music that references the romantic lyricism of his 1989 album, Avalon Sunset, Morrison appears to have emerged from a post-Covid fugue into, if not the mystic, then a latter-day phase of serenity.
Gang of Four
Thursday, June 26th, and Friday, June 27th, Button Factory, Dublin, 8pm, €40,
After the deaths of their bandmates Andy Gill, in 2020, and Dave Allen, this year, Gang of Four's two remaining original members, Jon King and Hugo Burnham, soldier on. The band – augmented by the American musicians Gail Greenwood and Ted Leo – originally formed in Leeds in 1976, and they visit Dublin as part of their Long Goodbye tour. The shows will feature two sets: a track-by-track rundown of the band's punk/avant-garde 1979 debut album, Entertainment!, and a best-of selection of fan favourites.
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Stage
Wreckquiem
From Thursday, June 26th, until Saturday, July 5th, Lime Tree, Limerick, 8pm, €28/€25,
Pat Shortt
Is it really a problem if you own eight copies of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band? Not if you're the owner of Dessie's Discs, a beloved if somewhat ramshackle second-hand-record shop that comes under threat of closure when redevelopment plans circle around it. At the heart of this new play by the award-winning playwright Mike Finn is the worth of community spirit, underdog tenacity and the obsessive nature of committed music fans. Pat Shortt, Patrick Ryan, Sade Malone and Joan Sheehy star. Andrew Flynn directs.
In conversation
Frank Skinner
Friday, June 27th, Seamus Heaney HomePlace, Bellaghy, Co Derry, 7.30pm, £22.50 (sold out),
You might not have associated one of Britain's best-known comedians with literature, but for the past five years Frank Skinner's acclaimed Poetry Podcast (now in its 10th series) has featured discussions on and explorations of a wide variety of his favourite poems and poets (including Personal Helicon by Seamus Heaney). Skinner is in conversation with the poet and critic Scott McKendry.
Classical
West Cork Chamber Music Festival
From Friday, June 27th, until Sunday, July 6th, Bantry, Co Cork, various venues, times and prices,
Rachel Podger
With more classical performances than you can shake a violin bow at, this year's West Cork Chamber Music Festival once again presents a blend of prestige concerts, emerging musicians, sidebar events and interesting fringe shows. Highlights include Barry Douglas playing Schubert's Piano Sonata in A Minor (Saturday, June 28th, Bantry House, 7.30pm, €50/€40/€30), Meliora Quartet (Monday, June 30th, Amar's Cafe, Schull, 2.30pm, free) and the violinist Rachel Podger (Sunday, July 6th, St Brendan's Church, Bantry, 11am, €22/€16).
Literature/arts
Hinterland Festival
From Thursday, June 26th, until Sunday, June 29th, Kells, Co Meath, various venues, times and prices,
Heritage-town festivals don't come any sharper than Hinterland, which since 2013 has been bringing multidisciplinary artists and creatives to its base in Kells, Co Meath, for a four-day event that features history, literature, television, religion, memoir, music, futurism and current affairs. Must-see events include
Lara Marlowe
talking about How Good It Is I Have No Fear of Dying, her book with
Lieut Yulia Mykytenko
, the young commander of a Ukrainian drone unit; John Creedon on his acclaimed memoir, This Boy's Heart; John Banville discussing his latest crime novel, The Drowning; and the music journalist Simon Price talking about his love of The Cure.
Still running
Liam Gillick
Until Saturday, June 28th, Kerlin Gallery, Dublin, free,
Mean Time Production Cycle, 2025
The latest exhibition by the British artist Liam Gillick, a 2002 Turner Prize nominee (and, with Sarah Lucas, Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst, one of the Young British Artists movement), features colourfully vivid work exploring forms of production in a postindustrial landscape.
Book it this week
Monty Franklin, Sugar Club, Dublin, September 17th,
Clonakilty International Guitar Festival, Clonakilty, Co Cork, September 17th-21st,
Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Vicar Street, Dublin, October 7th,
Caribou, Vicar Street, Dublin, December 10th,
