Event of the week
Tommy Tiernan
Thursday, December 29th and Friday, December 30th; Vicar Street, Dublin; 6.30pm; €40; ticketmaster.ie
No longer known as just a comedian, Tommy Tiernan has successfully ventured into regular high-profile acting (in particular, Derry Girls, and more recently Conversations with Friends), interviewing (his titular off-the-cuff chatshow on RTÉ), and podcast hosting. He is back on stage at the venue where he has performed the most as a comedian with Tomfoolery, a show that Canadian blog Montreal Rampage described as the comedic “vocal form of reading somebody’s journal and he’s got nothing to hide”. Tiernan “uses past life trauma to bring light to life and just get through it”. (Tommy Tiernan will perform at various venues with his show Tomfoolery throughout January and into February.)
Gigs
And So I Watch You From Afar
Tuesday, December 27th, until Friday, December 30th; various venues/times/prices; asiwyfa.com
Almost 15 years in, Belfast’s And So I Watch You From Afar (ASIWYFA) continue to thrill and surprise in equal measure. The band’s latest album, this year’s Jettison, is well-named as it shifts them out of the (for want of a better definition) post-rock bracket and into something more pliant. Whether these live shows will include Jettison’s lush strings and/or spoken word inserts is anyone’s guess. If not, no worries: your cobwebs will still be blown away. (ASIWYFA also plays Workman’s Club, Dublin, on New Year’s Eve.)
The Mary Wallopers
Wednesday, December 28th; Mike the Pies, Listowel, Co Kerry; 8pm; €20; mikethepies.com
Thursday, December 29th; Róisín Dubh, Galway; 8pm; €25/€23; roisindubh.net
Friday, December 30th; Dolan’s Warehouse, Limerick, 8pm; €29.50; dolans.ie
They have been skirting around the fringes for a few years, but finally, Dundalk’s The Mary Wallopers are on the road to rack and ruin and success. There might be extremely little original about their music (they take the back catalogues of The Dubliners and The Clancy Brothers and pump them up with rum, comedy and The Clash), but there’s no doubt they have struck a few chords with the gin’n’juice gig-going public. (The Mary Wallopers also plays Dolan’s Warehouse, Limerick, on New Year’s Eve – this show is sold out.)
HousePlants
Wednesday, December 28th; Dolan’s Warehouse, Limerick, 7pm; €22.90; dolans.ie
In the promotional press images, HousePlants (BellX1′s Paul Noonan and Dáithí) might look like benevolent door-to-door salesmen, but the duo’s music is as high-spirited as it can get. Formed as a “why-ever-not” music project in the lull of pandemic lockdowns, what on paper might have seemed incongruous is anything but in real life. Occasionally supplemented by other musicians and vocalists, the outcome is always familiar in the best of ways: supple, slinky dance music with heart, head and intelligence. Most of the tunes will be taken from the HousePlants (so far) sole album, Dry Goods, but you can expect some new bangers thrown in for the hell of it.
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Something Happens
Thursday, December 29th; Whelan’s, Dublin, 8pm; €27.50 (sold out); whelanslive.com
In what is now a festive tradition, the four members of Something Happens disengage from their daytime jobs and reconvene, if not for old times’ sake, to deliver – we have said it before and we’ll say it again – some of the smartest pop/rock ever written by an Irish band. New material? Highly unlikely, but who cares when they have many songs across at least two of their quality albums (1988′s Been There, Seen That, Done That, and 1990′s Stuck Together with God’s Glue) to deliver to a partisan audience? Songs aside, if there is anything bands of any vintage or era can learn from these mature hands, it is how to embrace commercial failure (not for the want of talent) with good nature and no small charm. Remember, whippersnappers – this could be you in 2052!
Musical
The Sound of Music
Tuesday, December 27th, until Tuesday, January 3rd; NCH, Dublin; 2pm/6pm; €39/€35/€29; nch.ie
You know the songs (Edelweiss, My Favourite Things, Climb Every Mountain, Do-Re-Mi, So Long, Farewell, Maria, Sixteen Going On Seventeen, The Lonely Goatherd). You’ve seen Lord knows how many times the 1965 movie (which the US Library of Congress selected for preservation in the National Film Registry as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”). But how about a lavish, up-close-and-personal all-singing/all-dancing production of the beloved musical, complete with an orchestra? This is surely what fans who dream of “silver-white winters that melt into springs” want.
Exhibition
Róisín O’Sullivan: I See Skies
Until March 26th, Gallery Space, Triskel Arts Centre, Cork; free admission; triskelartscentre.ie
A recipient of the Visual Arts Bursary 2022, Róisín O’Sullivan’s I See Skies exhibition features a new series of paintings that took shape over a year at the Tony O’Malley residency in Callan, Co Kilkenny. O’Sullivan’s committed work is engaged with curiosity in nature and reflects a world into which she enthusiastically throws herself. Wood, leaves and other environmental materials are collected and then abstracted via the studio process, which alters them through scorching and carving, delivering them as (says O’Sullivan) “an emotional response to the complexities of life”.
Still running
Púca in the Machine
Until Saturday, January 7th; Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray, Co Wicklow; free admission; mermaidartscentre.ie
Mandatory ejection from long-established homes forms this probing alliance between three artists (Shane Finan, Alannah Robins, and Niamh Fahy) that have responded creatively in diverse ways to the history and ecology of the Poulaphuca Reservoir.
