Event of the week
Cian Ducrot
Saturday, December 20th, 3Arena, Dublin, 6.30pm, €53/€46, ticketmaster.ie
So much for a career as a classical flautist. As a teenager, Cian Ducrot left Co Cork to take up a music and songwriting scholarship at Wells Cathedral School, in southwestern England, and then to study flute at the Royal Academy of Music in London. But after visiting Los Angeles in his early 20s, he sidelined classical music in favour of the US city’s pop tradition. By the time he was 26, Ducrot had released his first album, Victory, which topped the charts in Ireland and Britain, and supported Ed Sheeran at some of his arena shows. Now the winner of this year’s Grammy for best R&B song – he cowrote Saturn, by SZA – is back for a proper homecoming gig and, no doubt, a celebratory flute or two of Champagne.
Gigs
Lisa O’Neill and Junior Brother
Sunday, December 21st, Vicar Street, 7pm, €38, ticketmaster.ie
If there were a competition for a musical odd couple, then the pairing of Lisa O’Neill and Junior Brother would surely nudge other contenders out of the way. There is, of course, a certain kind of genius in their songs. Junior Brother (aka Ronan Kealy), who released his new album, The End, earlier this year, is one of Ireland’s most compelling voices and formidable musicians, able to “make the traditional instruments of Irish folk music, whistle, accordion, mandolin, drum, sound like birdsong or Armageddon”, according to Klof magazine. O’Neill is the perfect foil, a songwriter and singer who delivers alt.folk songs in as individualistic a way as you can imagine.
Tebi Rex
Monday, December 22nd, Button Factory, Dublin, 7pm, €23, ticketmaster.ie
When you see an album titled Fin and gig posters with the tagline “Please do come and say goodbye. It’s gonna be magic,” you know a decision has been reached. For 10 years Max Zanga and Matt Ó Baoill have put their shoulders to the wheel when it comes to aligning astute narratives with smartly executed, layered hip-hop. As swansong gigs go, however, this is more celebration than cremation, so pop along and send Zanga and Ó Baoill on their way to whatever they’re planning next.
The Scratch
Saturday, December 20th, Set Theare, Kilkenny, 7pm, €30 (sold out), set.ie; Sunday, December 21st, Haven Hotel, Dunmore East, Co Waterford, 8pm, €30, thehavenhotel.com; Monday, December 22nd, Spirit Store, Dundalk, Co Louth, 8pm, €35 (sold out), spiritstore.ie
The debut album, from 2020, is called Couldn’t Give a Rats, and it first track is Pull Your Jocks Up. Clearly, we’re dealing here not with Radiohead or Alt-J but with a rousing band of metal/prog/folk fusionists who don’t take themselves too seriously and whose music defies pigeonholing. Also, Saturday, December 27th, Nerve Centre, Derry, 8pm, £27.50 (sold out), nervecentre.org; Sunday, December 28th, Imperial Bar, Cavan, 8.30pm, €31.50, imperialbarmetric.com
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Photography
Ann McCafferty: Wexford’s Wonderful Coastline
Until Thursday, January 15th, Wexford Arts Centre, free, wexfordartscentre.ie
This solo exhibition by Ann McCafferty, a member of Wexford Camera Club, presents a series of photographs that she took on and around Ballytrent, a secluded crescent-shaped beach with grassy dunes that give it a strong visual identity. McCafferty’s superb images capture the vibrant colours that nature presented to her: golden seaweed, knotty peat, and rocks covered in thick strands of lime-green seagrass.
Sculpture
Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh: Vague Symptom Clinic
Until Saturday, January 17th, Project Arts Centre, Dublin, free, projectsartscentre.ie
Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh’s sculptural installation uses materials such as wallpaper, electronic components, fabricated metal, diagrammatic images and bespoke medical devices made of granite, marble and ceramic. The exhibition considers Ireland’s legacies of colonialism, partition and state violence, and their association with hereditary chronic illness.
Visual art
Sarah McEneany: Here and There
Until January 25th, RHA Gallery, Dublin, free, rhagallery.ie
Gathering work from residencies at Ballinglen Arts Foundation, in Co Mayo, in 2016, and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, at Annaghmakerrig, in Co Monaghan, in 2023, the American Sarah McEneaney makes meticulously detailed autobiographical paintings that record the daily life of an artist fully absorbed with the world and their place in it. Also included are paintings McEneaney created in her home city of Philadelphia, another continuous inspiration for her art.
Audio
Grianstad 2025
Sunday, December 21st, Glór, Ennis, Co Clare, 4pm, free (suggested donation €10), glor.ie
Created by the Irish Times columnist Una Mullally and originally presented in 2022, Grianstad (the word means Sun Stop, or Solstice, in Irish) is designed as a collective audio experience that invites listeners to reflect not only on the gradual dimming of the shortest day of the year but also on the lighter times ahead. This particular iteration is dedicated to Manchán Magan, the author and documentary maker who died in October and who, Mullally says, “inspired so many people around the world to engage more deeply with land and language, the natural world, and the interconnectedness and ancestry that generates and underpins us all”. The suggested €10 donation is for Hometree, a nature-restoration charity for which Magan served as a trustee and ethics and governance adviser.
Still running
William McKeown
Until Sunday, January 4th, Mac, Belfast, free (booking advised), themaclive.com
The vivid spaces and life-affirming potencies of nature are the primary inspirations behind the work of the Co Tyrone artist William McKeown (1962-2011). Minimalist in design, reminiscent of the work of Mark Rothko, and scaled to the approximate size of an adult’s chest (referencing breathing), this exhibition includes watercolours, drawings and prints.
Book it this week
Tash Sultana, 3Arena, Dublin, March 28th, ticketmaster.ie
Night & Day, Lough Key Forest Park, Co Roscommon, May 29th-31st, nightandday.ie
David Gray, Live at the Marquee, Cork, June 13th-14th, ticketmaster.ie
Kaleidoscope, Russborough House, Blessington, Co Wicklow, July 3rd-5th, kaleidoscopefestival.ie
