A disco bike ride in the Phoenix Park, Mexican mariachi music and belly dancing are among the 1,700 free events on offer across the country as part of the upcoming 2024 Culture Night.
Arts Council director Maureen Kennelly said that while all of the cultural events of Friday, September 20th, are free, participating artists are paid properly for their work.
“It cannot be that you just fling open your doors and do something for nothing ... Everybody who is part of Culture Night has to adhere to paying artists appropriately,” she said.
The Arts Council, which oversees the night in association with local authorities and cultural organisations nationwide, has made equality, diversity and inclusion key focuses this year, she said. The agency aims to make the 2024 offering “the most diverse, open and welcoming platform possible” and hopes this will feed through into art and cultural events throughout the year.
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The Culture Night performers and audience have been “very ethnically diverse” in recent years, she said. This is “fantastic to see, because it is opening up the doors to a whole new population”.
The Arts Council hopes people, having “dipped their toes in” at the 19th edition of Culture Night, will engage more with their local arts centre throughout the year.
She highlighted open-air artforms, such as mural painting, some circus performing and street theatre, which she said have a growing presence in Ireland. The agency has invested more into these disciplines in recent years and they can now be seen “coming to the fore”, she said.
Recognising that not everyone can get out to attend these events, Ms Kennelly noted that RTÉ will be airing a significant number of artistic programmes across radio and TV in connection with Culture Night.
“It really is a night where we hope to reach as much of the population as possible ... 1.2 million people interacted with Culture Night last year. We are hoping to surpass that this year,” she said.
For the third year, the Arts Council is gifting books written by Irish-based writers to populations who might not otherwise be able to participate in Culture Night activities. This year, the “Read Mór” initiative is working with the Irish Prison Service to give 30 book titles to all 13 Irish prisons.
Speaking at Dublin Castle on Tuesday, the Minister for Culture Catherine Martin, said Culture Night is a “really special” event in Ireland’s cultural calendar where a “vibrant and diverse” offering is embraced across the country.
She encouraged people to engage with the programme, which she said is a “celebration of everything we have to offer here and a celebration of our culture”.
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