Malahide Has It 28/29th July

Hot on the heels of the inaugural (and very successful) Flavours of Fingal festival last weekend comes another Fingal festival.   Malahide Has It is in its third year.  The schedule is immense and ambitious, so I've just picked out a few things that sound fun from both days.  The fun fair runs from 11am to 10pm all weekend.  They're also holding a photo competition, details here.

Thursday
Table Quiz in the Grand Hotel

Saturday
Chess Challenge & Sumo wrestling challenge both at the same time 12-16:00 on New St/The Village Green
Gibneys BBQ - all day

Sunday
Free tai chi class from 10-11am on the green
Tug o war 15:00 also on the green

Great Music in Irish Houses Festival 12th - 17th June

You would never guess from looking out the window that it's the summer.  Nevertheless, many planned summer events are going ahead and Great Music in Irish Houses is just one of them, starting next Tuesday.

Chamber music to me seems a perfect fit for big houses.  I like to imagine the same scenes 200 years before with awesome Regency outfits and card parties going on in the background.  Venues featured this year include the newly-refurbished Rathfarnham Castle, the Mansion House, Smock Alley, Killruddery House and Castletown House (the last two technically not in Dublin but we'll overlook it JUST THIS ONCE).  The Doric Quartet, Xuefei Yang, shown below, Carol McGonnell and Henning Ruhe are just some of the performers involved.  Clever cross-marketing means all booking can be done through the National Concert Hall's website.  I like this - no use of evil ticketmaster required and just as well because the actual festival website could be better - it's fiddly and hard to find exactly what you're looking for.

The final event of the festival will actually be held in the National Concert Hall -  a performance of Steve Reich's "Drumming" by the Colin Currie Group, which is about as far away from chamber music as you can get but pretty cool anyway.