Summer Culture Guide: everything to watch, see, visit and do

It’s finally summertime and while the living may be easy, we’re actually rather thrilled to be getting out and about this season (we are making up for lost time, after all). Whether it’s a festival, art exhibition or just a good film you’re after, we’ve got a round-up of exciting arts happenings to fill up your summer calendar. Get ready…

Into the Island, at MoLI from July 7, looks at the extraordinary work of masterful storyteller Peig Sayers and the Blasket storytelling tradition. With text by writer and folklorist Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, this exhibition tells the amazing story of how a cluster of remote islands off the coast of Kerry became a beacon of literary culture, moli.ie.

There’s a lot happening at IMMA this summer, and we’re here for it. First up, the Summer Party returns July 15-16 – Continuous Patterns is a celebration of music, art and atmosphere in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham. IMMA Outdoors 2022 presents a vibrant artistic programme that turns the museum inside out and activates the 48 acres of the site through artist commissions (including Navine G Khan-Dossos’s painted mural in the Courtyard from July), performances, music, talks, workshops, and tours. The programme culminates with Earth Rising, a weekend celebration of people, place and planet in September. IMMA Nights then presents a host of events including book launches, DJs and live music on Thursday and Friday evenings. Lastly, IMMA’s new exhibition, The Otolith Group: Xenogenesis, July 7 to February 12, brings together a selection of works by this London-based artist collective founded by Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun, imma.ie.

Where the Crawdads Sing, the film adaptation of Delia Owens’s spectacular novel, hits the big screen on July 22. If you’ve yet to read the book, we urge you to get cracking. Directed by Olivia Newman and starring Daisy Edgar-Jones as a young woman who raised herself in the marshlands of North Carolina and becomes a suspect in the murder of a man she was involved with, this is set to be the cinematic highlight of the summer.

This year’s Galway International Arts Festival, July 11-24, is set to be a cracking one, with a host of extraordinary theatre, opera, live music and art exhibitions. Highlights include a performance by Orla Gartland, Sam Shepard’s True West; Home by Geoff Sobelle, and works by Druid, Landmark Productions and the Irish National Opera, the Gate Theatre and Theatre Lovett, plus a powerful new exhibition by Brazilian artist Ana Maria Pacheco and a new site-specific installation from Irish artist John Gerrard, giaf.ie.

Bones in the Attic, August 11 to October 30 at the Hugh Lane, is a group exhibition exploring being female in Ireland today, with works by artists including Alice Maher, Dorothy Cross, Kathy Prendergast, Amanda Doran, Sarah Jayne Booth, Jesse Jones, Ruby Wallis, and collective Na Cailleacha, hughlane.ie.

Book lovers, take note: the West Cork Literary Festival returns to Bantry with a weeklong celebration of writing and reading from July 8-15. Authors include Louise O’Neill, Niamh Campbell, Danny Denton (pictured), Sara Baume, Colm Tóibín, and Zadie Smith, westcorkliteraryfestival.ie.

Looking to ignite a young person’s creativity? The Ark’s free exhibition, Rock, Paper, Scissors, July 9 to August 20, features works by three artists who have very different material fascinations – Helen MacMahon (light), Jonathan Nangle (sound) and Róisín de Buitléar (glass), and includes a response area where children can create their own works, ark.ie.

This article originally appeared in the Summer issue of IMAGE Magazine.