All aboard for Cork City’s Culture Night

All aboard! Culture vultures are set to roam the streets of Ireland tonight sampling some of the estimated 3,000 free events in museums, galleries, theatres, churches, historic houses, and studios for Culture Night — but in Cork, they’ll travel in style.

Bus Éireann will provide free buses with live performances on board as the city comes alive with over 200 free events in 100 venues.

The special buses will depart about every 20 minutes from the three culture stops at City Hall, and criss-cross the city from 7pm to 10pm.

Uilleann piper Shane Keating, Irish dance star Andrew Vickers, guitarist Eoin Coughlan, banjo and bodhrán player Brian Morrissey, concertina player Cíiona Halley, and fiddlers Caoimhín Vallely and Nigel Grufferty will be among the musicians entertaining passengers en route.

Cork-born wordsmith and singer Julie Goo and poet and Lab Ireland TV presenter, Bubba Shakespeare, will also take their seats on the buses to provide entertainment.

The Douglas Comhaltas Céilí Youth Band and the Dustbusters Light Orchestra, have also been lined up to perform at the Parnell Place bus station.

Soul singer Brian Deady is performing a gig at a secret city location, to be disclosed later today. The African Irish Gospel Choir will perform outside City Hall at 6.15pm, with Cork Academy of Music and Music Generation Cork City inviting musicians of all ages and instruments to a special jazz improvisation workshop with Tom Mulcahy.

In Killarney’s INEC, Donie Courtney will perform his one-man show ‘God Has No Country’ about Msgr Hugh O’Flaherty, who saved 5,000 Jews during the Second World War. Picture Don MacMonagle

UCC’s department of music will host an Asian music experience exploring the art music of India and the Indonesian Gamelan instrument. The Vanbrugh String Quartet will perform in City Hall’s Concert Hall, with the Cork Youth Orchestra under the baton of Tomas McCarthy performing excerpts from their Reflections of Ireland 2016 concert in the magnificent Port of Cork boardroom.

CIT Cork School of Music will host a concert of classical and contemporary music and the City Hall Plaza will be transformed into a hive of activity as various musicians and groups including the Cork Pipers Band, Cork Barrack Street Youth Band, Cork Samba, The Polyphonics Make Barber Shop Choir and the Douglas Comhaltas Céilí Band perform throughout the evening.

Culture Night ambassadors Louise MacNamara and Ras Mikey Courtney. Picture: Photocall

In the capital, Culture Night ambassadors Heathers will perform in the Lighthouse Cinema while Smithfield Square will host a family-friendly interactive drop-in event with activities including drumming, salsa and hip-hop dancing.

Dublin Castle will also host an open air concert from 6pm to 10pm, and host workshops, talks, and readings.

Other highlights include the international music project Girls and Stations, developed by Rochus Aust, the founder of the 1 German Electrophonic Orchestra, starting in Heuston Station before travelling by train to Clara in Co Offaly.

In Limerick Bits & Pieces encourages people to collect specially designed and digitally fabricated pieces from the city’s Fab Lab before following a guided path to the Hunt Museum.

See www.culturenight.ie.