Diverse thrills - Culture Night

CULTURE is everything from a steamy bowl of tripe and drisheen to a chatty evening nibbling tapas, washing down the piquillo peppers with a robust rioja.

Culture is everything from sean nós dancing to Sylvie Guillem’s wonderful career in ballet. Even ubiquitous face-painting qualities.

Tonight’s Culture Night is an attempt to celebrate that diversity and excitement, that challenging, and hopefully fulfilling, commitment to express ourselves, our essence, our hopes and fears through a range of activities.

Culture Night may have a momentum in urban areas that is not always echoed across the country but that just underlines the real value of culture and its social currency. A small group of musicians gathering, say, to play polkas for dancers in a Sliabh Luachra pub would be as vibrant as any performance anywhere. It does not need the validation of a large audience to have real worth. Events on that modest scale are self-contained but are nevertheless conduits for the very best we can be. And apart from any of that, Culture Night is a good excuse to put on the glad rags and have a night out. Go for it.