Greetings from 1691
Limerick puts almost everything into one night this week. Thursday 30 July is Twilight Thursdays, the last Thursday of the month, and the city stays open late from five o'clock.
ALOK plays Dolan's on Thursday. The Hunt Museum opens late with 800 Years of Fashion, The GAFF and College Players read a Pulitzer winner across town, and the Milk Market, O'Mahony's and half the bars in the city stay open with it.
The Limerick Cocktail Festival wristband runs to Sunday, Dolan's Warehouse goes back to 1991 on Saturday, and The Fógues are at Friars' Gate.
This is our pick of what's on this week. As always for a full event list check out the link at the bottom of the email.
Let's dive in 👇
EVENT HIGHLIGHTS
Twilight Thursdays
Thursday 30 July · From 17:00 · Venues across the city
The last Thursday of the month is the one night Limerick city centre behaves like a proper night time economy, and the July edition has the Hunt Museum, the Milk Market, Wickham Way, O'Mahony's, The GAFF, the escape rooms and dozens of pubs and restaurants all running late together. Most of it is free or included in normal admission. There is free parking at the Potato Market from six to nine, which is the sort of practical detail that decides whether people actually come in.
ALOK: Eat Pray Leave!
Thursday 30 July · 19:30 · Dolan's Warehouse
Alok Vaid-Menon is a poet and performance artist doing stand-up rather than a comedian who reads, and it shows in how the hour is built. Eat Pray Leave works through love, heartbreak and the end times, and Limerick is the third of four Irish dates in one week after Belfast and Cork. Allie O'Rourke opens. Over 18s.
The Humans: Rehearsed Reading
Thursday 30 July · 19:30 · The GAFF
Stephen Karam's one-act took the Pulitzer and the Tony in 2016 for what is, on paper, a family arguing over Thanksgiving dinner in a basement apartment. College Players are reading it, and they turn a hundred years old in 2026, which makes them one of the oldest amateur companies in the country. A rehearsed reading strips out the set and the lighting and leaves only the writing, which is the best way to hear this particular play.
Tinteán Sessions
Tuesday 28 July · The Commercial
The Record Room upstairs in The Commercial on a Tuesday, which is where the city's trad players go when they want to play rather than perform. No stage, no ticket queue, no fuss. Turn up early enough to get a seat and late enough that it has warmed up.
The Fógues
Thursday 30 July · Friars' Gate Theatre
Trad and contemporary crossed over in a small Kilmallock room, which is a very different night to the same band in a city venue. Friars' Gate seats a couple of hundred and the sound in there is better than the building lets on. Worth the drive out.
The Year Grunge Broke
Saturday 1 August · 21:00 · Dolan's Warehouse
Bad Reputation's night out for anyone who owned a flannel shirt in 1991, running DJs and live elements through the Warehouse. Standing, over 18s. Nevermind and Ten came out weeks apart that autumn and the pair of them still fill a room three decades on, which nobody involved expected.
Cliona Hagan & Simon Sheerin: Unplugged
Tuesday 4 August · Friars' Gate Theatre
Two country singers stripped back to whatever they can carry on stage themselves, which tends to separate the ones who can sing from the ones who need the band. Hagan has the voice for it. A quiet Tuesday out in Kilmallock next week.
800 Years of Fashion: Hunt Museum Nights
Thursday 30 July · 19:00 · The Hunt Museum
Eight centuries of clothing pulled from the Hunt collection, opened up for the evening as part of the museum's after hours run. The Hunt is at its best when it stops behaving like a museum and lets people talk in the rooms, which is exactly what the Nights programme is for. Part of Twilight Thursdays, so you can walk on to the rest of it afterwards.
Limerick Cocktail Festival
To Sunday 2 August · Bars across the city centre
Around a tenner buys a strip of seven wristbands, one for each day, and unlocks eight euro signature cocktails and two for one deals across The Old Quarter, Forde's Courtyard, The Red Hen, The White House, Pharmacia, Jerry Flannery's, The Locke, Smyth's, The Savoy and more. It is a bar crawl with a discount card rather than a festival with a stage, and it is better for it. Thursday overlaps with Twilight Thursdays, which is not an accident.
Wednesday Cycle: Harvey's Quay to UL
Wednesday 29 July · 18:00 · Harvey's Quay
The urban cycling group's midweek spin out along the river to the university and back, finishing with pints in Treaty City. Six in the evening, flat the whole way, and the point is the company rather than the mileage. No lycra required.
For a full overview of all events on this week in Limerick check out our event listings page
UNTIL NEXT WEEK
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