As dusk falls on Halloween night, giant puppets will stalk Dublin’s streets, candlelit choirs will send shivers through the city’s churches, and vampires will rise from the shadows as the capital transforms into Bram Stoker’s playground.
From October 31 to November 3, the Bram Stoker Festival 2025 will drench Dublin in gothic spectacle with parades, haunted cinemas, late-night cabaret and free family fun spilling into venues, parks and hidden corners across the city.
Macnas parade.
The centrepiece comes on Sunday November 2, when spectacle-makers Macnas return to Dublin with An Treun: The Summoning of the Lost. The brand-new procession, inspired by Bram Stoker’s long-forgotten tale Gibbet Hill, will weave through the North East Inner City as dusk descends, turning Georgian facades into a backdrop for towering puppets, thundering drums and a sea of fire-lit faces.
Directed by Louise Lowe and designed by Owen Boss of ANU Productions, the show channels memory, culture and climate in a spectacle where monsters meet myth. For the first time, Macnas will also train 16 young locals from the NEIC to perform, ensuring the next generation takes its place in the parade.
Lord Mayor of Dublin, Councillor Ray McAdam, said: “At Halloween, a spell is cast over Dublin. The Bram Stoker Festival is where the city honours its most famous son by unleashing a carnival of imagination. No city embraces the dark quite like Dublin.”
Haunted highlights
The programme ranges from spine-chilling cinema to sacred song. At the Light House, Carl Dreyer’s 1932 silent classic Vampyr will be reimagined with a new live score blending cello, electronics and choir. At St Ann’s Church, Schola Hyberniae will perform Songs of the Spirits: East Meets West, fusing Gregorian chant, Irish manuscript music and Japanese ritual melodies in a candlelit concert.
Film buffs can also experience Kwaidan, Lafcadio Hearn’s ghost stories adapted by Masaki Kobayashi, with a new score by Matthew Nolan, Seán Mac Erlaine and Tomoko Sauvage, plus a rare live Benshi narration performed in English by actor Conor Lovett.
On stage at the Abbey, Joan Sheehy directs Dracula: The Hunt, a dramatic reading of the novel’s final ten chapters brought to life by Barry McGovern, Clare Monnelly and more, complete with Tom Lane’s eerie soundscape and Suzie Cummins’s stark lighting.
Theatre, comedy and cabaret
For those who like their horror up close, Blind Fear will plunge audiences into grisly tales told by artists with sight loss. With blindfolds heightening every sound, the performance mixes immersive audio and live acting in stories that move from cursed villages to sinister antique shops.
Comedy-horror comes courtesy of Will Seaward’s Pointy Tales of Fangs and Blood, a gloriously over-the-top gothic romp full of cloaks, coffins and sharp-toothed humour.
At night, Dublin slips further into the shadows with Night Bites, a late strand of cabaret, music and poetry. Highlights include SCANRA: Samhain at The Cellar, led by a powerhouse of female and non-binary artists; Poetry Brothel: Monto by Lamplight, an immersive mix of verse and burlesque inspired by Dublin’s red-light past; and Seo Linn’s all-Irish language event Cultural Revolution in Victorian Ireland, marrying modern sounds with heritage and identity.
Family favourites
St Patrick’s Park becomes Stokerland once again, a gothic funfair with circus, fortune tellers, street theatre and mischief-makers at every turn. For those who prefer a quieter pace, a Relaxed Session will take place on Sunday November 2.
Children can dance at Dracula’s Disco in the Mansion House, create masks at the National Museum, or wander Marsh’s Library after dark for Spooky Stories in the galleries that once fascinated a young Bram Stoker.
Stories and shadows
The spoken-word strand includes Seanchoíche’s Stories From the Shadows at Bolands Mills, where strangers share true tales of fear. Emily Collins revives Lady Jane Wilde’s folklore at Merrion Square, while Wunderkammer at the Museum of Curiosities invites visitors into a labyrinth of oddities, tarot readings and surreal performance.
Brian Cleary recounts his discovery of a lost Stoker tale in Finding Gibbet Hill, while Trinity College hosts In Stoker’s Shadow, a competition final for new writing inspired by Stoker’s legacy. At the GPO Museum, Ghosts of the Revolution explores Ireland’s haunted political past with talks and music.
Walking tours
The city itself becomes a stage for discovery. At the National Library, In Stoker’s Footsteps explores the author’s Dublin. Historian Donal Fallon leads a walk through Mount Jerome Cemetery, while Original Dublin Walking Tours offer journeys into haunted alleyways, dark folklore, grisly ballads and the landmarks that shaped Stoker’s imagination. At the National Museum, Life, Disease and Death in Collins Barracks returns to uncover three centuries of mortality in one of Europe’s oldest barracks.
Festival details
The Bram Stoker Festival runs from October 31 to November 3 across Dublin. The full programme and booking details are available at www.bramstokerfestival.com, with updates on social media via #BramStokerFestival.