Dublin City Council members have welcomed plans by the council to boost the city’s nightlife.
Relative to other European capital cities, an average Dublin city resident – either Northside or Southside – could tell you that Dublin is lagging behind other European capitals such as London or Paris.
Now, Dublin City Council is looking to turn the tide on the city’s nightlife prospects.
Launched in October 2024, councillors got an update this week about what is being planned to bring Dublin’s nightlife up to scratch and the elected representatives liked what they heard.
A May 26 meeting of the Community, Gaeilge, Sport, Arts & Culture SPC saw a presentation from Ray O’Donoghue, Night-Time Economy Advisor.
The presentation saw that there are plans for alcohol-free street parties, late-night museum openings, public art demonstrations and a scheme to show residents the best alcohol-free activities on Google Maps.
O’Donoghue explained there are three core pillars of the strategy to improve Dublin nightlife: cultural activity, transport, and safety.
He said that the likes of St Patrick’s Festival After Dark or the popular Nocturnal Beats, which took place on Culture Night last year, are examples of what Dublin City Council wants to do more of.
This year’s St. Patrick’s Festival saw five sold-out late night and 3,000 people attend, while the likes of the Dublin Book Festival after dark have added to the “cultural vibrancy in the city.”
He stated that Dublin City Council is working alongside Google to highlight the best late-night activities in Dublin that don’t involve alcohol.
O’Donoghue said that transport was a major element of improving Dublin’s nightlife and that the NTA were involved in getting people to and from events.
Since 2020, more late-night, 24-hour bus services such as the G4, N2, 15, and 39A have been added to the roster, and O’Donoghue said that the demand is there to potentially add more services of that nature.
Last Christmas saw the Nitelink service added to the Dublin Bus arsenal in the run-up to Christmas, with Dublin Bus estimating that it provided capacity for over 50,000 extra passengers, which serves as a tribute to the Kevin Costner school of city design: “build it, and they will come.”
O’Donoghue said that Dublin City Council is working to understand the full economic potential of Dublin’s night-time economy, with the meeting hearing that Dublin had the 4th-highest nightlife spend per head in Europe, after London, Paris and Barcelona.
Green councillor and Deputy Lord Mayor Donna Cooney said that she would like to see more open-air music or film events added and evening events in local parks.
Cooney noted that the 2019-2024 term of Dublin City Council had a working group dedicated to the night-time economy plan, and would like to see the group resurrected for the current council term.
She noted that the Covid-19 pandemic put a dent in the plans to unleash Dublin’s night-time economic potential, and said she would like to get the ball rolling again.
Cooney said that dance events and night-time markets were floated by the committee in the last council term, and there was a consensus view that any council involvement in evening events in Dublin should be structured around multiple events, spread out across the city, instead of honing in on just one event.
The meeting heard that a working group consisting of restaurateurs and vintners associations meet four time a year to discuss Dublin nightlife, but People Before Profit councillor Conor Reddy said that workers and trade unions should be more involved and have input into the future of Dublin’s night life.
“I think it’s laudable that you’re working on 24-hour transport, I know that’s a massive issue for workers in the late-night economy, so it’s good to see progress being made there, but there’s a lot of work to be done elsewhere, such as safety and workers working unsociable hours.”
He said that inner-city organisations should also “be represented at the table.”
Independent councillor Vincent Jackson said “I love going into the city centre, but I’m not a drinker. An awful lot of what we do in our city revolves around alcohol,” and pointed to a recent free film screening in Temple Bar as a positive example of what an alcohol-free event in Dublin City Centre could look like.
“I hear a lot of negative stuff in relation to the people who come to our city; the perception is they get ripped off with prices.”
He said that the perception that Dublin is too expensive “does damage” and could kill the golden goose who laid the golden egg.
“They (businesses) have a good thing going here; they shouldn’t be in the business of taking advantage of people. The best customers are the ones that come back time and time again, instead of the one that comes in occasionally,” he noted.
Labour councillor Fiona Connelly pointed to the “Ask For Angela” campaign in the UK as a way to improve safety on nights out, while Social Democrats councillor Cat O’Driscoll said that groups such as AsIAm should be more involved in the planning of Dublin city nightlife.
O’Donoghue welcomed the feedback from councillors and said that a key part of the plan was to tell people that you don’t necessarily need to spend money in Dublin city to have a good night out.
“There’s all these great spaces and cultural institutions that we have, so we are working with Fáilte about the extension of late-night museums,” he told the meeting.
He said workers will be able to avail of an online training platform to deal with safety issues that might arise while working late at night, and that an advisory board which consists of arts workers, hospitality workers, taxi drivers and other city centre workers will soon be able to give their feedback about improvements to late-night Dublin.