International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival

The International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival is now in its fourteenth year and has become the biggest festival of it’s kind anywhere in the world. The festival was originally founded by Brian Merriman in 2004 to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Oscar Wilde. Since then, the festival has grown to become a hugely important part of Dublin’s cultural calendar and this year the festival will pass its 4,000th performance, with plays on diverse subjects such as being a gay Traveller boxing champion, lesbian gangsters in East End London, and Mormon missionaries.

Dublin has so much to offer with a wealth of amazing places to explore and DoDublin’s Hop-On Hop-Off Tours are a great way to get to know the city. But even on a city break, it can be nice to spend a day out in the countryside and DoDublin have you covered there too, with their amazing Glendalough & Powerscourt Tour which allows visitors to explore two of Wicklow’s most famous tourist attractions. With summer soon upon us, a trip to scenic Wicklow should be on every visitor’s Irish bucketlist.

EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum is a state-of-the-art interactive museum located in the beautiful vaults of CHQ in Dublin’s Docklands. Over the centuries, some 10 million people have left the island of Ireland. At EPIC you can step through 20 themed galleries to find out why people left, see how they influenced the world they found, and experience the connection between their descendants and Ireland today. Immerse yourself in the stories of some of the most remarkable tales of sacrifice, endurance, adventure, and discovery the world has ever known.

The White House in Washington was architecturally modelled on Ireland’s present parliament building, Leinster House, which was built in 1745 and is situated on Kildare Street. However, the Irish president also lives in, literally, a white house, in Dublin’s huge Phoenix Park. Known as Áras an Uachtaráin (House of the President), this large and classical edifice has a long and intriguing history. The only glimpse the public get of the house is through a wide gap in the shrubbery and trees along the main road of the park. From here it looks a bit like the Washington White House with its large four-columned portico. Other than its portico, it’s a fairly plain building but still possessing the formal lines from the Georgian period of the eighteenth century.

The incredible Dublin Dance Festival returns this month with over 40 events featuring artists from 11 countries and more than 50 dancers performing at events in venues across the city. From 18 to 28 May, Dublin will burst into life with an amazing array of performances that range from a Baroque feast to a Hip-Hop Dance Battle, with everything from baby boogies to UFO-inspired performances in between. They will be accompanied by acts as diverse as 3 DJs, an opera singer and a graffiti artist to name but a few.

Munster is the most southerly of the four provinces of Ireland and stretches from Tipperary in the South Midlands to Waterford in the South East, and from Clare, Limerick and Kerry down to Cork in the South.The entire area is famed for Irish traditional music, song and dance. There are many ancient castles and monasteries in the province, and coupled with the vast green countryside and its three cities (Limerick, Cork and Waterford) Munster is a must see destination for tourists.

Ireland’s Most Scenic Racecourse is the place to be this month for the Killarney May Racing Festival. The festival offers three days of top class racing from 14 - 16 May in the beautiful County Kerry town. The racecourse is situated in Killarney town and looks out onto the magnificent scenery of Killarney National Park, making it the perfect venue for racegoers to enjoy some thrilling summer racing. Killarney has a long, established history of racing, with the first race recorded there in 1822.

Fastnet Film Festival returns to the seaside village of Schull in West Cork from Wednesday 24th to Sunday 28thMay. This up close and personal festival celebrates the craft of film, allowing industry professionals and aspiring filmmakers to share ideas in the same space. Over five days at the end of May each year, visitors to the festival can enjoy feature and short film screenings, Masterclasses, Workshops, Seminars, Round Table Discussions, Q&As and live music, as well as entertainment that the whole family can enjoy, including craft and drama workshops, storytelling and kid’s cinema club.

The province of Connaught lies in the West of Ireland with its coastline on the Atlantic Ocean. The counties of Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim, Galway and Roscommon make up this geographically diverse region with the Atlantic Ocean to its westerly boundary, and the midlands of Roscommon to the East. It is the least populated with a population of just over 400,000.

For over 20 years, the Galway Early Music Festival has brought concerts, workshops, talks, demonstrations and family events to the medieval streets and venues of Galway, filling the city with music and colour. The festival aims to bring alive the music and dance of the 12th – 17th centuries in the context of Galway’s medieval heritage through concerts given by international and national performers and increase awareness and interest in this music and dance among the general public, who may not be fully of aware of all of the amazing music from that era.