The Dublin Book Festival takes place every November and has a wide range of events to go to. This year, the festival took place from Nov. 5th to 9th with the events spread across Dublin city.
TheCity attended ‘Women, Struggle, and Resilience,’ a talk that was held in the Royal Irish Academy. Afterwards, TheCity had the opportunity to speak to one of the speakers on the night, Susan Marie Martin PhD. Dr Martin wrote her book on female Dublin street traders from the years 1882-1932. In the discussion Dr Martin talks about why she got interested in street traders in the first place, how she became affiliated with the Dublin Book Festival, and what the future holds for her.
A restaurant known worldwide is opening in Dublin this month. Gloria Osteria already has restaurants in Barcelona and Milan. The chain is owned by the Big Mamma Group.
The restaurant had been rumoured to open in Dublin since the start of this year, and the news was confirmed on July 6 when they made an Instagram specifically for the Dublin location. Since September, they have been posting videos of the food they will be serving when it opens. They have also posted three videos about some of the chefs that are involved, as well as a video talking about Parmigiano Reggiano (parmesan).
Gloria Osteria Dublin is set to open Nov. 27 on 41 Westmoreland Street, right in the middle of the city.
Outside of the building where the public can see a sneak peak of the restaurant. Photo credit: Zita Fox
According to the Big Mamma website, they are a French restaurant group formed in 2015. It was founded by entrepreneurs Victor Lugger and Tigrane Seydeux. They opened their first restaurant, Mamma Gorda, in the South of France in April of 2015.
They have said it was with the opening of East Mamma in Paris that they cemented themselves in the Italian restaurant world properly. Before opening they made the effort to transport ingredients from Italy and started making their own pasta. They also mentioned how they found an antique roaster to make their own coffee.
The restaurant is known for its authentic Italian food and elegant 1970s interior design in all their restaurants. The Dublin location will seat about 180 guests. It will also have a private dining room that can seat 22 people.
One of the construction workers on site said, “We’ve been working hard every day to make the restaurant as nice as possible. Hopefully the hard work pays off, and we get it done soon.”
TheCity had the chance to have a quick look into the building and from the quick glance we can see the burgundy design within. In the middle of the room, we can see a huge chandelier with marble steps leading up to it. If they are taking inspiration from the other Gloria Osteria restaurants then Dublin can expect to see a lot of mood lighting with funky but fashionable furniture sourced from Italian markets throughout. There will be a huge marble bar that will supposedly sit under 700 used bottles.
Just outside the building, TheCity can see they are almost ready for the big opening night as they are starting to bring in plants and flowers to help bring the place to life.
The name Gloria Osteria is most likely derived from Italian. Gloria translates to glory and osteria is a traditional place to enjoy food and wine in Italy. Therefore, the name is a play on words and loosely translates to glorious Italian food; some may say this is the perfect name for the restaurant as that is what it’s known for.
The original restaurant opened in Milan in 2023 with the Barcelona one opening just last year. Adding Dublin and Paris to the list of places this month, Gloria Osteria is only growing bigger every year.
Have you ever been in a coffee shop and thought you could make it better? That is exactly what Steven Harris thought before he opened Stay With Us cafe in 2022. A dream project that became reality after Harris was advised to have another income on the side, as his job was only a 6-month contract work in sports. Stay With Us has grown its own community in the small space it occupies just down the road from St. Peter’s Church in Phibsborough.
Harris said working as a barista was what inspired him to open his own business. He had saved up money and started looking for a place to open. “I say to people [I did] not [have] enough to buy a house but enough to start a business,” he said. Harris said he did not intentionally choose Phibsborough; it just happened to have a unit that was the size he wanted and within the price range he was looking for.
Harris and his friend did all the labour to make sure the unit was up and ready for business in just 6 short weeks. When asked about the quick turnaround, he explained how not having to wait on any tradesmen meant they could work quickly. Though Harris did not have a background in construction, he said he was lucky to have some DIY knowledge and had the advantage of asking people he knew for some help; he also relied on some YouTube tutorials. He said because they were doing the work for free at the start it “gave the business a kickstart off the bat without having a lot of outgoings.”
Hot chocolate bought in Stay With Us, latte art creating a swan on top. Photo credit: Zita Fox
When asked about the possibility of expanding the Stay With Us brand, Harris informed TheCity that he already has another cafe in Dublin. Opened on the 31st of May and located in Temple Bar, Mantle, is more of a premium specialty coffee product, as opposed to the more community-oriented cafe in Phibsborough. Harris wanted to open something new rather than opening a replica; he wanted it to be the polar opposite to what he already owned. “I find when people expand out or change, for example, you kind of lose that personal touch of the area,” he said.
Harris is a physiotherapist for the NHS in Scotland for most of the year. That is where he got the idea to have multiple different establishments. There is a man in Edinburgh who owns around 12 coffee shops, but they all have different names and none of them are related to each other. He goes on to say that they are a similar fit if you know what to look for then of course, you would realise it is the same person who owns them all.
Harris points out how all those cafes have their own little communities, workers, and regulars and how he too wanted to have that broad appeal. He said having the different brands to market makes it far more interesting for himself: “everything’s just slightly different and a bit fresher.”
Stay With Us continues to pull people in with its charm. Full of treats and drinks, mainly coffee, the cafe has created a small, safe bubble in the centre of Dublin. Whether you go in when it is lashing rain, morning time, or the last order of the day, you will be greeted with some of the most welcoming staff around. For now, it seems that Harris is happy with just the two cafes, but who knows what the future holds.
The Boy: A Two-Play Theatrical Event, is finally opening in Dublin after a five year delay. Carr’s brilliant retelling of old Greek myths finally gets to be shown on Ireland’s national stage. The official opening night is Wednesday, October 1st and it is already sold out.
The two-play spectacle is based on three Greek myths – Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone, written by Sophocles. The audience is encouraged to see the plays back-to-back, but they can also see them individually. Carr has spoken about these plays trying to “marry the ancient with the contemporary”.
The two actors taking centre stage are Frank Blake and Eileen Walsh, who are playing Oedipus and Jocasta, respectively.
The staging is deliberately basic, forcing the audience to focus on the actors and not their surroundings. For most of The Boy, the stage only has a dining table on it. Above the stage there is a projection of what is being shown on the stage from above; this represents the gods always looking down over the action – they are ever-present in this world. There is a thick plastic curtain that comes and goes throughout both plays, acting as a barrier between the audience and stage. The sound-heavy plastic whooshing across the stage gives an eerie feeling to the audience, almost like we were watching a crime scene.
The Boy
The first play The Boy surrounds the life of Oedipus from birth to after he fulfils his curse. It is based on the Greek myth, Oedipus Rex. The play is set in the kingdom of Thebes, where Oedipus’ father Laius is king.
The audience finds out that Oedipus has been cursed from when he was a child, or more so that his father, Laius, was cursed. He gets confronted by The Shee (played by Olwen Fouére) after he captures and rapes a young boy, Chrysippus (played by Noah Behan and Harley Cullen Walsh). Laius’ curse is that he must not have a child for if he does, his child would grow up to kill him and marry his wife, Jocasta.
The poster that can be seen outside The Abbey Theatre and on the front of the programmes promoting the show. The two main actors (Blake and Walsh) are at the centre of the poster. Captured by: Zita Fox
The God and His Daughter
The second play opens with the exact same dialogue as the first but the context has shifted. The audience knows about the crimes Oedipus and Jocasta have committed together; we also know that in comparison to the first play Thebes is suffering under new kings and its crops are failing.
This play is based on the Greek myths, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone. The play follows Oedipus in the final stages of his life and how his curse has continued onto his children, particularly his daughter, Antigone.
The star of the show is Éilish McLaughlin who plays Antigone. Though she is only on the stage for the first half of the play she is what the audience is drawn to the most. Her presence and monologues are incredible, it was impossible to take your eyes off her.
TheCity got the chance to talk to Fionnuala Maher, a costume supervisor assistant. Though Maher was mainly working in the background of the costume department, she did give us an insight to what it is like to prepare for a show. Maher mentioned how the decisions were made by the designer, Catherine Fay, and the main costume makers, Tara Mulvihill and Breege Fahy. She would then go out with a brief and grab samples or photos of items she deemed appropriate. She said: “Sometimes we had to make sure there were doubles available of everything in case they were used in any scenes with blood, [amongst other things].”
She went onto explain how like with a lot of shows, a lot of the costume changes would come down to the practicality of the clothes. She continued: “Something could look perfect on the hanger and even on the actor but might not sit correctly on them in the action of a scene.”
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