Temple Bar, Dublin. Photo credit: Adam Jackson.
Events include live podcasts, Bowie tribute bands, and former Bowie band members.
by Adam Jackson
David Bowie’s presence looms large in Dublin this week in the form of the yearly Dublin Bowie Festival.
The festival, founded by John Brereton in 2016, includes many events across Dublin, celebrating the life and work of David Bowie.
Brereton, who is the festival’s director, has been hosting Bowie-related events since 2009.
“I was manager of the Grand Social, and in 2009, I started doing Bowie birthday bashes in January,” Brereton said.
“Then in 2016, Peter Quinn, the singer in a trivia band called Rebel Rebel, and I said, ‘why don’t we expand it into sort of a mini festival?’”
The festival had an immediate draw as it featured musicians who had previously worked with Bowie.
“By magic luck, Bowie’s guitarist, who’s a Dubliner, Jerry Leonard, was in town, and we got him involved and had a great weekend,” Brereton said.
“People from the UK and Europe came over, then we woke up on Monday and found out Bowie had died, so it was all kind of mad.”
Ten years on, the festival still has a big appeal, attracting a large number of both Irish and international attendees.
“Most of the gigs are sold out already. We get a lot of people from abroad, from all over the world, from as far as Australia, Mexico, Iceland, America, all over Europe, and the UK is an especially big contingent. Lots of Irish people as well, of course,” Brereton said.
Although it is such a big tourism draw, the festival has not received much funding, relying mostly on ticket and merchandise sales.
“We’re getting a tiny bit of funding this year from the Dublin City Council, which helps greatly, but it’s our eleventh festival, and we don’t get any support from Fáilte Ireland, or Tourism Ireland, and we bring a lot of people over in an especially quiet time of year,” said Brereton.
“It’s the biggest Bowie event in the world, and not getting any support on that level is a bit disappointing.”
2026 marks the tenth anniversary of David Bowie’s death, as well as his final album, Blackstar.
Although it has been so long since Bowie’s death, the singer’s popularity and by extension that of the festival remains as high as ever.
Brereton expressed his thoughts on why Bowie has been such an enduring figure.
“I think he was the first and probably the only rock star who embraced and excelled at so many artistic disciplines. Obviously, he was a brilliant singer, songwriter and musician, but he was also an actor, and he painted as well.”
“Through his music and his life, he opened a lot of cultural doors for people; I got into a lot of movie directors and books, because Bowie loved them, so it wasn’t just about his music.”
Brereton also mentioned Bowie’s connection to the LGBT community as an important factor for the singer’s continued cultural significance.
“He was one of the first rock stars who was openly bisexual, and made people in the LGBT community feel that they weren’t alone. He opened a lot of doors and made people feel like there was a community there, and that it was okay to come out.”
“That was a huge thing in the seventies and eighties, when it was hard for people with different sexualities.”
The festival’s first event, taking place tonight, is a live podcast discussing the time when David Bowie lived in Dublin.
Different events are set to take place throughout the week, culminating in a live performance of Bowie’s 1976 album Station to Station, celebrating the album’s 50th anniversary.
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