• Sounds from a Safe Harbour: Five to Watch

    September 2, 2015 - By 

    While Sounds from a Safe Harbour brings many high-profile and international acts to Cork City as part of a wide-ranging ticket, the real gems of the festival lie in the presence on the bill of some of the city and country’s independent bands and artists, once again mostly placed on a “music trail” as a secondary attraction (see also: MTV “hitting” Cork). Never fear, though: TTA’s got you covered with a look of some of the ones to watch. All events listed here are free. Rusangano Family: Friday 18 September @ The Bodega Formerly known by their individual names of…

  • Another Love Story

    July 30, 2015 - By 

    There’s supremely intimate, wonderfully cloistered, comprehensively unmissable small festivals, then there’s Another Love Story. Taking place at Killyon Manor, Co. Westmeath across August 21-23,  the “weekend celebration of music, discussion, film, food and friends” boasts a line-up including New Jackson, Loah, Leo Drezden, Come On Live Long, I Have a Tribe, Margie Lewis, Valerie Francis, Ben Bix & Father, Carriages, Tandem Felix and many more. Of course, being much more than a standard music festival, the real lure and magic here is in the one-off happenings and fleeting moment of wonder, full details of which will be announced very soon. In the…

  • Spirit of Folk Festival

    July 30, 2015 - By 

    Returning to Co. Meath’s Dunderry Park from September 18-20, Spirit of Folk Festival with a line-up boasting the likes of Mick Flannery (pictured), Inni-K, Carriages and more. As well as music the festival will also include storytelling from national treasures such as Batt Burns, Jack Lynch, Eddie Lenihan, and Aideen Mc Bride, as well as talks and workshops on Ancient Druidism and Shamanism, African song and Dance workshops, Viking Battle Re-enactments, Bicycle Jousting, Yoga, Astronomy and Bushcraft. Festival Director, Natasha Duffy, says of this year’s SOF, “Each year we try and promote as many interesting and unique activities as possible. This year…

  • Festival Preview: Open House Festival

    June 22, 2015 - By 

    This year’s Open House Festival has once again delivered a strong blend of music and arts to charm audiences throughout the month of August.  An array of top-class talent is brought to Northern Ireland during the course of the year under the Open House banner, but the annual festival is the pinnacle for its promoters; when they round-up a list of traditional and cutting edge folk artists to perform in Bangor.  Taking place from August 1-31 there will be over 100 events in 26 different locations within the seaside town.  A whole range of concerts, performances, film screenings, talks, exhibitions…

  • Festival Preview: AVA Festival

    May 17, 2015 - By 

    Billed as a “one day-&-night grass roots Audio Visual Arts festival”, AVA Festival aims to promote the wealth of talent in Northern Ireland’s electronic music and visual arts scene. Taking place in the Titanic Quarter’s formidable T13 Building on Saturday, May 30, the one day event will be split into two broad sections: a daytime conference from 11am-4pm with a series of keynote speakers and panels, and an evening showcase from 4pm with some of the stars of Northern Ireland’s impressively healthy electronic and club scene. The likes of Bicep, Space Dimension Controller and Optimo are all involved in what…

  • Festival Mixtape: Longitude 2015

    May 10, 2015 - By 

    One of Ireland’s biggest festivals, Longitude will return to Marlay Park from July 17-19 to showcase some of the best upcoming talent across the UK and further afield. With Alt-J, The Chemical Brothers and Hozier set to headline, there is a sense of real progression around the festival as more big acts and artists continue to be revealed. Alongside the headliners, Caribou, Metronomy and James Blake fit nicely in amongst the bill, which has something to offer in every genre. Hip-Hop fans won’t be left out: with 2014 Mercury Prize award winners Young Fathers in the mix on the Friday, and with Pusha…

  • 10 Picks for Belfast Film Festival

    April 16, 2015 - By 

    Kicking off this evening with Mark Cousins’ I Am Belfast, and running from April 16 to April 25, this year’s Belfast Film Festival boasts a programme traversing ever genre and sub-genre of modern and classic cinema. With screenings and one-off events taking place in venues large, small and altogether curious across the city, there is (as their full programme attests) quite literally something for everyone on offer. In fact, so dense is the schedule that we’ve enlisted the immeasurably tasteful Conor Smyth to whittle it down to ten of their most unmissable screenings and events. Delve in. I Am Belfast  The question…

  • Festival Preview: Belfast Film Festival 2015

    April 12, 2015 - By 

    Time to dig out your best sitting-down trousers, as the Belfast Film Festival returns for its fifteenth year. With over one hundred films in ten days, it’s part celebration, part endurance test. Opening night duties fall to local legend Mark Cousins (pictured), premiering his I Am Belfast, a dream-like exploration of the city’s identity and history that promises to go beyond across-the-barricade clichés (Cousins’ meditation on D. H. Lawrence, 6 Desires, is also being screened). At the tail-end of the programme is Stephen Fingleton’s post-collapse drama The Survivalist, with Martin McCann as a loner living off the land amongst the…

  • Festival Preview: Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival 2015

    February 27, 2015 - By 

    The Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival is now in its 13th year and it’s heartening to see that it is still going strong. After last year’s devastating cuts to the arts industry the city has sadly kissed goodbye to many similar events. The festival will launch its full programme in April but for now they have released some tantalizing details to keep the culture vultures circling. Joining the likes of Supergrass frontman Gaz Coombes and Dublin electro wizards Le Galaxie – amongst several acts announced this morning – Irish stage actor Phelim Drew is bringing his celebrated adaptation of Down and Out in…