Dublin Gallery Weekend: 60 free events celebrating the best of Ireland's contemporary art scene

Dublin Gallery Weekend, a bold celebration of Ireland's contemporary art scene, is set to return for its 2025 edition from November 6–9 – showcasing the work of over 100 artists through exciting free events, taking place across 40 galleries, cultural institutions and creative spaces throughout the city.

Whether you're a curious newcomer to contemporary art, or a well-versed aficionado, this year's programme promises an action-packed weekend of artistic adventure for all – with exhibitions, guided gallery trails, public art tours, breakfast and brunch events, artist talks and demonstrations, panel discussions, family friendly workshops, art book fairs and signings, sound meditation and yoga, live podcasts, readings, poetry, music and more.

Alan Butler

Presented by Ireland’s Contemporary Art Gallery Association (CAGA), and produced by SoSimpatico, Dublin Gallery Weekend 2025 is set to be the country’s largest showcase of visual culture. Here are some of the highlights you can look forward to over the four days...

Guided art and gallery trails:

CAGA members will host six tours through galleries in Dublin 1 East and West of the city, as well as those in the City Centre and the Stephen’s Green area (Saturday & Sunday, various times and meeting points, free).

Explore the public realm art of Dublin 8, with Guinness Storehouse’s These Walls: Landmarks guided tours (Saturday & Sunday, various times, free, ticketed).

The National Gallery of Ireland will host a tour of LGBTQIA+ Artworks (Saturday, 1-2pm, free), a National Gallery of Ireland Highlights Tour (Saturday, 2.30 - 3.30pm, free) and tours of Recent Acquisitions (Sunday, 11.30-12.30pm, free) and Women Artists (Sunday, 2.30-3.30pm, free).

Dublin City Council Culture Company will also host a series of guided gallery tours across the weekend.

Breakfast and brunch events:

Over the weekend, early-risers can soak in art alongside a delicious breakfast or brunch in various galleries and spaces, including:

Rising Conversations: These Walls – with artists Hazel O’Sullivan and Niall de Buitléar, as well as Director of IMMA Annie Fletcher and Guinness Archive & Heritage Manager Eibhlin Colgan (Guinness Storehouse, Gravity Bar, Friday, 8am, free, ticketed)

Breakfast with artist Yanny Petters with delicious treats from Parnell Street Bakery (Olivier Cornet Gallery, Saturday 10.30-11.30am, free)

Art and coffee at the Flicker, Flicker Coffee Morning (Kevin Kavanagh, Saturday, 11am, free)

A mouthwatering Buffet and Tour of the Ode to Giants exhibition with art historian Jean Ryan (Olivier Cornet Gallery, Sunday, 1-2.30pm, free)

Brunch, bubbles, music and art at the grown-ups-only Sunday Social Club, viewing Isabel Nolan’s Look at the Harlequins! (Kerlin Gallery, Sunday, 12-2pm, free)

Brunch Club with Corban Walker and Mary McCarthy, Director of Crawford Art Gallery, Cork (Solomon Fine Art, Sunday, 1-3pm, free).

Corban Walker. Photo: A. Hunt

Family-friendly events:

The majority of Dublin Gallery Weekend events are suitable for all ages, including the following family-friendly activities:

You Can Draw My Car(d) – Kids Cardmaking Workshop with Kelly Ratchford (Olivier Cornet Gallery, Saturday, 2-3.30pm, free, ticketed)

Look at You! Look at Me! – a drop-in portrait drawing workshop with artist Claire Halpin (Hillsboro Fine Art, Saturday, 2-4pm, free)

Art book fairs and signings:

Kevin Kavanagh Gallery will host a weekend long Art Book Fair (Friday, Saturday, Sunday, various times, free), and a special book signing event with artists Deirdre Frost and Cecilia Danell (Saturday, 3.30pm, free).

Join Paul Murray, author of A Fantastic Journey, the biography of Lafcadio Hearn for Ghosts and Ghouls, an illustrated talk (SO Fine Art Editions, Sunday, 2-3pm, free, ticketed).

Artist talks, demonstrations and podcasts:

Meet legendary Chilean artist, poet and activist Cecilia Vicuña at Reverse Migration, a Poetic Journey – a talk, reading and performance (IMMA, Friday, 5-6pm, free, ticketed)

Hear from acclaimed Irish artist Patrick Graham as he opens his Gilboa Iris exhibition (Hillsboro Fine Art, Friday, 4-5pm, free)

Join an exhibition tour with the artist Sinéad Ní Mhaonaigh (The LAB Gallery, Friday, 4-5pm, free)

Frank Sweeney discusses his exhibition Go Ye Afar (Temple Bar Gallery+Studios, Friday, 5-6pm, free)

Artists Yoko Akino and Richard Lawlor present an Etching Demonstration at SO Fine Art Editions (Saturday, 12-1pm, free, ticketed)

Isabel Nolan is the featured artist on Russel Tovey and Robert Diament’s Talk Art Podcast Live (NGI, Saturday, 12-1pm, free, sold out)

Isabel Nolan, Splendid and Pointless

The Light Is On – with Gildas O Laoire and Mark Redden (TØN Gallery,Temple Bar, Saturday, 12-1pm, free)

Artist talk with Sara Baume and Mollie Douthit, discussing their collaboration (Molesworth Gallery, Saturday, 2-3pm, free)

Corban Walker in conversation with journalist and author Sean O’Hagan (Solomon Fine Art, Saturday, 3-4pm, free, ticketed).

David Eager Maher will be discussing his work with IMMA’s Mary Cremin (Irish Architectural Archive, Sunday, 11-12pm, free).

Artist Louise Neiland in conversation with art critic Aidan Dunne (Taylor Galleries, Sunday, 12-1pm, free)

Geraldine O’Neill sits down with Dr Yvonne Scott (Kevin Kavanagh, Sunday, 2-3pm, free).

Exhibitions:

CAGA galleries will present stand-out shows by Ireland’s most exciting artists:

• Green on Red Gallery - Alan Butler: ASSETS
• Hillsboro Fine Art - Patrick Graham: Gilboa Iris
• Kerlin Gallery - Isabel Nolan: Look at the Harlequins!
• Kevin Kavanagh - Geraldine O’Neill: Flicker, Flicker
• Molesworth Gallery - Sara Baume & Mollie Douthit: Holding Space
• Oliver Sears Gallery - David Eager Maher: Empire
• Olivier Cornet Gallery - Group Exhibition: An Ode to Giants
• SO Fine Art Editions - Group Exhibition: Kwaidan – Encounters with Lafcadio Hearn
• Solomon Fine Art - Corban Walker: RESIST
• Taylor Galleries - Group Exhibition: 25@TG.

A new addition is Colour Beyond the Pale, a pop-up by Mayo’s Claremorris Gallery – Ireland’s only CAGA member from outside Dublin – on South Frederick Street, featuring work by Budi Guggi, Peter Burns, Time Millen, Elizabeth Cope and Nuala Clarke.

Peter Burns, Enchanted Forest, 92 x 92 cm (3cm depth) oil on hessian, 2025

Other exhibitions you can also look forward to:

The Irish Museum of Modern Art will present Reverse Migration, a Poetic Journey, the first solo Irish exhibition by legendary Chilean artist, poet and activist Cecilia Vicuña.

World renowned Ireland-based Japanese artist Atsushi Kaga comes to The Douglas Hyde Gallery of Contemporary Art with Just Another Human Experience.

The National Gallery of Ireland will continue their major Picasso: From the Studio exhibition, in collaboration with the Musée national Picasso-Paris, as well as an exhibition by French glassmaker Maurice Marinot entitled Maurice Marinot – On Paper, In Glass.

At the Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts you'll find A Walk in the Sublime by Niall Naessens.

Temple Bar Gallery+Studios will host an exhibition by Frank Sweeney entitled Go Ye Afar.

At Project Arts Centre, Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh will present his exhibition Vague Symptom Clinic

The LAB Gallery will host Snáithe, an exhibition by Sinéad Ní Mhaonaigh.

Sinéad Ní Mhaonaigh, Unseen Landscape No.3, oil on canvas, 120x120cm, 2024 - Clara McSweeney

The Guinness Storehouse, meanwhile, will reveal These Walls: Landmarks, a newly commissioned exhibition by Irish artists Hazel O’Sullivan and Niall de Buitléar, who have responded to Guinness’s archival content from the legendary ROSC exhibitions of 1984 and 1988, which were held at the Guinness Hopstore.

Dublin Gallery Weekend 2025 has also announced the DGW+ strand – welcoming more of Dublin’s galleries and their artists as part of this inclusive and diverse celebration of contemporary art.

These include:

• College Lane Gallery, Howth with Katherine Sankey’s Forest of Single Breaths
• Seamus Moran’s From Bauhaus to Baggot Street at the Europa Gallery, Chatham Street
• Colm Kaedy-Tabbal’s 21226827118 at The Complex on Arran Street East
• Vaida Varnagiene and Yoko Akino’s intaglio exhibition When We Believe at the Graphic Studio Gallery, Temple Bar
• Two exhibitions at the International Centre for the Image on North Wall: Cristina De Middel’s Journey to the Center and David Farrell’s Solastalgia
• Adrian O’Carroll’s Twice Awake at Oonagh Young Gallery on James Joyce Street
• Maija Tammi’s The Empathy Machine at Photo Museum Ireland in Temple Bar
• Gildas O Laoire and Mark Redden’s Lumen at TØN Gallery in Temple Bar.

Yoko Akino. Credit: Catherine O'Riordan

Dublin Gallery Weekend 2025 takes place from November 6–9. For more information – including the full programme, calendar of events, city maps and latest news – see dublingalleryweekend.ie