Temple Bar TradFest

The Temple Bar TradFest is an annual five-day festival dedicated to Irish music and culture. It is held in the last week of January in the Temple Bar area of Dublin, Ireland. The main goal of the festival is to promote Irish musical tradition among a wide audience of locals and tourists.

Temple Bar is one of Dublin’s oldest district. It is located in the very heart of Dublin on the south bank of the River Liffy. Temple Bar is promoted as the cultural quarter of Ireland’s capital. The government even set up a non-profit company called Temple Bar Properties to oversee the area’s cultural events. In 2003, Traders in the Area Supporting the Cultural Quarter Limited, now known as the Temple Bar Company, was founded to manage the quarter’s events. Since then, the Temple Bar Company has been organizing a number of cultural festivals including the Temple Bar TradFest.

The Temple Bar TradFest was founded in 2006 to popularize traditional Irish music and to promote Temple Bar as the cultural quarter of Dublin. Over the next ten years, what started as a small-scale niche event has grown to become the largest festival of traditional music in Ireland. Alongside the folk music of Ireland, the program of the Temple Bar TradFest features folk rock, nu-folk, indie folk, punk rock, rock and roll, and other genres.

The festival’s concerts are held in various venues across Dublin, including Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, St. Michan’s Church, St. Werburgh’s Church, Dublin Castle, Dublin City Hall, the Button Factory. Besides musical performances in the venues with a considerable seating capacity, there are more intimate performances known as Front Row Sessions held in local pubs and bars.

The Temple Bar TradFest is a family-friendly event, its program incudes events and activities for people of all ages such as workshops, exhibitions, cinema screenings, etc. The five days of the festival feature around 200 concerts and other events including jam sessions, ceilidhs (traditional Celtic social gatherings with folk music and dancing), pipe bands, street performers, Irish dance shows, and more.

Each edition of the festival features artists from all over Ireland as well as representatives of the Irish diaspora in other countries. Past performers at the Temple Bar TradFest include Billy Bragg, Turin Brakes, Altan, Four Men and a Dog, Moya Brennan, Cormac De Barra, Shaoron Shannon, Sweeney’s Men, The Undertones, Mick Flannery, and others. Irish actor Stephen Rea has been the festival patron since 2008.