“We need a city we can sing in”: Meet the musician leading Dublin’s fight for its grassroots venues

Sixteen musicians sit shoulder-to-shoulder in a corner beneath framed photos of those who have sat here before. A young uilleann piper begins to play—one arm pumping the bellows, the other working the airbag, fingers dancing across the chanter, tapping it against his thigh to reach the high notes.

Around the room, first-timers are easy to spot—mouths open, trying to work out how the hell he’s making it look so effortless. Fiddles and flutes join in as feet begin tapping the wooden floor, sending cold pints of Guinness trembling on tables.

As a full-time house sitter, I don’t have a ‘local’; no familiar place to go that feels like home. But whenever I’m in Dublin, I know I’ll find it at The Cobblestone. Tom Mulligan took over the pub in the late 1980s to carry on his father’s legacy and keep traditional Irish music alive. With no TV, pool table, or food, this ‘drinking pub with a music problem’, as it calls itself, runs multiple daily ‘trad’ sessions that draw musicians and visitors from around the world, while its back room hosts Irish language lessons, dance classes, and music meet-ups.

But in October 2021, the landmark pub was threatened by a development proposal to demolish the majority of the building for a nine-storey hotel. Thanks to over 35,000 people signing a petition and hundreds marching along the River Liffey, Dublin City Council rejected the plan on the grounds that it would be detrimental to Irish culture. But other places have not been so fortunate.

According to Ireland’s Labor Party, the political wing of the Irish trade union movement, at least 52 arts venues have closed in the Irish capital over the past two decades, with similar pressures in cities around the world as rising rents, aggressive redevelopment, and lack of cultural infrastructure continue to displace undervalued grassroots venues.

One voice that stands out in Dublin’s fight to protect these spaces is 36-year-old Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin, a musician, activist and then-candidate for eco-socialist People Before Profit party in an upcoming local election (subsequently won by the Social Democrats). But I’d come to meet him on the campaign trail to talk about what happens when we lose these spaces, and what can be done to save them.

“Human beings are innately creative and we don’t get a chance under capitalism to fulfill our full creative potential.”

- Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin, musician and activist

Dame Court is packed with protesters wrapped in winter coats when I arrive one February evening. To my left, a DJ hunches over their decks beneath a white gazebo, slick with drizzle. To my right, moving lights play across the wall of The Hoxton hotel, where a man stands at his second-floor window buttoning his white shirt while swaying to the bass pumping up from the pavement.

Protesters spot him and cheer, hoisting their signs a little higher. He raises his arms, surrendering to the music and smiles—possibly unaware the protest is aimed at the very building housing him. Ó Ceannabháin takes the mic: “We need a city we can live in! We need a city we can sing in! We need a city we can dance in!” The crowd erupts.

Tonight’s demonstration was organized by Dublin’s grassroots DJ community. Many of them are regulars at Yamamori Izakaya, an independent restaurant and nightclub on lively South Great George’s Street in Dublin’s Creative Quarter that’s facing a High Court injunction from its new neighbor, The Hoxton hotel, over a noise complaint.

“So many of us are paying exorbitant rents and are stuck at home while [the government] are prioritizing the profits of corporate landlords and big vulture funds,” Ó Ceannabháin tells the crowd. “The same model for developing the city is impacting on our cultural space and the things we need to breathe.”

Ó Ceannabháin got into politics around 2015 to fight for a society where not only basic needs are met, but where people can live fuller, more expressive lives. “Human beings are innately creative,” he tells me later, on a call, “and we don’t get a chance under capitalism to fulfill our full creative potential.”

When campaigning, he speaks with such passionate, emphatic gestures that followers on Instagram have started wondering if he’s Italian. But when he sings, all of that falls away. I see it for myself a few months later, when I join supporters at The Cobblestone for a campaign céilí—a traditional Irish gathering of music, dancing and singing. Sitting with his eyes closed and a concertina resting in his upturned palms, he sings Where Oh Where Is Our James Connolly?, a rebel ballad about the Dublin trade union leader who fought for a fairer city for ordinary people.

Dublin has produced an extraordinary number of writers, musicians and artists, from James Joyce and Oscar Wilde to The Dubliners and Sinéad O’Connor. And creative industries still account for 8.9 percent of national employment in Ireland, the second highest in the EU.

But before songs reach stages or productions open in theaters, they’re usually shaped in back rooms, scrappy studios and grassroots venues, where artists can refine their work. These spaces often sit on short-term or ‘meanwhile’ leases, making them vulnerable whenever the market shifts in favor of redevelopment.

The frustration in Fielding’s voice is palpable when I ask what happens to a city that keeps losing spaces like this. “I suppose in the end, it will become a place of no destination.”

But these spaces are crucial to the cultural pipeline. Lose them and the talent feeding bigger venues dries up, the culture visitors come for begins to hollow out, and locals lose places for community that can’t easily be replaced. “Politicians love jumping into photos at events with artists,” Ó Ceannabháin tells me, “but if it’s not producing profit, it’s not deemed valuable and they’re just not going to fund it.”

BAFTA-winning Irish actor Paul Mescal has voiced the same frustration. In an interview with lovedublin, he recalls his time at drama school and feeling angry about the institutions they were knocking down. “We have such brilliant artists in this country,” he told them, “and I don’t feel like we can cultivate the kind of talent that’s here that’s beneficial to the industry.”

For Ó Ceannabháin, ordinary people are a powerful force in this fight. While tourists can support local culture by voting with their money, change can start at home, he says. “Depending on where you are, you probably have a lot of the same issues. Try to build up a network and a community to fight those things.”

He points to Ireland’s Basic Income for the Arts as proof that pressure can force change. Launched as a pilot in 2022 and made permanent in 2026, it gives 2,000 eligible artists EUR€325 (USD$370) a week and is the world’s first scheme of its kind. While Ó Ceannabháin sees it as a victory, he thinks it should reach more people. “If you introduce a pilot program that works, you should expand it to everyone who’s eligible. But it’s still a good thing.” Dublin City Council is also restoring some buildings for artist studios, and multiple new developments are required to include five percent as cultural use. Yet the closure of The Complex, in Dublin’s north inner city, shows how far there is still to go.

Repurposed from a former banana-ripening unit, this multidisciplinary arts center—with 18 studios, a performance space, gallery and 50-seat jazz club—closed in January 2026 when its landlord decided to sell. “It was a rare space in Dublin where you could conceive a project in a studio, rehearse and perform it all in one space,” founder Vanessa Fielding tells me over the phone.

While Dublin City Council backed her plan for The Complex to form part of the redevelopment, more than 16,500 people signed a petition, and Ó Ceannabháin led a protest, it couldn’t be saved. Ultimately, there was no mechanism for the State to buy the building for cultural use unless it qualifies as national heritage. The frustration in Fielding’s voice is palpable when I ask what happens to a city that keeps losing spaces like this. “I suppose in the end, it will become a place of no destination.”

Curious about what support may lie ahead, I reached out to the Government of Ireland’s Department of Culture, Communications and Sport. A spokesperson said “support for artists is at record levels,” and a new mystery “capital support scheme which will support wider participation in the arts,” should be announced in the coming weeks. Whether it will be enough remains to be seen. However, a report from the Arts Council of Ireland (An Chomhairle Ealaíon) says, “despite significant recent increases, it is not in line with EU averages or able to keep pace with rising costs.”

Back at The Cobblestone, the céilí is in full swing. “I don’t know what I’m doing!” I laugh. “No-one does!” says musician Chris Marron, grabbing my hands and pulling me into line as a dance caller talks us through the steps of Shoe the Donkey.

​It’s been almost five years since the community saved this back room from demolition, but the venue remains somewhat vulnerable as Mulligan still rents the property from a private landlord. “I don’t know where it’s going to end up,” he tells me, “but one thing that has always kept me going is optimism.”

That optimism is something Ó Ceannabháin shares. When I ask if he would ever give up, he doesn’t hesitate. “I don’t think there’s any option to give up. The fact that people all over the world are making art and music and beautiful things under these difficult circumstances is a demonstration of what it is to be human. We have to fight for that, and fight for more space for it.”

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