What's On in Dublin

Hosted by the RDS for over 150 years, the Dublin Horse Show is one of the most prestigious fixtures in the equestrian and social calendar. The 2026 show is a landmark one: the Nations’ Cup of Ireland — the famous Aga Khan Trophy, contested by international teams on the Friday — celebrates its 100th anniversary, and the week also features a €1 million Rolex Grand Prix alongside national showing and performance classes across the rings.

It is far from a horses-only affair. Ladies’ Day on Thursday brings the fashion crowd out in force, more than 350 exhibitors fill the shopping village, and there are dedicated kids’ zones and family entertainment throughout the grounds.

Children aged four and under go free, and family tickets cover the outer rings and Kids Zone (Main Arena seating is separate). Book through the official site, and consider public transport — parking near Ballsbridge is limited and pre-booked.

Big Grill turns Herbert Park into a haze of woodsmoke each August, gathering Irish and international chefs, restaurants and barbecue specialists to cook over live fire. The dishes are created for the festival and available only on site, which is a large part of the draw — this is a chance to eat things you won’t find on any Dublin menu the rest of the year.

Beyond the food there are local craft breweries, cocktail bars, live music and DJs, and an interactive stage where you can pick up techniques for grilling, smoking, marinating and butchery. A kids’ area keeps it workable as a family day out, particularly during the daytime weekend sessions.

Entry runs in timed sessions — evening slots on Thursday and Friday, with fuller day sessions on Saturday and Sunday — so check times when booking through the festival website. The park is a short hop from the city centre in Ballsbridge.

Dublin Fringe is the city’s festival of the new: a curated, multidisciplinary programme of contemporary work by Irish and international artists, staged in theatres, unexpected spaces and venues all over the city for just over two weeks in September. Expect form-busting theatre, dance, immersive installations and full-on party nights rather than safe revivals — the festival exists to give artists room for risk, and the programme reads that way.

For visitors it is one of the best windows into what Irish performance looks like right now, and because shows are short and cheap relative to main-stage theatre, it rewards taking a chance on two or three things in an evening.

Booking runs through the festival box office, and the festival publishes an access and affordability guide covering discounted tickets and accessible performances. It leads neatly into Dublin Theatre Festival, which starts the following week.

Airfield Estate, the working urban farm and gardens in Dundrum, holds its annual Harvest Festival over the weekend of 12–13 September 2026, from 9:30am to 6:30pm each day. Sometimes described as Dublin’s answer to the Ploughing, it is a celebration of farming, food and the changing season pitched firmly at families.

There is a full day of hands-on activities and live demonstrations for young explorers: farmyard inflatables, face-painting, milk tasting, craft sessions and educational workshops, with puppet shows on the Saturday and farm sensory play on the Sunday. A farmers’ market on Saturday sells fresh produce and artisan goods, and there is country music and line dancing to keep everyone on their feet.

Tickets are €15 for adults and €8 for children, with family tickets from €36.50; members and children aged two and under go free. Parking on site is limited and first-come, so the estate encourages visitors to cycle or travel by public transport.

The Irish Champions Festival is Irish flat racing’s championship weekend, and Leopardstown hosts its opening day on Saturday 12 September 2026. It is the meeting the autumn calendar builds towards: the season’s leading horses, trainers and jockeys converge on the Foxrock track for a card headed by the Irish Champion Stakes, one of Europe’s defining middle-distance races.

The festival then moves west for day two at the Curragh in County Kildare, where four Group 1 races including the Irish St Leger close the weekend — so a two-day trip covering both legs is very doable, with Leopardstown just south of Dublin city and the Curragh under an hour away.

Book through the racecourse’s official site, and expect Saturday to be one of Leopardstown’s biggest crowds of the year.

For one Friday evening each September, Dublin’s cultural life throws its doors open for free. Culture Night began in Temple Bar in 2006 with 40 venues and has since grown into an all-island celebration, but Dublin remains its heartland: major institutions, independent studios, galleries, historic buildings and venues of every size extend their hours and lay on special programming, all of it free of charge.

The pleasure of the night is its openness — wandering into buildings you pass every day and never enter, catching performances in unlikely corners, and following the crowds from one venue to the next as the evening goes on.

Everything is free by design, though some venues accept donations. The full Dublin programme is published on the Culture Night website closer to the night; the city centre gets busy, so plan a loose route around two or three must-sees and improvise the rest.

Europe’s oldest theatre festival of its kind, Dublin Theatre Festival brings world premieres, international productions and major Irish work to stages across the city for eighteen days each autumn. The 2026 programme is headlined by the world premiere of Radio Bette at the Gaiety Theatre, starring Academy Award nominee Ruth Negga, with productions spread across the Abbey, the Gate, Project Arts Centre, Smock Alley, the Samuel Beckett Theatre and venues as far out as the National Botanic Gardens and Draíocht in Blanchardstown.

Where the Fringe earlier in September is about emerging work, this is the main event: big houses, big names and the year’s most anticipated Irish premieres alongside touring international productions.

Tickets go on general sale on 29 July at noon, and the most anticipated shows have limited runs — book early rather than chancing it on the door. Many performances offer ISL interpretation, audio description, captioning or relaxed staging.

Now in its fourteenth year, the Dublin Festival of History is Dublin City Council’s free celebration of history in all its forms, organised through Dublin City Libraries. Over two autumn weeks it draws best-selling Irish and international historians to the city for a high-profile programme of talks and debate, aiming to put a fresh perspective on history and why it matters in everyday life.

Events run in venues across the city, and the festival builds to its Big Weekend of headline talks in the Round Room at the Mansion House, the Lord Mayor’s residence on Dawson Street.

Everything is free, which makes it an easy add-on to an autumn city break: check the programme on the festival website and drop into whatever coincides with your visit. Headline talks are popular, so arrive in good time.

For nine days each October, Open House Dublin unlocks the city. The Irish Architecture Foundation’s flagship festival puts on more than 200 free events celebrating architecture and urban design — guided tours of buildings that are normally closed to the public, alongside talks, walks and workshops led by the people who design and make the built city. The 2026 edition runs under the theme “People, Place, Perspectives”.

It is a rare chance to get past the front door of private homes, government buildings, historic landmarks and new architectural set-pieces, with architects and owners often doing the showing themselves. For anyone curious about how Dublin actually works as a city, it is the best week of the year to visit.

Everything is free, but places on the popular tours are limited — browse the programme and book through the Open House Dublin website once listings go live.

Every October bank holiday weekend, Dublin celebrates its most gothic son. The Bram Stoker Festival — now one of the city’s largest arts festivals — promises four days and nights of “deadly adventures” celebrating the supernatural, the Victorian and the after-dark, drawing on the Dracula author’s life in the city and the buildings that fed his imagination, from Trinity College to Dublin Castle.

Past editions have filled cathedrals, parks and libraries with outdoor spectacle, theatre, film, circus, comedy and choral events, while Stokerland lays on discos, workshops, face-painting and performances for younger ghouls — this is very much a festival for families as well as horror devotees. Dressing up is positively encouraged.

The programme mixes free and ticketed events, with full 2026 details to come on the festival website. It shares the weekend with the Dublin Marathon, so book accommodation well ahead.

On the Sunday of the October bank holiday weekend, tens of thousands of runners take over Dublin for what’s often called “the friendly marathon” — a nickname earned by the crowds who line the full 26.2 miles to cheer complete strangers home. Entries for 2026 are long since allocated by ballot and sold out, so for visitors this is a spectator event: one of the best free days of atmosphere in the Dublin calendar.

The course starts near St Stephen’s Green and takes in an unusually scenic sweep of the city — the historic Liberties and St Patrick’s Cathedral, Phoenix Park past Dublin Zoo, Kilmainham and the villages of the southside before finishing back among the Georgian streets near Merrion Square. Phoenix Park and Castleknock are known for big support and music.

Expect widespread road closures across the city centre all morning — plan to walk or use public transport, and pick two or three vantage points rather than chasing the race around town.

Dublin Book Festival celebrates a milestone in 2026: twenty years of championing Irish writing and publishing. The anniversary edition brings over 200 writers and artists together for more than 100 events across five November days — authors in conversation about their latest books, panel discussions on pressing issues of the day, literary walking tours, poetry events, book launches, writing workshops and special anniversary events.

The festival hub sits at the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM) in the city centre, with drop-in activities from bookshop browsing and craft stations to family treasure hunts, plus author signings through the festival.

It is a well-pitched festival for visitors: events are scattered through venues across the city centre, and the weekend brings a full programme of free family events. Check the programme and book through the festival website.

The Gaiety Theatre has staged a Christmas pantomime every year since 1873, and for generations of Dublin families a trip to the panto is as much a part of the season as Santa himself. The 2026 show is Robin Hood, running from 22 November 2026 to 3 January 2027 on South King Street.

Expect the usual Gaiety mix of swashbuckling spectacle, slapstick and sing-alongs, as Robin and his band of rebels get the better of the dastardly Sheriff of Snottingham and he finds true love with the feisty Maid Marian. It is broad, warm-hearted fun aimed squarely at families, with plenty for adults to enjoy too. Do note the production uses flashing lights, loud noises and pyrotechnics.

Tickets start from €23, with discounts for groups of ten or more. Across the city the 3Olympia Theatre runs its own big Christmas panto, so there is more than one to choose from. School-holiday performances sell quickly, so book ahead.

The Leopardstown Christmas Festival is the centrepiece of Irish racing’s festive season: four days of jump racing from St Stephen’s Day through to 29 December, featuring some of the highest-quality National Hunt action anywhere in the world. A clutch of Grade 1 contests — headlined by the Savills Chase over three miles — draws the elite horses from Ireland and Britain, and form here is studied closely as a pointer towards Cheltenham in March.

It is as much a Dublin Christmas tradition as a sporting fixture, with aggregate crowds of more than 50,000 across the four days and live music and style awards alongside the racing.

Leopardstown sits in Foxrock, about ten kilometres south of the city centre, and is easy to reach by Dublin Bus or the Luas Green Line to Sandyford. Tickets and multi-day packages are sold through the Leopardstown website — St Stephen’s Day in particular is popular, so book ahead.

TradFest is Ireland’s largest festival of traditional and folk music, and it makes a virtue of its setting: concerts are staged in some of Dublin’s most atmospheric buildings, including Dublin Castle and St Patrick’s Cathedral, with further events spread across Fingal, South Dublin and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. Hearing traditional music in buildings like these rather than in an arena is what sets it apart.

Around the headline concerts, Temple Bar’s pubs and hotels host free sessions, so you can dip into the festival without a ticket and follow the music from door to door.

Late January is low season in Dublin — accommodation is cheaper and the city is quiet — which makes TradFest a clever excuse for a winter break. The line-up is announced in stages; sign up on the festival website for early access to ticket and artist announcements.

Each June bank holiday weekend the Phoenix Park is given over to Bord Bia Bloom, Ireland’s biggest celebration of gardening, food and sustainable living. The 2027 edition — the festival’s 21st — runs from Thursday 3 to Monday 7 June across a 70-acre site, with around twenty show gardens designed by leading horticulturalists at its heart.

It is much more than a gardening show. A large food hall gathers Irish producers, chefs cook on the demonstration stages, and there are on-site restaurants, food trucks, a nursery village selling plants, an Irish craft village and live music throughout the day.

Families are well catered for: the Budding Bloomers area runs story time and hands-on workshops for younger children, from sowing seeds to simple crafts, so there is plenty to keep little ones busy while the grown-ups browse. The park has no on-site parking for visitors, so leave the car at home and take public transport or one of the festival shuttle services.