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Parenting

17th Apr 2017

Cruinniú na Cásca celebrates Easter Monday with free family events

Alison Bough

Cruinniú na Cásca, a Creative Ireland initiative, want you to get together and dance, eat, sing and play (for free) to celebrate Easter Monday. Yippee! Events take place in Dublin City Centre and around the country from 11am-6pm today.

All of today’s music, performance and orchestral events are free, but organisers say that some talks, film-screenings, autism-friendly workshops and coding workshops should be pre-booked to secure a place. The fifty-plus talks cover themes ranging from arts and culture to creativity and social inclusion. Free tickets and information are available online or search for #cruinniu across @rte and @creativeirl on Twitter, as well as @rte on Facebook.

Here are HerFamily’s festival family highlights in the capital :

St. Stephen’s Green

  • Orchestra Stage: RTÉ Concert Orchestra, Lisa Lambe, Hot House Flowers
  • Summerhouse: Curated by Poetry Ireland and The Ark
  • Band Stand: Masamba Samba Dance, Gloria Dublin’s Lesbian and Gay Choir, Elvé Lithuanian Choir
  • Imaginosity: Interactive playground
  • Craft Zone: Workshops including the Travelling & Polish communities and more
  • Indoor farming and environmental workshops with Cre8 Sustainability
  • Afro Éire West African Drumming
  • Fuinneamh Giant Drum
  • Sensory workshops for children with autism
  • Learnit LEGO Zone

RTÉ Radio 1’s Arena will broadcast live from the orchestra stage from 11am – 1pm.

Dublin Castle

  • Upper Courtyard Stage: Crash Ensemble, Slow Moving Clouds, Landless
  • Indoor Venues: Series of talks and panel discussions on Cultural Reflection
  • Workshops on programming, app inventing, game development
  • DCCOI demonstrations in felt-making, ceramics and more
  • Dublin Library Bus

Smithfield Square

  • RTÉ 2fm Band Stage: Loah, Soulé, The Academic, Booka Brass
  • Lighthouse Cinema: Screenings of some of the best of Irish film
  • Robot workshops
  • Improvised duets for humans and machines
  • Slam poetry with Colm Keegan and more
  • DJ and scratching workshops with RTÉ Pulse
  • Illustration workshops with Laureate na nÓg, PJ Lynch
  • Film, TV and radio production workshops with RTÉ, Bowsie Workshops and Screen Training Ireland

The RTÉ 2fm Roadcaster will broadcast live from 10am – 6pm, with live music and interviews with the acts. RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta will broadcast a special edition of arts programme An Cheárta focusing on traditional music live from the Generator Hostel from 4 – 5pm.

Custom House Quay

  • Custom House Stage: Céilí Mór
  • Dance Zone: Tango Fiesta, Bollywood Beats, Tribal Bellydancers, Chinese Dance, West African Dance
  • Picnic Area: Puppets, magic, face-painting and family entertainment
  • Traditional music workshops
  • Food village
  • 3D street art
  • Dublin Fire Brigade Pipe Band
  • Carousel and family attraction in garden area.
  • San Patricio Mariachi Band

RTÉ Radio 1’s Arena will broadcast live from the orchestra stage from 11am – 1pm with a further recorded Cruinniú na Cásca special at 7pm

RTÉ Radio 1’s ‘LIVELINE – 1917’ with Joe Duffy will broadcast live from the stage from 1.30 – 3pm.

Cork

At 12pm today, the renowned military re-enactment group, The Pards, will put on a ‘firing through the ages’ display consisting of a small camp display and a blank firing display of match lock, flint and percussion muskets. This military history event is being held in Ireland’s largest industrial heritage site, the Ballincollig Gunpowder Mills.

A number of other events are also taking place all over Cork and you can check the details here.

Join the conversation on Twitter @HerFamilyDotie