The 14th Dublin Festival of History opened across the capital on September 26, 2026, with more than 300 free public lectures, guided walks, and heritage discussions scheduled through October 11.
Organizers launched the annual event with a recommended reading list and specialized programming covering architectural tours, local social history, sports heritage, and major historical anniversaries at various Dublin venues.
Monuments and Public Engagement
A featured panel examines the history of urban monuments, focusing on the Anna Livia sculpture that was originally unveiled on O'Connell Street in 1988 before its 2011 relocation to Croppies Memorial Park.
"I think she kind of lives a half life in this current location.
People don't realise that she's actually kind of tucked away, like hidden in plain sight," said Aoife McCloughlin, Curator and Art Historian.
McCloughlin noted distinct differences in how the public interacts with ground-level female statues compared to male figures placed on high plinths throughout the city.
"I think it's very nuanced.
The kind of public engagement with the works, brings up the question whether public engagement can be seen as engagement or whether it could be seen as vandalism," she said.
Historical analysis offers a clearer analytical framework for evaluating public interactions with statues than dismissive labels, according to the art historian.
"When you look at the newspaper archives, things get dismissed as vandalism. It's good to take a step back and actually analyse what's happening here," McCloughlin said.
She distinguished between lighthearted traditional pranks and actions that cause actual physical degradation to public monuments.
"I would view putting the washing up liquid in the fountain as a positive form of public engagement, whereas touching the breasts of Molly Malone, I'd see that as a negative, it deteriorates the statue, so it could be considered a form of vandalism," she said.
Iveagh Trust Tenement Life and Broader Program
Festival attendees can also visit a preserved three-room flat inside the Iveagh Trust housing estate, which resident Nellie Molloy occupied from 1915 until 2002.
"My favourite room was the parents' bedroom, it doubled as an eating area and cooking area.
There was a curtain over the bed that they pulled, just to hide off that it was actually a bedroom.
The cooker would have heated up the flat as well," said Ray Woods, Former Estate Manager with the Iveagh Trust.
Relocating to the three-room apartment offered families significant relief from the severe overcrowding typical of tenement housing during that period.
"This was luxury. There were three rooms.
When you consider that there were 26,000 people in the tenements, 20,000 families, up to 13 people lived in one room, so coming into this would have been luxury.
They were delighted. They had come from one room across the hall," Woods said.
The location provided residents with a direct view of historical transformations taking place along Patrick Street over several decades.
"The modern history of Ireland from the formation of the State is pretty much encapsulated in what went out on outside those windows from during the 1916 Rising and the War of Independence and the Civil War all went on out on Patrick Street.
It was a mirror to the world. That's why Nellie loved it here.
She never moved, never wanted to move, never wanted a thing changed in the flats. She loved it," Woods said.
Programmers designed the schedule to ensure wide accessibility across literature, architectural heritage, and local communities.
"There are more than 300 events in it.
Lots of the talks are about big anniversaries, there's great ones this year, such as 300 years since Gulliver's Travels was published, but also local history, social history, national and international history.
There's something in the program for everyone," said Donal Fallon, Social Historian and Programmer with the Dublin Festival of History.
Sports heritage represents another key element, including a session at Cabra Library bringing together historians from four Dublin-based League of Ireland football clubs.
"We have the four historians from each of the Dublin League of Ireland clubs in the same room at the same time, up in Cabra Library.
We also have to remind ourselves that sport is our own living history and our own living memory," Fallon said.
Architectural tours provide the public with access to locations that are normally restricted year-round.
"We have talks on architectural history. In 14 Henrietta Street there's a talk on Christy Brown.
We have tours that bring you into places that you'd never get into.
That's really important to me to open up the doors of the city to people," Fallon said.
Additional cultural offerings in Dublin this autumn include MusicTown 2026 honoring Phil Lynott from September 28 to October 4, Ireland Music Week featuring 50 acts from September 30 to October 2, and chamber choir New Dublin Voices' European tour beginning October 27 in Warsaw.
