MICHAEL McDERMOTT and CIARAN WALSH, the publisher and editor (respectively) of online events guide Le Cool Dublin
What is Le Cool? Michael: It’s a selective cultural guide. We’re on the side of the underdog: pop-ups, art collectives, DIY initiatives, people who are trying to get innovative ideas off the ground.
Ciaran: People say there’s nothing happening in Dublin. We figured if they knew how much was going on, they’d be more likely to get involved.
How is morale among the creative community these days? Ciaran: There’s a real can-do spirit about the place. If you’ve got a good idea, you go for it. A lot of free spaces are opening up, a lot of people are losing their jobs and deciding now is the time to be the artist they always wanted to be. No one is making money anyway, so there’s no pressure on that front.
How do people pay their bills? Ciaran: That’s a good question. A lot of people would be on the scratch [drawing the dole]. They mightn’t like to admit it, but it does help.
Michael: I think people are more conscious of cutting the cloth to their measure. Where once you’d have splashed out 40 quid on a couple of rounds of drinks, people are now paying a fiver in to places like Block T, where you can bring your own booze.
What’s been the most inventive artistic response you’ve seen to the present crisis? Michael: Probably Upstart. During an election campaign, it’s permissible to put posters on lampposts across the city. What the Upstart guys realised was that it wasn’t just politicians who could take advantage of this. They called for submissions from the whole panoply of creative people in the city – photographers, graphic designers, illustrators, topographers. Some were political, others humorous. It was a great way for artists to be part of the political process. But on their own terms.
What has been the biggest blow to the cultural life of the city? Ciaran: The closure of the Lighthouse cinema has been a huge loss.
Michael: Primarily because it’s an amazing building of an international standard, somewhere anyone would be proud to showcase their work. Who knows, the Dublin Film Festival might take it over. The IFI might do something. But it is imperative that space does not go empty.
When the new Cabinet was announced, some people were quite sniffy about the fact that the incoming Minister for Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht Affairs was a former Gaelic footballer.
Michael: Yes, but to counterbalance that, I do know he also has made documentaries too. I’m not sure what they were about? The GAA possibly. (laughs)
To counterbalance what though? Is there something wrong with playing Gaelic football?
Michael: Nothing, I suppose I mean that in the last few years we’ve had five different ministers with responsibility for the arts. And they’ve had varying degrees of interest in the brief. So it’s more about wanting consistency.
What are the cultural highlights of the summer ahead? Ciaran: Le Cool’s second anniversary party is on August 12th. It’s an exhibition of all the covers we’ve done so far. We’ve had everyone from students to people like Sean Hillen design covers. No one has ever said no. We’re really looking forward to that. It’ll be the first time we get to hang out with our readers.
Michael: “Hang out with our readers?” That sounds so pathetic!
I’d have said “sleazy” myself. Michael: Yeah, what are we? A rock band? It’s going to be in the Royal Hibernian Academy, which is a beautiful gallery space just off Ely Place, and everyone should come.
Aside from your own do, what will be the other cultural highlights of the summer in Dublin?
Michael: Ach, newspapers do this all the time: best movie of the summer. Best festival of the summer. Obviously, there are the big guns like the Absolut Fringe, Dublin Contemporary, the PhotoIreland Festival. But I think the city’s best cultural offerings are the small little places where you end up, the novel ideas that pop up, the surprise of taking a punt on something and enjoying it.
Hipsters . . . you know but you’re not telling me.
Ciaran: Exactly, it’s a bring-your-own-booze party in the basement of a Nama building no one knows about.
Michael: Yeah, Grace Jones will turn up half way through . . . and steal all your booze!
dublin.lecool.com