The Five Lamps Arts Festival is a creative encounter at the heart of an inner-city community. It takes place every spring in Dublin, Ireland’s capital city. The mission of the festival is to promote community development and social inclusion through the arts and to showcase the uniqueness of this geographic area to residents and to visitors.

The geographic location of the Festival centres around the ‘Five Lamps’ – a decorated lamp post with five lanterns dating from around 1880. The Five Lamps stand on an island at the junction of Portland Row, North Strand Road, Seville Place, Amiens Street and Killarney Street in Dublin’s north inner-city. Through the traditions and ambience of this historic location and community the Five Lamps Arts Festival celebrate all that is good about art, artists, performers and community. We are proud to include in our programme anyone with a story to tell and a venue willing to host them.

In 2015 there were 69 performances of 43 shows in 17 venues.

The Festival was established in 2007 as an initiative of Marino College of Further Education. The college is located beside the Five Lamps. Today the college is still heavily involved – funding, accommodation and personnel – but with the support of a large group of volunteers. State, city and philanthropic funding also support the festival. Thus, the Five Lamps Arts Festival is unique in bringing together the education sector and the voluntary sector to celebrate art, while also relying on other funding sources.

 

Today, the Five Lamps Arts Festival has five core objectives:

 

• To promote local artists, producers and venues.

• To develop local ownership of the festival by encouraging the involvement of individuals, groups, communities and businesses in aspects of its planning, presentation and evaluation.

• To work in partnership with key organisations at local, regional, national and international level to develop specific areas of the programme and explore the potential for collaboration and co-commissioning.

• To assist audiences who come to the Five Lamps by helping them to navigate what’s on offer with comprehensive, accurate and up-to-date information and ticketing.

• To promote this wonderful and unique festival within the community, and to the rest of Dublin and Ireland.