Culture Night at the NLI

National Library of Ireland – 7/8 Kildare Street

In Kildare Street, our doors will be open from 5pm – 9pm and everyone is welcome. Wander in through the hall to view the beautiful reading room which will be open through the evening, view the Lego model of the library and enjoy musical performances. 

The Dublin Bach Singers will perform a selection of joyful and atmospheric works at 7.15 and at 8.15pm.

YEATS: The Life and Works of William Butler Yeats – 7/8 Kildare Street

Our Yeats exhibition will be open in the main building on Kildare Street until 5pm - 9pm.

Sit awhile and listen to some of the poet’s best loved poems and stroll through the exhibition exploring the many interests of WB Yeats: Ireland, literature, folklore, theatre, politics, the occult – and his significant influence on modern Irish cultural identity.

Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again – Bank of Ireland Cultural and Heritage Centre at College Green – entrance via Westmoreland Street. 5pm - 9pm.

Enjoy a self-guided, ‘after-hours’ tour on Culture Night. Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again draws on the National Library’s extensive archive of Heaney documents to bring the visitor on a multi-sensory journey from the poet’s humble origins through his remarkable career.

Don’t miss Le Grá; Seamus, a temporary new display of the Des and Mary Kavanagh Postcard Collection, a selection of postcards Seamus Heaney and his wife Marie sent to their friends Des and Mary Kavanagh over many decades. The correspondence show Seamus Heaney: funny, brilliant, kind and taking a deep pleasure in life and language.

Exhibition | People & Places: Ireland in 19th & 20th Centuries – National Photographic Archive, Meeting House Square, Temple Bar, Dublin 2, D02 WF85. Opening 5pm - 9pm.

Look back through the camera lens at 150 years of life in Ireland in images selected from some of our most popular photographic collections.

The National Library of Ireland holds over five million photographs in our collections, and they create a unique and fascinating record of life in Ireland.

This exhibition showcases 50 of those photographs, revealing the people and places of the island of Ireland from the 1850s to the turn of the 21st century in images.

For more information regarding accessibility in our buildings please see here.