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*In this brand-new series, journalist and spoken word artist Cormac Fitzgerald travels to a different town or suburb each week to cover the gigs and cultural experiences you rarely see covered by Irish media outlets. *

This week’s subject: A Monday night in The International Bar in Dublin.

THE FIRST TIME I performed spoken word poetry was at an open mic night in the basement of The International Bar on Wicklow Street, Dublin City, on a Monday night in March 2013.

I was 23 years old.

The night in question was The Monday Echo, run by the musician Aidan Murphy. It was an ‘anything goes’ open mic, where people could take to the stage to perform poetry, play music, sing a song, recite a monologue, or do whatever else they might have felt like doing in five minutes or under.

I had been going regularly to ‘The Echo’ for about a month before I finally found the courage to write and perform my own piece.

After three pints on the Monday in question my name was called out and I stood up, heart thumping in my chest, body shaking, and rushed and stumbled through my first spoken word poem. The crowd clapped, I sat back down, the next performer took to the stage.

I didn’t know it then, but that was the first step on a long and winding path that would come to define my life. From that point on, I would make and lose great friends, collaborate with amazing artists, spend many late nights out, and make half a career out of standing on stages and shouting.

And it all began in a dingy low-lit basement of a pub on a random Monday night in the centre of Dublin.

It is with this in mind that I arrive at number 23 Wicklow Street on a sunny Monday evening in August. I haven’t been back to The International in a while, and I want to see how things are going these days. Is it the same sort of buzz or, like everything else since 2013, has it all changed beyond recognition?

Sitting on an intersection of streets in south side of the city, at the edge of Dublin’s trendy so-called ‘Creative Quarter’, The International is one of Dublin’s oldest family-run pubs.

The current owners – brothers John and James – are the sixth generation of Donohoes to operate the establishment. For decades the pub has been a hub for the city’s underground cultural and creative life. It even gets a mention in James Joyce’s Ulysses.

On any given week across the old pub’s three floors, there could be jazz sessions, music jams, live theatre, open mic events, as well as live comedy every night.

Damien Dempsey used to run a music session here on Sunday afternoons, and many of Ireland’s leading spoken word poets got their start at nights in The International.

“We’ve always done music and the arts. It’s a small pub and people need small venues starting out,” says James Donohoe, one of the owners.

“If there’s a room there you might as well fill it”

When I arrive at about 6.45pm, a crowd of mostly younger people is already forming at the doors to get into the basement for the Cheeky Monkey Comedy Club.

Started in 2022, Cheeky Monkey is one of the latest in a long, long line of comedy nights to be held in the pub. The iconic Comedy Cellar was first held here in the basement in 1988. It would go on to kickstart the careers of many well-known Irish comedians, and still runs every Wednesday.

This evening, Cheeky Monkey kicks off at 7pm sharp, and close to 50 people pile into the small basement. Whoever wants it gets five minutes on the stage to try to make the crowd laugh.

I squeeze into a corner to see how they get on.

The first eight comics up are a diverse mix of nationalities, genders and styles. A visiting Japanese man rants about how the quiet, polite Japanese are screaming in rage on the inside; another man jokes about puking after a night out.

As with all open mic nights, the jokes are hit-and-miss, but the enthusiasm of the crowd, hosts and organisers are infectious. There is a sense of positivity and community in the room, and I get the feeling that most comedians are here every week.

“People have been performing here together for four years,” one of the club’s founders Tadhg Rubio Owens tells me.

And it’s not just about people performing anymore, it’s about people having a laugh, making friends and groups, and people helping each other get better at comedy.

“We average about 25 to 30 comedians a night,” says Róisín Nic Gabhann, another of the club’s organisers.

There are so many people who want to do it, and we’ve so many regulars now we can’t say no to.

With the comedy still going on downstairs, I head up two levels to the top floor just before 8pm as The Circle Sessions open mic night kicks off.

The Circle Sessions started in 2013 and was later the successor to The Monday Echo, where I got my start. The Monday Echo itself continued on from The Glór Sessions, which was hosted by the now well-known poet Stephen James Smith. The Glór took over from another night that was held during the 2000s, and so on, and so on, stretching back decades.

Two young new hosts – Tadhg Horan and Hans Köhn – are overseeing proceedings tonight. The Circle Sessions has been run by a mix of people over the years. Seamus Bradley – here tonight as a performer – was involved for a long time before stepping back earlier this year. How would he describe the event?

“It’s an open mic without a mic,” he says.

“But… I think the no mic part is also about having no barriers.

So there’s a lot of open mics and a lot of different opportunities to perform and we try to make it the one where you don’t need anything except yourself and your idea and you can get up on the stage and do something.

In the time I am there this evening, there is a widely diverse range of poetry, music and song on themes of heartbreak, the need for political action, anger at the establishment, body image, self-actualisation, and more.

One young performer is Eimear Carolan from Celbridge, Co Kildare. She has been coming to the Circles for just six weeks and is full of enthusiasm for the night and the organisers. She takes to the stage after three poets in a row and resets the mood with a beautiful instrumental on the house keyboard which gets a big round of applause from the crowd.

Carolan tells me she started playing music three years ago.

“I never really had the intention of writing songs and then when you start learning how to play I couldn’t help it, you know?

The young performer played an extended ‘feature’ set on her third outing at the venue.

“I got such a buzz, I was so happy. It gave me a lot of confidence to get the longer set,” she says.

Her dream is to become a professional musician in the future, and she says she’ll continue performing and working to make that happen.

At the other end of the scale, seasoned veteran Barry Currivan has been coming to the Circles since 2017 or so. A legendary poet on the scene, Currivan performs clever, tightly rhymed poems full of wordplay that are often thoughtful and laugh-out-loud hilarious. Tonight, though, he does a harrowing and powerful piece called Ginny’s got the Giggles, about a school shooting in the United States.

So, what is it that keeps him coming back all of the years?

“It’s the freshness of it,” Currivan says.

“There’s always change. For months the night can be dominated by a certain group, and then they may fizzle out or go elsewhere, but then it refills with a new group.

You see a sort of resurgence and new people come. And some [he points at Eimear] blow you away they’re so talented. That’s the thing – it’s the freshness of it.

As for The International itself, Currivan says that there is always something happening.

“Even when it’s finished here, things could be just kicking off in the bar,” he says.

You’re saying, ‘Oh, I thought the night was over’, but someone’s night’s only starting downstairs.

I head back downstairs to test Barry’s statement, and sure enough, in the middle floor the main bar is filling up and there’s a group of musicians – Mark Flynn and The Mountaineers –with a tip jar on the table belting out The Band’s classic The Weight.

The regulars are occupying the far corner of the marble bar counter, watched over by the 19-century river gods, carved into the ornate Victorian reredos behind the bar.

In the basement, the comedy is still going strong. When I get back down there, a man is ranting about chakras and UFOs to the bewilderment of the crowd.

Meanwhile, I rush upstairs just in time to see a visiting Californian bare his soul with heartfelt poetry about his family and children. And it’s all happening simultaneously, a minuscule snapshot of all that has taken place here on all the decades of Monday nights.

I sip a pint in the main bar and listen to the music. I am thinking about my first performances here over 13 years ago, and how I was part of a scene with all these young and old enthusiastic poets and musicians.

Back then, the most important thing for us was trying to get an extended feature slot at the Monday Echo. We were brand new and hungry and it felt like anything was possible.

I can see this same enthusiasm in Eimear Carolan, and the Cheeky Monkey comedians: the sense of being part of something exciting and novel – a young, vibrant community just starting to come to life.

I think, too, about how that specific scene I was a part of has long since passed, and of all the poets I used to know who slowly disappeared over the years: who moved away, stopped showing up, or quit writing altogether.

Finally, I am thinking about those friends who I first met here who died too young – like the Coolock poet Paul Curran, the California-born poet Raven Aflakete, Kenny Doran, and others. How we all passed through here at one point, just tiny ripples in the constant stream.

It’s no secret that Dublin City has changed dramatically over the past decade. Venues, studios and artistic spaces have been shut down as more hotels and units or student accommodation have sprung up. But if you’re looking for signs that Dublin’s cultural heart is still beating, then head to The International on any Monday night.

Just before I leave, I bump into Kevin Brennan, the writer, actor, poet and another regular stalwart of The International, who performed at The Circle Sessions earlier.

Brennan had his first paid gig here upstairs in 1992, as part of a comedy act. He tells me the tragicomic tale of that first performance, involving a botched gag and a comedian’s smashed guitar. He has been coming back ever since.

“This place is a treasure,” Brennan tells me, as The Mountaineers start to play Fisherman’s Blues. I shake his hand and walk out the door.

Just as I am passing the exit, the Cheeky Monkey comedians are spilling out onto Andrew’s Street. There’s a buzz of excited chatter, a collective sigh of relief after over three hours of stand up comedy.

Tadhg Rubio Owens and Róisín Nic Gabhann ask me did I enjoy the night and I tell them I did.

“It’s more than just an open mic night,” Rubio Owens says. “It’s a ritual.”

“I just love being a part of it so much!” says Nic Gabhann.

I say my goodnights and head for home, happy that for now Mondays in The International Bar are in safe hands.

Cormac will be back next week with another exploration of how Ireland spends its spare time (in ways that might surprise you).

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