More than any other person, the responsibility for restoring the lustre to Dublin’s crown as a fun, safe place for a night out falls to Dublin City Council’s night-time economy adviser, Ray O’Donohgue.
Not quite Dublin’s night mayor, the former club DJ, music promoter and festival director – including Sea Sessions, the much-loved music and surfing event in Bundoran – has taken up the challenge of re-establishing Dublin as a vibrant night time destination.
In doing so he is targeting not just tourists but locals who live near the city but who have fallen out of the habit of socialising in it, at least by night.
Despite the title, it’s not actually all about the economy, he tells Winterlich. “I think sometimes that puts people off. They think it’s about boosting the economy by saving the nightclubs,” he explains. In fact it’s about making it a more attractive place just to be.
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Now two years into the role, he has the benefit of seeing what similar night time advisers in other European cities have achieved.
“Twenty-five years ago places such as Berlin were starting to take the night-time economy seriously. We are playing catch up but are taking it seriously now,” says O’Donoghue.
Indeed, a taskforce was established during the pandemic, to assess how best to get people back into the city once the medical emergency had passed. One of its recommendations was to set up advisers around the country.
There are eight others in similar roles across regional towns and cities, in what is still a pilot programme. “It’s an experiment. We’re learning as we go but we’ve learned a lot in the last two years,” he says.
The importance of the night-time economy to Ireland Inc should not be underestimated.
“It’s everything that happens from 6pm to 6am, from pubs and clubs to all the hospitality, security and healthcare workers who are out and about, and who should also have options beyond, say, fast food, at one o’clock in the morning. We need to start realising that the city is 24 hours, seven days a week. Not nine to five,” he explains.
One of his first steps on the road to realising this was Dublin City Council’s Night-time Economy Strategy, launched in October 2024 with a view to transforming the city into a sustainable and inclusive 24-hour destination.
It was the culmination of six months’ work by O’Donoghue traversing the city to talk to a wide variety of stakeholders.
That exercise led to an understanding that three issues are a priority for any city destination looking to attract people in at night: “It’s down to culture, transport and safety; and the three are intertwined all the time,” he tells Winterlich.
‘I’ve been lucky enough to be involved in, or to have helped fund, over 200 events now in the past year and a half, which have brought upwards of 200,000 people into the city’
“Culture is going to bring more people into the city. Transport is what you need to get them in and out, and safety underpins everything. It’s the thing that will make people want to go into the city and the more people out on the streets going to cultural events, the safer you feel.
“Then, if you know you can get a late bus home or will be okay getting a taxi, or feel safe enough to walk, all those things are intertwined. It’s a slow process, but we’re going in the correct direction.”
Consumer behaviour patterns have changed since the pandemic, says Winterlich, pointing to data from table reservation platforms that shows 6pm is now the busiest time to dine, not 8pm as was.
“We’re seeing a bit of a cultural reset, with activity shifting away from night-time to day time,” says Winterlich. “We’re Cinderella socialisers, we want to be out early and home.”
Not quite, says O’Donoghue, who believes that such a label might fit an older demographic, but doesn’t take in the bigger picture.
“The younger audience is still going out late. There are venues, and nightclubs, that are packed and getting even fuller in the last few months. I’ve had some operators tell me they just had their busiest December in recent memory,” he explains.
The night time economy is about far more than pubs and clubs anyway, he reiterates.
One of his biggest projects, undertaken in conjunction with Google, has been Dublin Nights Mapped – an interactive map of things to do in Dublin after 6pm that don’t involve alcohol. Available to view at DublinNights.ie, there are now more than 100 varied offerings mapped out, from cafes and bubble tea providers to wall climbing, indoor golf and bowling, pottery painting and night time galleries.
The map gets around 4,000 interactions a day, a clear demonstration of the interest in finding a variety of things to do in the city at night.
Evidence suggests O’Donoghue’s campaign is bearing fruit. Responses to Your Dublin, Your Voice, the online survey mechanism introduced by Dublin City Council, show that, between 2020 and 2025, confidence that Dublin has good public transport at night has risen from 40 per cent of respondents to 50 per cent.
Perceptions of safety have improved too, from 24 per cent of respondents feeling safe at night during the pandemic to 40 per cent now.
Much of that has been helped by increased support from the council for cultural events.
“I’ve been lucky enough to be involved in, or to have helped fund, over 200 events now in the past year and a half, which have brought upwards of 200,000 people into the city, out on the streets at events, people who weren’t necessarily there before,” says O’Donoghue.
Part of the problem is, he worries, that Dubliners are perhaps not as proud as they should be of their fair city.
‘If we keep telling ourselves it’s not good, that it’s negative, people will stay away. Part of my role is helping to change that narrative’
“There is a tendency to be slightly negative, and maybe a little bit of laziness creeping in as well,” he suggests, relating a recent example of someone in their 50s who told O’Donoghue they wouldn’t go into the city at night because it wasn’t safe, and only then revealed they hadn’t actually done so for years. So how would they know, he wondered?
If they haven’t been, they won’t know about the increased Garda presence on the street, for example, or the improvements in night time transport.
They won’t know about new Government-backed initiatives such as the After Hours at the Museum schemes, or events such as TwinkleTown, the free Christmas festival debuted by Dublin City Council in Smithfield last year.
Chances are they’ll also miss Dublin by Dusk, a multi-agency, citywide collaboration O’Donoghue is working on, which is due to be launched soon.
It’s why he is also spending money to promote events, including on socials, outdoor advertising and The Goo, a music listings magazine, as well as running promotions with Free Now, the taxi app.
“If we keep telling ourselves it’s not good, that it’s negative, people will stay away. Part of my role is helping to change that narrative,” he says, “and, statistically, globally, Dublin is a safe city.”
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