A smorgasbord of events is lined up for this weekend, with cooking, music, sports and magic all on the menu.
The Taste of Dublin festival is running all weekend in Dublin’s Iveagh Gardens. Restaurants and food producers will be showing off their skills in demonstrations, and samples and tapas-sized dishes from top chefs will be available to but from stalls. Chefs appearing include Rachel Allen, Ross Lewis and Neven Maguire.
The Street Performance World Championships are on in Cork and Portlaoise over the next few days before transferring to Dublin next weekend. Among the acts appearing are magician Jack Wise, snake charmer Jardu and Goliath: the world's smallest strongman.
Ash, Lisa Hannigan and Stereo MCs are among the headliners of this year's Temple House Festival which kicked off today and continues until Sunday.
Something Happens, Aslan, The Walls and Declan O'Rourke will also be performing at the event, which takes place in Ballymote, Co Sligo.
Two of the biggest names in classic rock will be at the O2 in Dublin tomorrow when Journey and Foreigner bring their anthems to town. Elsewhere, electro-pop band Ladytron are performing at Tripod and the up-and-coming artist Gold Panda is at the Workman's Club.
One of Ireland's most-loved bands The Frames kick-off the Live at the Marquee series of gigs in Cork city tomorrow night while musical maverick Pierce Turner is performing nearby at the Sirius Arts Centre in Cobh.
On a different theme, the Irish Chamber Music Festival takes place this weekend with performances from acts such as the Callino and Schumaan string quartets on at the Free Masons Hall in Molesworth Street. The KBC Music in Great Houses Festival gets under way tomorrow with a performance in the Baroque Chapel, Royal hospital, Kilmainham at 4pm.
The Irish Film Institute is holding an open day tomorrow at which 15 free films will be shown. Audiences of all ages are welcome to come along for a day that promises a number of classic movies and previews of some hotly-anticipated new releases.
Tickets for the films will be allocated on a first come, first served basis from the IFI at 11am.
In sport, the tenth Dun Laoghaire to Dingle race will set sail from Dun Laoghaire at 10am tomorrow and the start line will be visible from the East pier. The racers should be visible unto Bray Head.
Down in Dingle itself, the Connor pass will be host to the Dingle Adventure Race, a 48km course of biking, hiking, running and kayaking. About 400 people are expected to participate in the race start at 9am tomorrow, and traffic could be delayed in the area.
Two-thousand cyclists are expected to descend on Wicklow on Sunday for the Wicklow 200. Motorists should expect delays along the route, which begins at Greystones before winding through though Glen of the Downs, Glencree, Sallygap, Hollywood, Rathdangan, Rathdrum, Avoca, Ashford, Newcastle and Kilcoole before returning to Greystones.
There are a number of big games this weekend in both the hurling and football senior championships. In football, Leitrim take on Roscommon in the Connacht semi-final at 2pm on Sunday in Carrick-on-Shannon. Louth and Carlow will meet in the quarter-final of the Leinster competition at 3.30pm in Portlaoise, and Cavan and Donegal will also play their quarter-final at 3.30pm, in Kingspan Breffni Park.
In Hurling, Armagh meet Down in the Ulster Championship semi-final in Casement Park from 3.30pm on Sunday, while Limerick play Waterford in the Munster semi-final at 4pm.
The unsettled weather is expected to continue this weekend with sunny spells and scattered showers throughout the weekend. Tomorrow will start dry but is likely to become more showery as the day progresses. On Sunday it is forecast to be wet and windy in most parts of Munster and Leinster, but some western and north-western coastal margins could stay largely dry.