Dublin’s first Night Time Economy Adviser Ray O’Donoghue has been tasked with changing behaviour around the city’s night time activity. It’s a big responsibility, but a background in promoting events places the Dubliner in a premium position to deliver.
In April 2024, Ray O’Donoghue became Dublin City Council’s first Night-Time Economy Adviser (or “Night Mayor,” as his position has become colloquially known). The position was born after a 2021 report from the Council’s Night-Time Economy Taskforce, which was established during the COVID-19 pandemic to focus on expanding the city’s economy between the twelve hours of 18:00 and 06:00.
“It was advertised, and a few people said to me, ‘Why don’t you go for that?’, and I just looked at the criteria, and I was like, ‘Well, I tick all the boxes here’” Ray tells Totally Dublin. “So, I kind of said, ‘I’ll give it a go. If I get it, happy days. If I don’t… well, I don’t.’ At first, I didn’t think a government job would be something for me, but the more I looked into it, I was like, ‘This is actually really interesting.’
“And I think Dublin is wide open for improvement. So, I started doing research and looked at cities like Berlin, Amsterdam, and Lisbon. These types of successful night-time economies, especially around Europe, and thought, ‘Why is Dublin so lacking here?’”
Ray had worked in Dublin’s nighttime for over three decades and accrued a skill-set that made him the perfect match for the job. “I’m coming from the entertainment business, broadly, in the last thirty years,” he explains. “And that is everything from being a DJ, musician, and a promoter for a good chunk of that.
“I promoted a festival called Coastal Beats from ’99, for about five or six years. Then I got asked to be a Festival Director for Sea Sessions. That had been established for two years, and I got on board in 2012 and helped bring that to where it became one of the most successful festivals in the country. I was still doing my own shows, promoting my own shows around the country, and I had an events company that did various events and activations with other festivals, and so on. So, I suppose the Festival Director bit gave me a lot of experience working with all kinds of stakeholders. You’re working with the local council, the Gardaí, the planning people, the local residents, the local businesses, and all of those people that are relevant to the job I’m doing now.”
With his background as a late-night worker and his familiarity with Dublin after dark established, we asked Ray about his visions for the city when he took the job. “Maybe some more late-night restaurants, maybe some more late-night coffee shops,” he responds. “Places that people who work at night can go and get a meal at three in the morning – an actual, proper meal – or they can go and get a coffee and sit down and chill out and not be worried that it’s a dangerous spot. You think of New York, ‘The City That Never Sleeps,’ and London, ‘The 24-Hour City,’ you know? And we’re not there. Nowhere near that yet, but that’s where we want to get.
And if you think of New York City, it’s not just about clubs and bars; it’s about there always being somewhere open, and that’s what the night-time economy is: Everything from six o’clock in the evening to six o’clock in the morning. We need to remember that there are a lot of people who work in the health service at that time. There are a lot of people who work in hospitality at that time. They should have access to services at night, and it just goes back to changing behaviour and getting people not to just come out for drink and food. And I think that’s the big strategy from my position, is changing behaviour.”
Ray’s mantra for the fledgling Night-Time Economy pilot is “Activity/Transport/Safety,” which he views as concatenated. “They’re all connected,” he says. “I mean, more cultural activity equals more safety. More people on the streets equals more safety. More lights, more safety. More people around, more demand for late-night transport options. So, all of them are interconnected, very much so.”
As mentioned, Ray has been diligently studying other cities (particularly European capitals) to establish a framework for Dublin’s late-night economy. When we spoke, he was getting ready to travel to Kraków, Poland, at the invitation of that city’s Night Mayor, Jacek Jordan, to attend a seminar by their Sustainable Night-Time Commission that invited Night Mayors from various European cities to come together, discuss, learn, and strategise.
What was apparent from our discussion is that Ray has ideas but is not idealistic. He takes a prosaic and pragmatic approach to his suggestions while acknowledging that he is still learning on the job. We focused on a few key areas of his plans. The first was late bars and nightclubs. Across Ireland, the notion of a “night-time economy” is synonymous with nightclubs, which have had a documented decline in recent years. For those against the preservation of nightclubs, certain stereotypes, such as them being a needless decadence in places struggling for resources, to them being lairs of sin and depravity, persist.
These are notions that Ray rejects; contrasting Ireland’s view of nightclubs to those in mainland Europe and islands like Ibiza, where he feels they are embraced more. “I think it is not as much a part of our culture because we haven’t let it be,” he says. “And a part of my strategy is to help let that nightlife come into the mainstream a little bit, and make clubbing a part of the mainstream a little bit more, and it’s not just a drug den or a decadent spot…It’s a place where people can go and dance, if they want.”
Despite being a part of his agenda, Ray wants to divorce the term “night-time economy” from the sole image of bars and nightclubs. “Some people are asking, ‘What are you doing? Are you here to save the nightclubs?’ And I’m not. That’s not my job,” he asserts.“So, [the campaigners at Give Us the Night], they’re great guys, and I work with them, but they have their agenda, and they want legislation changed, and they want later clubs, and I agree; I think the choice should be there. But the night-time economy is about much more than just nightclubs. It incorporates everything between six o’clock in the evening and six o’clock in the morning; whether that’s sports events, restaurants, theatre, or outdoor events. Everything is incorporated.”
Of course, the largest obstruction to extending the operating hours of clubs and bars is the stagnating Sale of Alcohol Bill. The passing of that (or any) bill has to be done within the bicameral chambers of the Oireachtas, which, obviously, exceeds the power of local authorities, like city or county councils. Working within the parameters of the authority given to councils is something that Ray is realistic about, and he has made connections to help aid him where his powers are reined. One of these connections is with the National Transport Authority (NTA), the body responsible for Ireland’s public transport nationwide, which is a pivotal element in Ray’s scheme.
Whilst we have seen a growth in late-night transport services (particularly with newer Dublin Bus routes operating 24/7), the city and county’s rail transport options (such as the Luas, Irish Rail, or the DART) only operate until around midnight, and in the past have shot down the notion of expanding their hours, claiming that crucial maintenance is conducted when their services are not in use. In this regard, Dublin (and Ireland, broadly) is in step with its European counterparts. With some exceptions, like Berlin, Copenhagen, and Madrid, few European cities offer twenty-four-hour public transport, and, like Dublin, instead provide some additional late-night routes on weekends and holidays, whilst primarily operating within a five a.m. to midnight schedule.
“Dublin’s a little bit behind, overall, on public transport,” Ray says. “Obviously, we have nothing to and from the airport; there’s all talk of the Metro and so on. But I think, when it comes to late-night options, the options are there. We have ten twenty-four-hour bus routes and there are twelve Nitelinks, which isn’t bad. The taxi service has gotten better, and has improved since Christmas.
“The trains, I’m still talking and arguing with them about that. We’ve spoken about a calendar of events when we know there might be a few big nights in the city. They’re amenable to potentially opening more routes on those nights, but they’re not keen on doing it every weekend. But, overall, there’s a couple of options: You can get a taxi, you can get a bus. Maybe people should start walking more, as well. It depends on where you are, I guess. So, I don’t think we’re a million miles behind capital cities in Europe when it comes to public transport options.”
The final area we challenged Ray about was private businesses. Whilst, from a consumer’s perspective, it is nice to have as many late-night options as possible, is there is an appetite from business owners, who will have to pay more overheads on additional staff, security, and electricity, to keep the doors open after peak hours? Are there even enough nocturnal workers willing to fill those positions should they arise?
“Well, there are already two twenty-four-hour shops on Dame Street, as you probably know,” Ray responds. “There’s the Spar and the Centra. And it shouldn’t only be two twenty-four-hour shops; I think there should be more options, but it’s about, ‘Who’s the pioneer to do that?’
“Maybe they’ll get a little bit of support or funding from the City, or funding from the Department, to encourage that. It’s something that we’ve talked about, about piloting a street with late-night coffee shops. So, these are all feasible, but it’s a slow change. Slow, cultural and behavioural change, as opposed to a magic wand or a silver bullet.
“It’s not going to happen overnight, but – what? – twenty, thirty years ago, we might have had the odd petrol station that opened twenty-four hours, and that was it! Now, we at least have a few shops or restaurants to go to at four or five in the morning.”
With the incremental change that Ray is bringing about from within the Dublin City Council, we finish the interview by asking him if he has had to make connections with other city or county councils to enact operations that will extend into their administrative areas.
For example, a bus travelling only a kilometre or so can swiftly go from the boundaries of Dublin City Council to that of South Dublin County Council. Then there are services like Dublin Bus and the DART, which, despite “Dublin” being in both of their names, extend their services to surrounding counties like Kildare, Wicklow, and Meath. From Ray’s perspective, he envisions what the Dublin City Council are doing expanding and becoming a nationwide net benefit and aims to provide a sustainable blueprint through his work. “At the minute, I’m concentrating on Dublin’s City Centre,” he says.
“That’s what I’ve been asked to do. It’s Dublin City Council. I’m within the structure of Dublin City Council. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t learn from what we might achieve in Dublin City and bring that into Rathdown [sic], Fingal, and South County Dublin.
“There’s already pilots of Night-Time Advisors around the country, so there’s no reason why we can’t learn from either them or what we’re doing in Dublin City. For example, Dublin.ie, which was specifically a place brand within Dublin City Council, has now expanded to all of Dublin, and they’re involved with Fingal, Rathdown and Dún Laoghaire [sic], and South County Dublin. So, there’s no reason why if things work in this pilot, we can’t expand it further and make it work in other towns, villages, cities, wherever else.”
Words: Aaron Kavanagh
Images: Fennell Photography
