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Dublin’s first Night Time Economy Adviser Ray O’D
onoghue 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. WORDS Aaron Kavanagh PHOTOS Fennell Photography n 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 NightTime Economy Taskforce, which was established during the COVID-19 pandemic to focus on expanding the city’s economy between the twelve hours of 6pm and 6am. “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 of how he attained the position. “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 nighttime 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 skillset 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 NightTime 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, 39