Lexicon Library and Cultural Centre

dlr LexIcon

dlr LexIcon - There's Plenty to Discover at dlr LexIcon
Dun Laoghaires New Central Library & Cultural Centre.
80,000 Items in the adult & junior library, 60+ Computers, 100
Study Spaces. Dedicated Floor to Local Studies.

Library Lexicon: Liaison Librarian

We know that library terms can sometimes be confusing. Library Lexicon asks Drexel students and faculty to define a word - sometimes they know the answer and sometimes they take a wild guess.

'Search' by Ciarán Taylor and Carpet Theatre at dlr LexIcon - Highlight Video

by Ciarán Taylor and Carpet Theatre.
Performer Devisers: Ruth Lehane, Karl Quinn and Felipe Jóia
Live Music by Tim Doyle
Masks by Pau Cirer
dlr LexIcon 20 September 2019
'Search' was commissioned by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council as part of the Per Cent for Art Programme under the Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government.
The Play
Cathal comes to the library to return Angela's books, where he is drawn into a frantic search among the shelves for a lost book that holds Angela's secret. He must find it before he loses his mind, but the mysterious librarian is always one step ahead.
Commission
The commission was to create a performance for DLR’s Culture Night event at dlr LexIcon, Dún Laoghaire. Ciarán Taylor is a director-deviser who specialises in site-specific creations. He describes his initial approach: ‘The Lexicon is a landmark public building with a striking design, which culminates on the fifth floor in an impressive reading area at a very tall window overlooking Dún Laoghaire harbour and Dublin Bay. I wanted to bring the audience through the building from bottom to top, creating a story set in the place that would allow the them to look at the building in a new way, and link it to a world of imagination. I wanted to make a play about reading, and libraries as a source and repository for our imaginations.’
Devising
‘We began with no story or script. Working with three actors and then a musician, we spent time observing different parts of the building, and how it is used by the people who go there. I was inspired by reading Susan Orlean’s The Library Book, which also became the image of ‘the red book’ central to the plot and design of the play.’
Promenade
Search was conceived as a promenade performance where the audience follow the action through the Lexicon library on a voyage of the imagination- moving through a building already abuzz with other activities and performances for Culture Night.

The Play
The time sequence of the play is out of order at the beginning. It follows the logic of the locations on the journey from floor one to five. Cathal is an older man. His wife Angela has recently died. He finds her bag of library books and is drawn to return them. He arrives by car to the Lexicon car park, where she had recently been. As he figures out the automatic book return machine a note falls from one of the books. The red book disappears on the conveyor belt back into the library system. The note refers to this red book, which he is now desperate to retrieve. He is drawn on a desperate search through the library to find it. The book begins to take on magical properties, while Angela and the mysterious librarian seem to be leading him to the fifth floor.

He has flashback memories of Angela along the way: their first meeting among the shelves of the college library, her reading under a parasol on holiday, reading the same book over her shoulder. We see a mysterious librarian retrieving the magical red book from the storage area on level 2 . He is always one step ahead of Cathal in his search. His book trolley takes on a strange power, buffeting Cathal in his turmoil.
A frantic cat and mouse chase among the shelves of the fifth floor accelerates to a streak of red as Cathal is drawn to the window overlooking the bay. The red book is there. He reads the important passage marked by Angela with a feather. He sees a vision of her one more time, but beyond his reach on the other side of the glass. When he looks again she is gone. He goes to leave with the book, his precious connection to Angela. The librarian asks for it back. Library books are only on loan. They hold our collective knowledge, which must be shared and passed on. A young woman picks the book from the trolley. Cathal is given another book. He sits and begins to read. He looks out to sea. The memory of Angela is with him, but no longer haunts him. She has brought him to a place of contemplation, a place to look out to sea at the endless horizon, a place to re-find the joy of reading, which they once shared.

Ciarán Taylor
Carpet Theatre previously created the site specific '50 Ways to Leave Dún Laoghaire' at the Dún Laoghaire ferry terminal, and 'Sightless Cinema' and 'Flood' - a play in the dark, at Lexicon.
Ciarán Taylor is artistic director of Carpet Theatre. He studied directing at the University of Kent at Canterbury, and devising at Ecole Jacques Lecoq, Paris. He has written/devised and directed nineteen diverse productions with the company, which have toured Ireland and abroad. He has been Theatre Artist in Residence at MermaidArts Centre, and Leitrim Artist in Schools.
Rock to the Top (2017-2018) was commissioned for South Dublin County’s In Context 4 programme of public art, which brought peope out to experience the Dublin Mountains to build a cairn over a full year. The Flood (with support from DLR / HSE Arts and Health Partenership), his multi-sensory audio play in the dark, toured Ireland in 2017.

V-beam no. 4 lift

Lifting V-beam no. 4 into position, Dun laoghaire library and culture centre

'Search' by Ciarán Taylor and Carpet Theatre at dlr LexIcon - Full Video

by Ciarán Taylor and Carpet Theatre.
Performer Devisers: Ruth Lehane, Karl Quinn and Felipe Jóia
Live Music by Tim Doyle
Masks by Pau Cirer
dlr LexIcon, 20 September 2019
'Search' was commissioned by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council as part of the Per Cent for Art Programme under the Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government.
The Play
Cathal comes to the library to return Angela's books, where he is drawn into a frantic search among the shelves for a lost book that holds Angela's secret. He must find it before he loses his mind, but the mysterious librarian is always one step ahead.
Commission
The commission was to create a performance for DLR’s Culture Night event at dlr LexIcon Dún Laoghaire. Ciarán Taylor is a director-deviser who specialises in site-specific creations. He describes his initial approach: ‘The Lexicon is a landmark public building with a striking design, which culminates on the fifth floor in an impressive reading area at a very tall window overlooking Dún Laoghaire harbour and Dublin Bay. I wanted to bring the audience through the building from bottom to top, creating a story set in the place that would allow the them to look at the building in a new way, and link it to a world of imagination. I wanted to make a play about reading, and libraries as a source and repository for our imaginations.’
Devising
‘We began with no story or script. Working with three actors and then a musician, we spent time observing different parts of the building, and how it is used by the people who go there. I was inspired by reading Susan Orlean’s The Library Book, which also became the image of ‘the red book’ central to the plot and design of the play.’

Promenade
Search was conceived as a promenade performance where the audience follow the action through the Lexicon library on a voyage of the imagination- moving through a building already abuzz with other activities and performances for Culture Night.

The Play
The time sequence of the play is out of order at the beginning. It follows the logic of the locations on the journey from floor one to five. Cathal is an older man. His wife Angela has recently died. He finds her bag of library books and is drawn to return them. He arrives by car to the Lexicon car park, where she had recently been. As he figures out the automatic book return machine a note falls from one of the books. The red book disappears on the conveyor belt back into the library system. The note refers to this red book, which he is now desperate to retrieve. He is drawn on a desperate search through the library to find it. The book begins to take on magical properties, while Angela and the mysterious librarian seem to be leading him to the fifth floor.

He has flashback memories of Angela along the way: their first meeting among the shelves of the college library, her reading under a parasol on holiday, reading the same book over her shoulder. We see a mysterious librarian retrieving the magical red book from the storage area on level 2 . He is always one step ahead of Cathal in his search. His book trolley takes on a strange power, buffeting Cathal in his turmoil.
A frantic cat and mouse chase among the shelves of the fifth floor accelerates to a streak of red as Cathal is drawn to the window overlooking the bay. The red book is there. He reads the important passage marked by Angela with a feather. He sees a vision of her one more time, but beyond his reach on the other side of the glass. When he looks again she is gone. He goes to leave with the book, his precious connection to Angela. The librarian asks for it back. Library books are only on loan. They hold our collective knowledge, which must be shared and passed on. A young woman picks the book from the trolley. Cathal is given another book. He sits and begins to read. He looks out to sea. The memory of Angela is with him, but no longer haunts him. She has brought him to a place of contemplation, a place to look out to sea at the endless horizon, a place to re-find the joy of reading, which they once shared.

Ciarán Taylor
Carpet Theatre previously created the site specific '50 Ways to Leave Dún Laoghaire' at the Dún Laoghaire ferry terminal, and 'Sightless Cinema' and 'Flood' - a play in the dark, at Lexicon.
Ciarán Taylor is artistic director of Carpet Theatre. He studied directing at the University of Kent at Canterbury, and devising at Ecole Jacques Lecoq, Paris. He has written/devised and directed nineteen diverse productions with the company, which have toured Ireland and abroad. He has been Theatre Artist in Residence at MermaidArts Centre, and Leitrim Artist in Schools.
Rock to the Top (2017-2018) was commissioned for South Dublin County’s In Context 4 programme of public art, which brought peope out to experience the Dublin Mountains to build a cairn over a full year. The Flood (with support from DLR / HSE Arts and Health Partenership), his multi-sensory audio play in the dark, toured Ireland in 2017.

Sarah Webb's Favourite Books for Children and Teens

Sarah Webb ( Writer in residence at dlrLexIcon library in Dún Laoghaire, Ireland) selects her Favourite Books for Children and Teens

Dun Laoghaire Library Branding Concept

Music: Everyman by Fab Samperi (feat. John Turrell)

Dublin Youth Dance Company present the Irish Youth Dance Festival 2016

Dublin Youth Dance Company are thrilled to be returning to the Pavilion Theatre, dlr Lexicon and the People's Park in Dún Laoghaire Sat July 2nd & Sun July 3rd to present the 16th Irish Youth Dance Festival. The evening promises exciting, skillful, highly physical and uplifting performances from a selection of up-and-coming Irish and International Youth Dance Companies, including live music from special guests, The Supertones, one of Ireland’s most innovative Children’s Choirs.

SAT 2nd JULY
THE PEOPLE’S PARK
Dún Laoghaire
12pm & 2pm free performance
1pm free dance jam for all ages

SAT 2nd JULY
dlr LEXICON, THE STUDIO THEATRE
Dún Laoghaire
4pm | tickets: €5
dlrcoco.ie/library

SUN 3rd JULY
PAVILION THEATRE
Dún Laoghaire
8pm | Tickets: €14 / €12
Box Office: 01-2312929
paviliontheatre.ie | Free booking online

WWW.DUBLINYOUTHDANCE.COM

P.J. Lynch Interview

Laureate na nÓg, Ireland’s laureate for children’s literature 2017
author and illustrator P.J. Lynch visited The Verbal Arts Centre.
During his visit he gave a class of Oakgrove Intergrated
Primary School children a workshop in drawing with chalk and charcoal.

Dun laoghaire Rathdown county council sit in

Meeting the assistant county manager

WexFour - My Real Life by Eoin Colfer

One of the 4 plays featured in Wexfour production at Wexford Arts Centre 2014 which included
Erosion by Colm Tóibín performed by Mark Lambert
The Dog and Bone by Billy Roche performed by Andrea Irvine
My Real Life by Eoin Colfer performed by Don Wycherley
Prince Charming and the Dame by John Banville performed by Andrea Irvine and Mark Lambert

Director: Ben Barnes, Produced by Elizabeth Whyte Wexford Arts Centre
Production Design/Costumes: Joe Vanek
Lighting Design: Sinead Wallace Sound Design Pat Jackman. Music composed and performed live by Eleanor McEvoy
Stage Manager: John Michael Murphy Light and Sound Operator: Ollie Dempsey