How Irish live music actually works

LocalJams spends most of its time doing one job: gathering every live music listing on the island of Ireland into one searchable place, night after night. In the course of that we end up answering the same questions over and over — from visitors trying to find a real session rather than a floor show, from people who have never been to a gig in a pub before, from musicians who can't work out why their shows aren't showing up anywhere, and from publicans wondering why Thursday nights won't stick.

These guides are our answers, written out properly. Some are cultural explainers — what a session is, what the instruments do, where sean-nós singing fits, how the pub session came to exist at all. Some are purely practical: what gigs cost in Ireland, when doors actually open, how the festival year is shaped. A few are written for the people on the other side of the microphone.

We've tried to be honest about the limits of what anyone can say in general terms. Sessions change nights, venues change hands, and the only reliable source for tonight is tonight's listing — so where a guide can show you real, current gigs, it does, pulled live from the listings. For everything else, start with Explore, the city guides, or the venues directory.