DABF Talk: Punks in Print – DIY Publishing and Punk Culture in Ireland

Dublin Art Book Fair hosts a public discussion on contemporary DIY publishing, zine making and the Irish punk scene. ‘Punks in Print: DIY Publishing and Punk Culture in Ireland’ is an open Q&A panel with local punks and zinemakers, Yvonne Kiely from Spread, Eddie Kenrick from City Rocker and DJ MAL from PUNC. Joined in conversation with Rita Hynes on DIY self-publishing practices as a way of expressing Irish punk aesthetics and ideas.

Rita Hynes has collaborated with bookshops, literary festivals and independent publishers in Ireland and Scotland. Her areas of interest include DIY publishing and artists’ books, creative bookselling and community art spaces. She is currently organising the first Drogheda Zine Fair with visual artist Brian Hegarty at the Droichead Arts Centre and recently participated in Patrick Kavanagh Literary Festival 2023 as part of a panel on DIY publishing.

Eddie Kenrick is a punk musician / photographer / magazine editor based in Dublin. He has to date self-published four photozines: The Punks (2018), The Punks In Colour (2019), City and Country (both 2021), and five installments of his newsprint magazine City Rocker Quarterly. This ongoing publication has been described as 'one part Irish ephemera scrapbook / one part wholesome disinformation pamphlet'. He has been a part of the DIY punk community since his mid-teens and has played countless gigs in Ireland and around the world with his different bands. He has also promoted many gigs for international touring DIY punk bands but holds out hope to never have to do this again.

Yvonne Kiely set up Spread in 2019 in order to create a subversive and weird feminist outlet for joys and frustrations, for herself and others. Over its five issues, Spread published almost 30 artistic works from its contributors, published a few NSFW articles about sex, experimented with laminate in its cover design, printed a total of 175 zines. Yvonne is currently halfway through her PhD research at Dublin City University, investigating gender, race, and class in music industries. There is a feminist, anarchist thread running through Yvonne’s projects and her life in general.

Mal is a punk whose personal details are shrouded in mystery. She writes the Irish punk fanzine PUNC when she's not presenting the Irish punk radio programme PUNC, a kind of "fanzine for your ears" that features gig listings and scene news alongside Irish punk music and interviews with relevant guests. More recently, she has been involved in organizing a regular punk picnic in Dublin through the Dublin Union of Punks. An archive of her work can be viewed online at punc.neocities.org

This event takes place as part of Dublin Art Book Fair 2023: Polyphonic, sponsored by Henry J Lyons and supported by Dublin UNESCO City of Literature.

Image description: A black-and-white image of two people moshing at a concert, one grabbing the t-shirt of the other, the other with an extended fist. In the upper left corner are the titles 'PUNKS IN PRINT: DIY PUBLISHING AND PUNK CULTURE IN IRELAND'.