Dublin and Limerick will be the centrepiece locations for tomorrow night's New Year's Eve celebrations.
The capital will hope to solidify its growing reputation as an international end-of-year destination by hosting its biggest New Year’s Eve concert to date.
Limerick will begin its year as City of Culture with a street pageant that is being billed as “the most exciting and exuberant interactive family event” the city has ever seen.
Madness will be headliners for the concert in Dublin's College Green along with the Strypes, Ryan Sheridan and MKS (Mutya, Keisha, Siobhán).
Light display
A crowd similar to the 10,000 revellers who attended last year's concert is expected with tickets costing €25.
The light display on the front of Trinity College Dublin was turned on last night. It will again feature the Gathering which comes to an end on New Year's Eve and will also countdown the time to 2014.
The New Year’s Eve celebrations will begin with the People’s Procession of Light which was planned as a one-off last year but has retained because of its popularity. Some 2,000 people, most of them visitors, participated last year.
Limerick's New Year celebrations will begin with a city centre parade from 6.30pm by the theatre company Bui Bolg followed by a live storybook using digital video mapping in the Medieval Quarter and a specially composed story written by local playwright Mike Finn.
Former Cranberry and Limerick native Dolores O'Riordan will be joined by the Irish Chamber Orchestra to ring in the new year at a concert in St Mary's Cathedral.
City of Culture chief executive Patricia Ryan said the New Year's Eve party will be "the biggest and most magnificent occasion that Limerick has ever seen".
Short notice
The events have had to be put together at short notice with just eight weeks' preparation as €6 million worth of funding to underpin the festival was only approved in the October budget.
Next year marks the millennium anniversary of the Battle of Clontarf in which Brian Boru defeated the Vikings, but died in the process.
To coincide with the occasion, Dublin All-Ireland winning footballers John McCarthy and Jack McCaffrey will unveil the "Restaurant 1014" which will be a charitable venture with all proceeds going to the Caring and Sharing Association (Casa), a voluntary organisation supporting people with disabilities in Ireland and in Kenya. The community-staffed restaurant – located at 324 Clontarf Road – will be open from 2pm tomorrow.
