We’re celebrating our 10th birthday with a book that looks back on a decade of chaos in Ireland. District: 10 Years of Chaos is a retrospective of the last ten years of Irish underground culture. The book explores everything from nightlife to art, fashion, music and everything in between. The book is available online here and is also stocked in some of our favourite shops around Dublin.
What follows is an extended extract from a conversation between Craig Connolly (Director) and George Voronov (Creative Director) that formed the basis of the Editors’ Letter which opened the publication.
2015-2017
The Early Years
George: We decided that a conventional editors’ letter was boring so we’re having a conversation instead. I’ve got impostor syndrome because I’m editing this retrospective book but I haven’t actually been with District since day-one. You said the other day that if we don’t use this chance to tell people about the early days we might never get it again. So come on, let’s get it on the record.
Craig: It was 2010 and we were in the middle of a recession. The mood in the air was that Ireland was shite and the last one to leave had to turn the lights off. Don’t ask what made me stay, but I did. As did musicians, designers, and artists all across the country. I was a gig promoter at the time and I was seeing all this amazing work being produced here that wasn’t getting picked up anywhere else. It was around then that I decided I needed to do something to highlight that resilience.
Fast forward a couple of years and I’m in the middle of a meeting with Eric Davidson (future District editor), Eoghan Barra (future District contributor) and Hannah O’Connell (future sub-editor and, now, my wife). The meeting is about starting a new digital magazine called SMNTX (read: semantics). The name was immediately disregarded due to it being absolutely dreadful but the ideas that would inform District’s approach were spoken about for the first time.
Images: Bruce Willis
“The mood in the air was that Ireland was shite and the last one to leave had to turn the lights off.”
Eric and myself used to run a bafflingly successful clubnight on Wednesdays called Bruce Willis. Everything around that time is a bit of a blur so I can’t remember the timings but Eric started a website called Districtmagdublin.com which (very ambitiously) wanted to cover every single district in Dublin. I can just picture him trying to see what events he should be covering in Fettercairn or Silloge on any given day.
I decided to pony up some money I’d saved from the clubnight going well to get a logo made and the website re-designed. We also decided that Districtmagazine.ie had more of a ring to it and meant we could cover the rest of Ireland (which some may argue we never bothered to do, but sure look).
District’s Founders Craig Connolly and Eric Davidson for Totally Dublin, Image: Ellius Grace
A very fortuitous thing about running gigs in your early 20s is that you essentially have the cream of the creative crop clambering to make posters for your gigs. Fifty quid, guest-list, and being allowed to drink cans in the Green Room was the going rate for any good designer and there was no better designer than Oscar Torrans. By 2013, Oscar had been designing posters for me for well over two years and had become a close friend and a key member of our clubnight. There was only ever one candidate for the job.
District Magazine website launch party in the Sugar Club
Oscar and his work partner Simon Sweeney designed a brand new website, identity and logo for a grand and I think if they were to quote us today it would be at least twenty times that. It was their collective genius that gave us the now famous compass logo and to this day I still think it’s among their strongest work.
So, we got a shiny new website with a shiny new logo and all the enthusiasm you need to take on the world. All we needed to do was get started and a torrent of readers and ad revenue would come pouring in. I was as surprised– as I’m sure you are– to report that neither thing happened. What became immediately apparent was that we weren’t making any money. In fact, the only thing that came in during the first 18 months was a sponsorship of our launch party from a German plant-based soft-drink brand. They didn’t even pay us in the end: not very mate-y.
District friends and family 2017 (Left to Right): Mango, Johnny Brennan, Kojaque, Eric Davidson, James McGuirk, Caitriona Devery, Craig Connolly, Hannah Connolly
By 2018 there was no money and even less prospects of making any. I was still doing the promoter thing to try and pay the bills by running Hangar (RIP) alongside Sam Greenwood (now of FourFour). Sam had also picked up a couple of jobs managing DJs including a very young KETTAMA who would be knocking around our office amongst the chaos. I was desperate to turn my attention to District full time but bills needed to be paid and Hangar was the only way to do it.
By mid-May though, Hangar had shut with less than a week’s notice and all our ability to generate any income went out the window with it. We had even less money than before, but what we did have was Eric’s curatorial vision which was helping District identify itself to an audience by talking about things no one else would.
The print years (Left: Hannah and Eric at the launch of Issue 005, Right: Staff reading The District Guide)
“By 2018 there was no money and even less prospects of making any.”
Eric’s keen ear for the fledgling Irish hip-hop scene became our USP and helped us champion an incredibly impressive next generation of rappers that included Kojaque, Mango x MathMan, JyellowL and Jafaris to name a few. As encouraging as our rapidly growing audience was, we still needed to make some money, and that’s where the idea of a physical magazine came in, and I think that’s where you came in too.
Finding our feet during those earlier days was more difficult than I could’ve imagined. The office at that time was a giant ball of stress. With all that in mind, why in the name of God did you ever join us?
2018-2021
Chaos, Covid, and Fundraising
Stock-take of REPEAL jumpers in the District office, 2018
George: What struck me about District back then was that it was the only place representing the aspects of culture that resonated with me. Being a young, chronically-online photographer, the media that I was consuming at the time–and trying to get featured in– were all foreign publications. It was Huck or Vice, i-D or Dazed. It was super exciting seeing an Irish publication trying to fill that void.
“What struck me about District back then was that it was the only place representing the aspects of culture that resonated with me.”
In 2018, you guys had just moved into the Burgh Quay office and myself and Ellius (Ellius Grace, another photographer associated with District) had struck up a deal with yourself and Eric whereby we would do shoots in exchange for office-space. Every month was deadline month. It was demented. That said, those years, when we were all working out how to exist in the world, are some of my fondest memories.
Left: Frightening Barry, Right: Frightening Eric
“Every month was deadline month. It was demented.”
A year into our little arrangement, I was about to graduate from a masters and was weighing up a move to London to pursue editorial photography. You guys approached me in the office one day and asked if I wanted to join the team full-time. I remember feeling like this was my opportunity to contribute whatever I could towards a future where young Irish people didn’t feel like they needed to leave to be successful.
James and Eric at the District x REPEAL: Men for Repeal launch, May 2018
“I remember feeling like this was my opportunity to contribute whatever I could towards a future where young Irish people didn’t feel like they needed to leave to be successful.”
From the start, the objective was to make District financially sustainable. There was always plenty of goodwill but that rarely translated to paying rent on time. In those early years, stability always felt just out of reach. And then Covid hit.
Everything we had worked so hard for went up in flames overnight. I remember not knowing what to do. Eventually we reached out for help and launched a Kickstarter.
Dylan Murphy (District Editor 2019-24) and Eric Davidson (District Editor 2015-19)
Suddenly, all that goodwill became manifest. It was one of the most life-affirming things I have ever experienced. We met our goal within a week. Words cannot describe the gratitude we felt and still feel to this day. Reaching that goal was like getting a mandate to keep going and to make sure that whatever we did was worth our audience’s investment.
The plan was to kill off the printed magazines and invest everything we had into making the best website we could. That transition, from print to digital, from lockdown to freedom, marked the start of the District that people know today. Dylan Murphy, who came in as our editor and Head of Content shortly before the pandemic deserves enormous credit for being an absolutely crucial part of that rebuilding process. If we owe a large part of District’s existence and identity to Eric’s vision, it was Dylan’s stewardship that kept District alive and helped it grow into what it is now.
Craig, James and Ellius, District Office, Burgh Quay, 2018
“Reaching that goal was like getting a mandate to keep going and to make sure that whatever we did was worth our audience’s investment.”
2022-2025
District 2.0
Craig: Yeah, If it wasn’t for Covid I don’t know if we would have been able to take the time to assess what we actually wanted to do. You could call it good fortune or you could say that we’ve benefitted from covering the same stuff for ten years but Ireland is the centre of the universe now and we’re taking at least 2% credit for that.
Looking back has made me realise that we’re sort of living the dream we had during the lockdown days. But everything still feels as fresh, exciting and perilous as it did when we first started.
If you don’t pass away as a result of deadline-related stress, what do you want to see us achieve over the next ten years?
Left: Ivan, Rachel, and Salma at Altogether Now 25, Right: Dray and Rachel with Barrack and Michelle en-route to Other Voices
District is just a group of people in a room trying their best.
George: It’s funny, when we started we were this rag-tag bunch of kids trying to give our work a veneer of professionalism. Now that we’ve grown, we’re trying to emphasise the fact that District is just a group of people in a room trying their best.
So much of this book is about celebrating the people that came together over the years to make something special. All of our staff, past and present, are people who insisted on making great work for its own sake and often made real sacrifices to do it. They are people who truly cared before there was an incentive to do so. We would have been lost without them.
District Team at Other Voices 2024 (Jeann Mette, Dray Morgan, Izzy Copestake, Rachel Hannon, Salma Yousuf, Aaron Fahy)
“All of our staff, past and present, are people who insisted on making great work for its own sake and often made real sacrifices to do it.”
We write elsewhere in this magazine that the difference between now and ten years ago is that, back then, being an Irish rapper was the most embarrassing thing that anyone could admit to. A few weeks ago, three Irish rappers shared the stage with one of the biggest artists in the world. If that’s a gap that can be bridged in ten years, I’m excited to see what else is possible.
District: 10 Years of Chaos Launch Party (Xavi and George take a minute before doors open, Milan and Jeann tirelessly load a palette of magazines into a waiting taxi)
The dream is for District to outlive us; to become an institution for celebrating homegrown youth and creative culture. I want it to seem inconceivable to future generations of young people that there was a time before District. Not for vanity’s sake but because I want them to always have a place that represents their interests and praises their achievements- that meets them where they are, takes them seriously, and gives them a voice. We both remember a time before that was a thing and it would be great if we never had to go back to that.
George and Craig at the launch of District: 10 Years of Chaos in the Sugar Club
A Message from District:
Ultimately, District is nothing without our audience. It’s always been about you. So here’s to those who stayed despite it all and to everyone that came back. Here’s to everyone who supports homegrown culture. To those who designed for fifty quid and unlimited guestlist, and to those whose invoices were overdue. Here’s to those who played at our shows to fifty people and those who are now taking over the world. Here’s to everyone living in a boxroom while they finish their masterpiece. To those who give us shit in the comments and to those who keep us honest. Here’s to those who gave us a chance when we needed it most. And, lastly, to everyone that has ever crossed the threshold at a District event. Instagram likes are great but you are what makes it real.
This is for you.
Thank you.
Craig, George & Everyone at Team District
District: 10 Years of Chaos is a retrospective of the last ten years of Irish underground culture. The book explores everything from nightlife to art, fashion, music and everything in between. The book is available online and is also stocked in some of our favourite shops around Dublin. Support District, support homegrown culture. Pick up your copy here.
