Many posters will have different opinions on your questions. As someone who has been going to gigs and covering them as a journalist for quite a while now, I could answer any questions you might have if you want to email me. Just my opinions.

personally: best pubs to play - whelans, Lower Deck, Slattery's, crawdaddy chances of being spotted - by a 'talent scout'? high. chances of getting signed? very low there aren't really any irish labels or arms that can 'sign' bands. the scene hasn't really changed, just the bands.... bands who are good? everyone will give you a different answer to that. personally, there isn't any AMAZING band in dublin at the mo, the redneck manifesto come close, the dudley corporation are up there, um, and after that there are lots of interesting and good bands floating around.

i disagree there on the point of bands not actually getting signed....There seems to be quite a revolution going on in Dublin if u look close enough. All of these bands below either have signed to decent enough labels or are bringing out singles on smaller labels with a view to biggers things .... Mainline The Immediate The Marshall Stars The Things and thats just off the top of me head...So i'd say the scene is changing (slowly but still changing for the better all the same)

Id agree. I think the music scene is gettin better in ireland and we are producing some very decent bands at the moment. I think it would be a better career move for a decent band to head to england and try to get signed over there because i think the industry is better over there and if you get signed over there i think better things would happen for your band if you got signed there instead of here. But in my opinion this could change over the next while for the better because of the quality of bands coming from Ireland.

Thanks to all. Info passed on and appreciated.