What is Eirtakon?

Eirtakon is the largest and longest-running anime (Japanese animation) and manga convention in Ireland, held every year by a dedicated volunteer committee put in place by the DCU Anime & Manga Society.

How did Eirtakon come to be?

Eirtakon has its roots back in 2004, when its founders John Doyle and Ross Duggan came upon the idea of starting up an anime convention in Ireland. Although there had been anime conventions run in Northern Ireland before, the only known incident of one in the Republic alledegely sank without trace after it clashed with Gaelcon (a long-running gaming convention).

Being students, they quickly realised that the best way to host any kind of event with almost no startup costs was to run it through a college society. Dublin City University at the time had no anime society (indeed no college in Ireland had previously hosted a dedicated anime & manga society) and so over the summer of 2004, John and Ross worked to create just that, calling it the Anime & Manga Society (AMS). They gathered the required number of minimum signups, organised all the paperwork and set up shop so that by the start of the 2004/05 college year, AMS was in business.

With access to a venue (Eirtakon's previous home of five years, The Hub), some funding from the students union and an idea of a date (November 2005), work began on the first Eirtakon. The name was derived from the phrase eirtaku, which stands for Irish otaku (or Irish fans of all things Japanese and eccentric), stapled onto 'kon' (as in convention). John and Ross attended Silicon in 2004 and were inspired by their giving away of free t-shirts to every attendee, a tradition that has continued with Eirtakon ever since. Our mascot, Lori, is designed by our friend Swissy, who creates fantastic new artwork for us every year.