Read all about our member Jeffrey‘s trip to The Circular Square.
On Saturday 5 September I put my bicycle on an Irish Rail train in Dublin and headed south to Clonmel. With the bike safely in its rack and the panniers packed, it was a pleasantly straightforward start to a three-day trip running through to Monday 7 September.
The main reason for travelling was a weekend of repair and Linux workshops at The Circular Square. Around that, I had plans for some cycling, portable amateur radio and a little monument photography. It sounds like several different weekends packed into one, but they fitted together rather well.
Over the past few weeks, we have been putting some new equipment into use around TOG thanks to support from the Local Enhancement Programme 2026.
The programme supports community and voluntary organisations with capital equipment that helps strengthen local community activity. In Dublin, it is funded by theDepartment of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, through the Dublin City Local Community Development Committee (LCDC) and Dublin City Council.
For us, the aim was fairly simple: make our public nights, workshops and community events safer, better organised and easier for our volunteers to run.
Already being put to use
Some of the most visible additions are our new outdoor event gazebos.
The day brought heritage blacksmith Fínín Líam Christie to TOG for a day of traditional forge work, hands-on participation and demonstrations exploring the skills associated with the United Irishmen, the 1798 Rebellion and Robert Emmet’s 1803 Rising. The gazebos gave us a much more useful covered outdoor area around the forge and remained in use for our Open Social Night afterwards.
That is exactly the sort of thing we hoped this funding would allow us to do. Rather than equipment for a single event, these are things we can bring out again and again for our monthly socials, workshops and other public activities.
Making the space safer and easier to use
We have also installed new Safety & Wellbeing equipment around the space, including new first aid and emergency burn kits.
Alongside this, we have added equipment to help with temporary power and trip hazards during events, better signage and equipment for managing our outdoor area.
They may not be the most exciting things in a hackerspace, but they make a real difference when you are welcoming groups of people into a busy workshop and trying to run events safely.
We have also added new waste separation bins for paper, plastics and general waste. Our social nights can involve quite a few people, and usually quite a lot of pizza, so making it clearer and easier for everyone to separate waste was another practical improvement we wanted to make.
Supporting an open community space
TOG hosts three public access nights each week as well as workshops, talks, community events and our monthly Open Social Night. These are opportunities for people to visit the space, meet others, learn new skills and get involved without needing to be a member.
The equipment funded through the Local Enhancement Programme will be used across all of these activities for years to come. It helps us provide a space that is safer and better organised while giving us more options for bringing activities outdoors and welcoming larger groups.
This fits closely with Goal 4 of the Dublin City Local Economic and Community Plan 2024–2029, which aims to foster communities that are “more sustainable, thriving, safe, caring, welcoming and inclusive.”
A big thank you to the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, the Dublin City Local Community Development Committee, and Dublin City Council for supporting TOG through the Local Enhancement Programme 2026.
We are already making good use of the new equipment, and you can expect to see plenty more of it at TOG events over the coming years.
TOG Hackerspace is delighted to be taking part in the Free Community Circular Economy Day in Tallaght on Wednesday, 19th August 2026.
Organised by South Dublin County Council, the free event brings together community groups and repairers for a day focused on repairing, reusing, swapping and giving things a second life.
The event takes place at Fettercairn Community and Youth Centre, Tallaght, D24 W92N, from 10am to 4pm, with a large Repair Café, Clothing Swap and Community Plant Swap.
TOG at the Repair Café
TOG members will be taking part in the Repair Café alongside repairers from the Rediscovery Centre, with our main focus on electronics repair.
Bring along a small electrical or electronic item that has stopped working and we’ll see if we can help diagnose the problem and, where possible, get it working again.
We’ll be helping with:
🔌 Small electrical appliances
💡 Lamps
🧸 Electronic toys
🍳 Kitchen gadgets
📱 Handheld devices
💬 Advice on larger repair and upcycling projects
Where possible, you’ll get a chance to work alongside the repairers, learn what has gone wrong and pick up some useful repair skills.
Repair spaces are available on a first-come, first-served basis, with a maximum of two items per person.
More to Repair and Reuse
The wider Repair Café will also include help with:
🚲 Bike repair and maintenance
🧵 Clothing and textile repair
🪑 Furniture repair
🔌 Electronics repair
There will also be a Clothing Swap and Community Plant Swap, giving people more ways to reuse, share and keep useful items in circulation.
Event Details
Free Community Circular Economy Day 📅 Wednesday, 19th August 2026 🕙 10:00am – 4:00pm 📍 Fettercairn Community and Youth Centre, Tallaght, D24 W92N 🎟️ Free – registration required
Back in 2024, we wrote about a generous donation from Testwall that supported our electronics lab, Repair Cafés and member projects. We are delighted to say they have supported TOG again, with another collection of professional test and measurement equipment.
This latest donation includes an Advantest R3754A network analyser, an HP 75000 Series B modular test system, an Anritsu data transmission analyser and other RF and communications test equipment.
The equipment has already made its way onto the benches. Members have been carefully checking each unit, powering it up and opening up some of the equipment for inspection where needed. The next job is to find out what can be brought back into regular use.
Older test equipment can still be extremely useful. It gives members hands-on access to specialist tools that would otherwise be difficult for a community workshop to purchase. It also creates plenty of opportunities to learn about fault-finding, repair and how professional test systems are put together.
Keeping useful equipment in service is also much better than seeing it become electronic waste.
A big thank you to everyone at Testwall for thinking of TOG again. Their continued support gives equipment a second life and gives our members new tools to learn, repair and build with. Testwall works across a broad range of RF, communications and electronic test equipment, making this a particularly fitting donation for the space.
Companies sometimes have equipment, tools, components or materials that are no longer needed but still have plenty of life left. If you think something could find a useful home in a community workshop, please get in touch with us.
Dust off your joystick skills, prepare for the glow of a proper CRT, and join us for an afternoon of old computers, consoles and games at TOG Hackerspace.
Our Retro Computing & Gaming Day is back on Saturday 11 July, bringing together a collection of machines that have survived several decades in exhibitors’ houses, attics, sheds and increasingly full spare rooms.
Expect a mix of computers and consoles from the 1970s through to the 2000s. There will be classic home computers, old consoles, games, controllers, demos, and plenty of odd bits of technology that have been kept alive long after their manufacturers expected.
We are hoping to have everything from ZX Spectrums and early home computers to consoles, Windows XP-era machines and, most importantly, plenty of CRTs.
What to expect
Retro computers and consoles from the 1970s to the 2000s
Games, demos and hands-on play
A chance to chat with fellow retro computing and gaming fans
Proper CRT screens, complete with their unmistakable glow and occasional hum
A relaxed random game tournament on the day
Many of the machines will be available to try out. Please ask the exhibitor before touching anything, as some of these machines are older than many of the people attending and can be a little temperamental.
Want to exhibit?
We would love to have more people showing off their retro computers, consoles, games, peripherals and strange old technology.
If you have something you would like to bring along, get in touch through our contact form. Let us know what you would like to show, roughly how much table space you need, and whether you have any particular power or display requirements.
Event details
Date: Saturday 11 July 2026 Time: 2:00 pm to 7:00 pm Location: TOG Hackerspace Cost: Free, with optional donations welcome
Once Retro Computing & Gaming Day wraps up, we will head straight into our TOG open social night.
We will fire up the wood-fired pizza oven, have a chat, and set up a Quake III Arena or Unreal Tournament ’99 LAN party. Bring your own laptop if you would like to join in, as we do not have enough machines to lend out.
Come along for old hardware, strange peripherals, games from another era, pizza and some late-1990s multiplayer chaos.
Tog Hackerspace will be heading to Mullingar Showgrounds on Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th August for the return of the IRTS Hamfest.
After a great first year in 2025, the Irish Radio Transmitters Society is bringing the event back for another weekend of amateur radio, practical activities, camping and plenty of chances to meet people from across the hobby.
As a proud IRTS-affiliated club, Tog is delighted to be taking part again. Last year we brought soldering workshops and radio demonstrations along to the Hamfest, and spent the weekend chatting with fellow operators, makers and people who were simply curious to find out what amateur radio is all about.
It was a lovely mix of radio, electronics, projects and the social side of the hobby. There was plenty to see, plenty to talk about and, of course, plenty of opportunities to get hands-on.
This year should be no different. Whether you are already licensed, interested in getting started, enjoy building things, or just fancy a weekend surrounded by antennas and interesting projects, Hamfest is well worth a visit.
Entry is free, and free camping is available too, so you can bring a tent, camper van or caravan and make a weekend of it.
