Vodafone Comedy Festival lineup at the Iveagh Gardens announced

It's rapidly become one of the very best comedy festivals in the country and they have just announced this year's line-up.

The festival takes place in the heavenly surroundings of the Iveagh Gardens in the heart of Dublin city and will run for four days from July 24-27. Dara O'Briain, Russell Howard, Jason Byrne & Jason Manford feature as part of an astonishing line-up of 85 comedians who will perform in four fully-seated, indoor theatres in the spectacular Iveagh Gardens in Dublin. Tickets for the festival go on sale this Monday June 16, with 20,000 people expected to attend over the four days. 2014’s line-up sees the largest contingent of international talent ever to come to the Iveagh Gardens, including South African sensation Trevor Noah, New Zealand’s Rhys Darby (pic above), best known for playing Murray the band manager character in Flight of the Conchords, Canadian one-line specialist Stewart Francis, his compatriots Bobby Mair & Katherine Ryan and Denmark’s Sofie Hagen who won this year’s Chortle Best Newcomer Award. They also have a big number of American acts including Dave Chappelle’s Show co-creator Neal Brennan, best-selling author & Chelsea Lately panellist Jen Kirkman and the inimitable Pajama Men who’ve won awards all over the world. The awesome black-hearted joke-slinger Anthony Jeselnik also returns along with Rory Scovel and the Bitter Buddha himself Mr Eddie Pepitone (pic above). This year’s UK contingent includes TV stars Russell Howard, Jason Manford, Al Murray (pic above), Milton Jones and Gary Delaney as well as Scotland’s Daniel Sloss and the Xtra Factor’s Matt Richardson. This year’s line-up features many of the giants of Irish comedy including Dara O’Briain, making his festival debut, David O’Doherty, Jason Byrne, Maeve Higgins (who makes a welcome return from her new home in New York), Ed Byrne and stars of Irish TV and radio such as PJ Gallagher, David McSavage, Barry Murphy, Eleanor Tiernan, Eric Lalor, Kevin McGahern, Fred Cooke and Bernard O’Shea. For tickets and show details, go here