It was Professor TP O’Neill who suggested the idea of celebrating the 500th anniversary of Galway being declared in 1484, to the then County Manager, Seamus Keating, so a Quincentennial Committee was set up. At one of the early meetings, Willy Fahy suggested the idea of street festivals as part of the programme.
The first such festival started on Easter Monday, April 23, 1984, organised by the businesses and residents of High Street, Cross Street and Quay Street. The area had considerable charm with an aura of antiquity. Parts of it were run down but some tasteful urban renewal had begun. The idea was to bring a carnival atmosphere to the streets, involving as many locals as possible, to get the shops to spruce up their facades and create a ‘Mardi Gras’ type ambience. Local pride helped the locals to bond to make the events a big success.
After the formal opening by the mayor, Michael Leahy, the celebrations kicked off with Gerry Macken’s Big Band playing on a large truck drawn across the junction of the streets from 9pm to 1am. It drew huge crowds and that was the night that drinking came on to the streets of Galway. There was hell to pay the following day as some pubs were down a number of pint glasses while others increased their store.
The Army Pipe Band, St Patrick’s Boys Band, Renmore Brass Band and the Dockers Fife and Drum Band also played on the streets. There were discos or concerts every night including groups like Shaskeen, All That Jazz, Mary Coughlan, Louis Stewart and a Céilí Mór performed by Roudledum. There were poetry readings, puppet shows, illustrated talks, set dancing workshops, lunchtime concerts, a boxing tournament, a fashion show, buskers, cookery demonstrations, mime theatre, a world premiere by Druid Theatre, and lots of competitions for children including chalk drawing on the street. There were several exhibitions in various locations such as pottery, weaving, spinning, musical instrument making, paintings and sculpture, rush work, woodcarving, lumra, basket making, glove making, and three different photographic shows.
All events were free of charge. The festival lasted for a week and was an unqualified success. They were very lucky as the weather stayed fine all week. All of this in an area where, at the time, you could buy grand-dad shirts and beef nuts, exotic underwear or classical musical instruments, canvas for your currach, stripped pine or wicker and cane furniture, books and pottery, antiques and jewellery, pets and pet food, dinners disguised as sandwiches, saddles and socks, fishing flies and homemade wine, and most importantly, before the winter - long johns. A number of other areas in the city followed suit with their own festivals. It became quite competitive as a matter of local pride in each street meant they wanted to outshine the others. It also meant that much of Galway was ‘en fete’ for the duration of 1984.
The streets festival mentioned above evolved into a children’s festival which ran for several years. It was always great fun, a mixture of sports, competitions, theatre, concerts and plenty of madness and fun on the streets. It included some important events such as the Siobhán McKenna Competition for the best one act play written, produced, directed and acted by national schools. The world famous children’s author Roald Dahl spent a weekend at the 1987 event, signing his books and thrilling thousands of young readers and adults alike. He loved it here and said he had travelled the world but never had he been anywhere where so much thought and energy went into encouraging children to be creative and imaginative as Galway.
Our first photograph shows St Patrick’s Brass Band playing outside Tigh Neachtain at the 1984 festival. Our second gives one an idea of the mayhem at the line-up for the start of the sack race in Quay Street in 1984. Our inset is of the badge given to all attendees of the Children’s Festival in 1987.
