GALWAY IN July is home to two of the biggest festivals in the country - the Galway Film Fleadh and the Galway Arts Festival - but there is a third festival also worth checking out.
The Colours Fringe Festival opens tomorrow and runs until Friday July 8, featuring music, readings, exhibitions, films, and a parade.
Events @ Kelly’s
Many of the events take place in Kelly’s with the festival kicking off tomorrow at 7.30pm with Oíche Mhór Cheoil Traidisiúnta, with new group Seascair - John Rynne (flute ) Paul Bradley (fiddle ), PJ King (accordion ), and Feilm Collins (vocals ), with the Celine Hession Dancers. Admission is €15/12.
On Sunday at 3pm Maura Harrington and Margaretta D’Arcy will be in conversation as The Two Termagants, discussing the state of hospitality in Ireland. Admission is €7/5.
Monday at 8pm is the Colours Film Night, where new shorts from Galway film makers like Finn Arden, Eoin Kenny, and Davis Santo will be shown.
Theatre lovers can look forward to Spontaneous Theatre’s performance of Orla McGovern’s Star Stories – Five on Thursday July 7 at 3pm, featuring stories of love, joy, melancholy, madness, and magic. Admission is €7/5.
There will also be a rehearsed play-reading of Kevin Whelan’s Autistland on Friday 8 at 3pm. Autistland is a dramatisation of Kevin’s novel Izzy Baia - Autism, Life and Other Unsolved Mysteries and centres on the author’s work as a carer to an autistic teenager. Admission is €7/5.
At 8pm that evening the festival will conclude with the Colours Cabaret Night.
Readings
Colours will host a series of poetic and musical collaborations in The Poetry Sessions at the Bridge Mills Gallery throughout the festival.
The readings open with Paul Bradley (poet and fiddle player ) and Alan Burke (guitar/vocals ) on Saturday; Marie Cadden and Tom Lavelle, accompanied by guitarist Breda Larkin on Sunday; poet and prose writer Mary Dempsey on Monday; poets Clare Sawtell, Laurie Allen and Joyce McCracken on Wednesday; novelist and playwright John Arden on Thursday July 7; poets Maíre Holmes, Gráinne Ní Fhóighil, and Fred Johnston on Friday 8.
Running concurrently is an exhibition by local artists Eileen Joyce, Kate Hodman, and Evanna O’Reilly in the Bridge Mills. Admission to the readings is €8/€5.
Novelist and storyteller Rab Swannock Fulton will reading extracts from his satirical sci-fi blog-novel Marcus Marcus and the Hurting Heart as part of the festival, in Dubray Books in Shop Street on Saturday at 4pm. Admission is free.
Colours parade
The annual Colours parade, The Magic Fairy Day Parade, takes place this Saturday at 2pm. The parade begins at the Spanish Arch and finishes in Eyre Square.
Tickets are available from The Socs Box, Áras na Mac Léinn, NUI Galway (091 - 492852 ). For full details of all events at the festival see www.coloursfringe.blogspot.com
