On Sunday, July 27, the curtain fell on the 2025 Galway International Arts Festival, marking the end of a two-week dazzling celebration of art, big ideas, creativity and culture. Celebrating on a larger scale than ever across the city and county, Galway International Arts Festival presented its most ambitious programme to date, and audiences flocked to see it.
Once again, GIAF 2025 saw record attendances (over 450,000 over the two weeks ) and drew critical and popular acclaim for its co-productions and presentations.
The Festival opened with Sabotage, from Nofit State, which kicked off the two-week celebrations in style.
The final performance was the extraordinary Mari Samuelson with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, who brought the house down at the Heineken Big Top, capping off a great two weeks for Galway city.
Over the 14 days, some highlights included:
8 new theatre, opera and dance world premiere productions and festival commissions. They included Mikel Murfi, who garnered rave reviews for his underwater performance in Oh… at the Galway Atlantaquaria in Salthill, to the exquisite Belgian production Dimanche, which captivated audiences with its ingenuity and beauty, The Cave from the Abbey Theatre, another intriguing room from Enda Walsh and Paul Fahy, the extraordinary Copenhagen Collective’s The Genesis, a double-bill of Simon Stephens’ plays, Luke Murphy’s return to GIAF with Scorched Earth, performances as Gaeilge in Beckett sa Chreig: Guth na mBan and Scéal Lae, and more.
NoFit State’s circus spectacular, Sabotage in the NoFit State Big Top, was pitched on Nimmo’s Pier for the two full weeks of the festival, bringing audiences of all ages to be amazed by this spectacular show.
Druid celebrated its 50th Anniversary with an acclaimed double bill of Riders to the Sea/Macbeth and the photo exhibition through those years, featuring photos across the decades by Joe O’Shaughnessy.
People flocked to the Festival Gallery to see Burning Down the House, a major new installation commissioned by GIAF from one of the UK’s most successful artists, David Mach.
Once again, debate and discussion of the big issues of the day featured across the two weekends, when First Thought Talks brought speakers and commentators from across Ireland and the world to Galway, including Congresswoman Parmila Jayapal, Fintan O’Toole, Máiría Cahill, Phillips. P. O’Brien, Lara Marlowe, Eman Mohammed, Róisín Ingle and many more.
Record numbers turned out to watch the street theatre programme.
The world premiere of the new opera MARS from Jennifer Walshe and Irish National Opera bravely went where no opera has gone before when it opened at Leisureland on the final Friday of the festival.
The festival also continued to move forward on its journey to be ever more sustainable and accessible, to continue to be a platform for debate, an opportunity for voices from across communities to tell their stories and share their experiences and to encourage everyone to be part of the artistic celebrations.
Plans are already underway for the 2026 festival, which will run from July 13 to July 26, 2026.
Galway International Arts Festival would like to acknowledge the support of its principal funding agencies, the Arts Council and Fáilte Ireland; its drinks partner Heineken; and its education partner University of Galway.
To keep updated, follow the GIAF on X @galwayintarts, Facebook @galwayinternationalartsfest, and Instagram @galwayintarts.
