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by Paddy Cullivan

It is that time of year already: school is out, life guards are on duty, the city is filled with dusty D-reg jeeps collecting Irish College escapees, and the Galway International Arts Festival begins in earnest next week when the whole town seems enchanted.

The Galway International Arts Festival has unveiled a menu of around 20 public talks and debates in association with the University of Galway.

The 2024 Galway International Arts Festival will include seven world premiers, a new visual arts commission, the most extensive music line-up to date, and new theatre co-produced with partners Landmark Productions and Once Off Productions.

On Sunday night, the curtain fell on Galway International Arts Festival 2023 (GIAF), bringing to a close 14 days and nights of extraordinary arts experiences. The programme, which ranged from Druids to Dragons and Artists to Acrobats, drew record attendances of over 400,000 for the first time.

The Pulse from Gravity & Other Myths featuring a company of over 60 performers with a choir of 30 female voices; a newly commissioned installation from David Mach; the return of Colm Meaney to the Irish stage after 40 years performing alongside his daughter Brenda Meaney in Bedbound from Landmark Productions and GIAF; an enormous Dragon wandering the streets of Galway City; epic theatre with DruidO’Casey directed by Garry Hynes; Baxter Theatre and Handspring Puppets Life & Times of Michael K from South Africa directed by Lara Foot; a stellar line up at the Heineken® Big Top; artists Diana Copperwhite and Lorraine Tuck; Grafton Architects; musicians Martha Wainwright, KT Tunstall, Susan O’Neill, Robert Forster, James Yorkston and Nena Peerson; and First Thought Talks featuring Lindsey Hilsum, Fintan O’Toole, Gaisu Yari and a host of speakers are amongst just some of the highlights of the dazzling array of this year’s programme.

The Pulse from Gravity & Other Myths featuring a company of over 60 performers with a choir of 30 female voices; a newly commissioned installation from David Mach; the return of Colm Meaney to the Irish stage after 40 years performing alongside his daughter Brenda Meaney in Bedbound from Landmark Productions and GIAF; an enormous Dragon wandering the streets of Galway City; epic theatre with DruidO’Casey directed by Garry Hynes; Baxter Theatre and Handspring Puppets Life & Times of Michael K from South Africa directed by Lara Foot; a stellar line up at the Heineken® Big Top; artists Diana Copperwhite and Lorraine Tuck; Grafton Architects; musicians Martha Wainwright, KT Tunstall, Susan O’Neill, Robert Forster, James Yorkston and Nena Peerson; and First Thought Talks featuring Lindsey Hilsum, Fintan O’Toole, Gaisu Yari and a host of speakers are amongst just some of the highlights of the dazzling array of this year’s programme.

The recent Claire Byrne Live special, in which audience members were invited to put their furrowed brows on display, and share with the nation their hesitations about voting Sinn Féin, was, you can be sure, the opening salvo in what will be a relentless attempt by the media to shore up support for Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, and the Greens.

It seems laughable today but in 1958 Archbishop John Mc Quaid of Dublin, obsessively monitored Irish life to the extent, that he did not have to ban a film, book or play outright, it was sufficient for his secretary to make it known that the archbishop had wondered if that (name of film, book or movie) was the sort of thing a good Catholic should witness.