Galway Arts Festival

The Galway Arts Festival takes place in Galway, Ireland every July. It first began in 1978 and since has grown into one of the biggest arts festivals in Ireland.

Each year over 100,000 people attend the Galway Arts Festival, with hundreds of writers, artists, performers and musicians creating theatre, spectacle, street art, music, comedy, literature and music to produce a stunning fortnight of cultural activity and celebration.

Galway Arts Festival is the defining cultural expression of Galway and is at the heart of all aspects life in the city.

Over its 31 year history the Galway Arts Festival has become a vital showcase for Irish arts and international arts and is now firmly established as Ireland’s leading arts festival.

Over the years the Festival has developed a reputation to rival the near-hedonistic atmosphere which envelopes the city of Galway during those weeks. Highlights of the festival tend to be Macnas and Druid performances, two large local performance groups.

Festival Highlights 2009

In 2009, the festival ran from 13th to 26th July. We have outlined some of the highlights of this year's festival below. To review the complete programme or book tickets online to future festivals or any other events visit www.galwayartsfestival.com.

Comedy

David O'Doherty -Cuba
Comedy - 20 Jul 2009 - 20:30

Tommy Tiernan -Cuba
13 Jul -18 Jul (20:30)

Dead Cat Bounce Wired- Roisin Dubh 
15 Jul 2009 - 20:00

Maeve Higgins -Cuba
22 Jul 2009 - 20:30

Laughter Loft- Ruby Room, Kings Head 
13 Jul (13:00) - 25 Jul (13:00)

Music

Bon Iver at Festival Big Top
23 Jul 2009 - 20:30 (opens at 19:00)

David Gray at Festival Big Top
21 Jul 2009 - 20:30 (opens at 19:00)

Jerry Fish and the Mudbug Club at Roisin Dubh 
18 Jul 2009 - 20:00

Candi Staton at Roisin Dubh 
Music - 19 Jul 2009 - 20:00

Music from the Penguin Cafe at Radisson SAS Hotel
Music - 17 Jul 2009 - 21:00 (opens at 20:00)

Theatre

A Midsummer Night's Dream - William Shakespeare
Propeller at Town Hall Theatre
22 Jul (20:00), 24 Jul (20:00), 25 Jul (14:00), 26 Jul (20:00)
A Midsummer Night's Dream undergoes a riotous re-working by Edward Hall.

The Gigli Concert -Druid Theatre 
15 Jul - 16 Jul (19:30), 21 Jul - 24 Jul (19:30), 25 Jul (14:00, 19:30)
Tom Murphy and Director Garry Hynes once again join forces to stage what is widely regarded as Tom Murphy’s masterpiece. This searching, challenging and funny play deals with seven days in the relationship between Dynamatologist JPW King, a quack self-help therapist living in Dublin but born and brought up in England, and the mysterious Irishman, a despairing property magnate who seeks out King to help him sing like the great Italian opera singer Beniamino Gigli.

Druid Debuts- The Home Front -Druid Theatre
24 Jul 2009 - 14:00
Druid's popular Debut season returns to the Festival with rehearsed readings of the most promising plays from a new generation of writers.

Dance

Furioso -Circa - at Black Box Theatre
21 Jul (20:00), 22 Jul (20:00), 23 Jul (20:00), 24 Jul (20:00), 25 Jul (20:00), 26 Jul (20:00)
Circa, Australia’s premier contemporary physical theatre company return to Galway Arts Festival. Seamlessly combining extreme circus skills with dance, movement, lighting and a magnificent contemporary string soundtrack, Furioso explores the shape and form of fury. Explosive encounters, dynamic group scenes and achingly beautiful solos abound in a show the pushes the boundaries of human physicality in a turbulent blend of bodies, skill and emotion.

Street Theatre  

Firebirds - Streets of Galway
14 Jul - 15 Jul (14:00, 22:00)
Daredevil pilots and their flying machines make their way through Galway City Centre accompanied by their ground crew. Which of them has the most beautiful flying machine and which is the best at flying?

Macnas Parade Orfeo- Streets of Galway
19 Jul 2009 -22:00
The great Pan is indeed not dead though he has been ill. And now Orfeo must go down into the underworld and sing life into the stones which are not dead, only sleeping