Arts Festival worth more than €21m to Galway

Ireland’s biggest and best yearly fortnight celebration of the arts got underway last night as stars of the acting and theatre worlds convened on Galway for the official opening of the international arts festival.

The artistic director of the Galway International Arts Festival, Paul Fahy, yesterday said the 2014 event would be worth more than €21 million to the local economy. Enda Walsh, writer and director of this year’s major attraction, Ballyturk, officially opened the festival at the Veranda Lounge in the Radisson Blu Hotel last evening.

Among the hundreds who attended the glittering event were actors Brendan Gleeson, Martin and John McDonagh, Pauline McGlynn, Michael Murphy, Cillian Murphy, Christian O’Reilly and Fiach MacConghail, director of Abbey Theatre.

They were guests at the opening night of Ballyturk, a co-production between the festival and Landmark Productions, starring Cillian Murphy, which promises to be the festival’s hit show.

The co-production between the festival and Northlight Theatre, Chapatti, by Christian O’Reilly, starring John Mahoney and Penny Slusher, will open at Town Hall Theatre on Wednesday evening and Mr Fahy is confident it will also wow local audiences.

Overall ticket sales are brisk, and up on last year, according to Mr Fahy. “The festival was worth €21 million last year and I’m confident that, based on the early ticket sales and the interest generated in this year’s festival, that we will surpass that figure,” said Mr Fahy.

He said the Garth Brooks concerts hadn’t taken away from ticket sales and if they didn’t go ahead might even benefit Galway Arts Festival as people sought alternative entertainment and might head to the city for the week.

There is no Macnas street parade again during this year’s festival but Mr Fahy said there was a huge programme of free street events planned that will bring the city to life.

He said people should watch out for the RedBall Galway, a visual arts spectacle on the streets of the city. French company Malabar presents Dragonus on Saturday and Sunday, with “heart-stopping acrobatic stilt-walkers, an electric rock-opera score with live musicians, pyrotechnics and a monumental moving dragon” from Eyre Square to Spanish Arch.

Another French company, Les Philébulistes, will perform a free circus acrobatic show, Hallali in Eyre Square at 6pm on Wednesday and Thursday this week. Meanwhile, the Galway Fringe Festival was launched on Saturday and will run until Monday, July 28.

Read more in this week’s Connacht Sentinel