Folk extravaganza fills rare gap in Galway festival field

Groove Tube with Cian O’Connell

Andy Irvine & Dónal Lunny, Villagers and The Henry Girls head a host of premier Irish acts – both established and emerging – who will headline the inaugural Galway Folk Festival when it takes place from June 15 to 19. Largely happening across four stages in Monroe’s Tavern and their neighbouring McBride’s, the programme also includes some of the most promising folk acts on the contemporary circuit like Emma Langford and Galway’s own Sonny Casey.

And it plugs an unlikely gap in the city’s musical calendar given the longstanding influence of folk music on the busking culture and live scene.

Monroe’s have endeavoured to facilitate more original acts over the last few months, making particular use of their backstage venue as well as the main room upstairs. It is partly testament to Peter O’Sullivan, director of the Galway Folk Festival, who has worked with the venue for the last two years. The idea for this festival came early in that period and its realisation now is hopefully the start of an annual fixture.

“It’s been [in the works] for probably a couple of years,” Peter remarks. “I started working with Monroe’s in February 2020 just a month before everything shut down, so I had plenty of time to think about it. It was one of the first ideas I had. I looked at what was on during the year in Galway and a folk festival just seemed like something that was missing.

“The Arts Festival has elements of folk but it’s more of an overall festival. It was just about trying to find the right time to launch it and I think this year seems like as good a time as any. There was a wish list of maybe fifty acts, and it was a case of seeing who was available. Villagers was one of the last additions to the festival – we were going to do Thursday to Sunday but when they became available, we added the Wednesday.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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