Galway 2020 urge public to get involved on Paddy’s Day

With St Patrick’s Day just around the corner the Galway 2020 team are looking for the public to get involved in the day’s festivities as the push to become the European Capital of Culture intensifies.

With only a few months to go until the designated city for 2020 is announced in July, momentum is building and team member Riona Durkan is hoping the people of Galway can lead the charge towards success.

“We’re looking to send out a message to everyone who is looking at Galway 2020 in Ireland and in Europe that Galway really wants to win.

“We received an enormous amount of support in the first phase and now we’re coming back with a real bang to start building momentum and the St Patrick’s day parade will be the first in that series of public engagement initiatives.’’

Galway 2020 want to use the day to show Europe that the whole of the city is behind the bid to make Galway the Capital of Culture in four years’ time. Ms Durkan hopes people from all areas of society will get involved.

“We’re trying to build an army of people to march in the parade; we’re looking for about 100 people. They can be families, young people, older people, we would love to see people who are living in Galway from Europe and even further abroad take part.

“We’re hoping to really represent all types of culture in the Galway 2020 section of the St Patrick’s Day parade, that’s really what it’s about. What we’ll be doing then is sending a message out to Europe that all of Galway is backing the bid.’’

However, the St Patrick’s Day celebrations aren’t the only project the Galway 2020 team are undertaking at the moment.

On Thursday, March 10 from 7-10pm in the Galway 2020 hub there will be a workshop to develop a new project, ‘The Virtual Capital of Culture.’

The night is designed to introduce people to the concept of creating a virtual capital of culture so that the broader population of Europe, not just those in competing cities, are included. Niall O’Hara is involved here and is excited by the challenge.

“We want to develop projects across four main areas; virtual reality, augmented reality, holography and 3D projection mapping.

“We’re looking to extend it to using virtual reality in an artistic context, to create new experiences, new artistic stories, immerse people in a new world.

“We’d love visual artists, digital media artists, artists from any art form, alongside producers who want to create work in this area, people from technology backgrounds or general enthusiasts for virtual reality to come along,’’ Niall O’Hara added.

If you are interested in the St Patrick’s Day parade you can email nollaig@galway2020.ie or niall@galway2020.ie for the virtual reality workshop.