News
Galway Arts Festival line-up includes four world premieres
Four world premieres, including a major new play Arlington [a love story] by Enda Walsh; an array of Olivier and Tony Award-winning playwrights and directors including Ivo van Hove, Lee Hall, Jim Culleton and Garry Hynes; musicians ranging from Elvis Costello to The Gloaming; a major new commissioned exhibition from artist Hughie O’Donoghue; and a Street Art Programme featuring Francisco de Pájaro’s Art is Trash, are among the highlights of the 39th Galway International Arts Festival. It takes place from July 11-24.
Artists and companies from Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Iceland, Italy, the Netherlands Scotland, Spain and the USA join forces with artists from Ireland for this year’s event, which has a strong focus on home-produced work.
“More and more, we are involved in producing new work and are delighted that we will have so many premieres this summer,” said the Festival’s Chief Executive John Crumlish.
Irish highlights include the world premiere of Arlington [a love story] written and directed by Enda Walsh, starring Charlie Murphy, Hugh O’Conor and Oona Doherty. Reuniting the creative team behind Ballyturk and Misterman, it’s a co-production from Landmark Productions and the Arts Festival.
Invitation to a Journey is inspired by the life and work of Wexford woman Eileen Gray, a pioneer of modernist design. This is a Festival co-production with CoisCéim Dance Theatre, Crash Ensemble and Fishamble.
Death at Intervals by Kellie Hughes stars Olwen Fouéré and Raymond Scannell. There’s also a new short text Kitchen by Enda Walsh, presented in a gallery setting and featuring the voice of Eileen Walsh.
Meanwhile, Druid presents Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, directed by Garry Hynes.
International theatre and dance highlights include the Irish premieres of Song From Far Away directed by the acclaimed Ivo van Hove, who recently directed David Bowie’s musical Lazarus in New York, for which Enda Walsh wrote the book. The theatre hit of the 2015 Edinburgh Festivals,Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour by Lee Hall, a National Theatre of Scotland and Live Theatre production is also coming, as is Australian circus and acrobatic company Gravity & Other Myths with A Simple Space.
The Street Art &Spectacle Programme features gigantic Insects from Spain’s Sarruga; a daring trapeze show, The Scent of Sawdust byLes P’Tits Bras from France, and contemporary street and urban artistFrancisco de Pájaro whose pop-up sculpture and installation Art Is Trash offers a new perspective on junk.
Live at the Absolut Big Top(co-produced with the Róisín Dubh) features concerts from Elvis Costello and The Imposters with special guests The Undertones; Britpop icons Suede,; the Gloaming; Villagers with special guest Mick Flannery; and some of Ireland’s biggest-selling music acts of recent times – Bell X1and Imelda May with special guest Damien Dempsey.
Other music highlights include Dan Deacon, The Souljazz Orchestra, Brian Deady, God Is An Astronaut, Pleasure Beach, Mary Coughlan, amongst others at the Róisín Dubh; We Banjo 3 and Tommy Emmanuel in Seapoint Ballroom; Donal Dineen’s the Pipes, The Pipes at St. Nicholas’ Church; Stomptown Brass, Hothouse Flowers, Sharon Shannon Band, The Henry Girls, Mundy, Sean Smyth and Traditional Music Showcases at Monroe’s Live; with DJ sets at Electric.
GIAF’s First Thought Talks have been expanded, with discussions focusing on identity. A range of talks will explore the theme of identity across a wide platform, including talks on political, personal, cultural and digital identity.
Speakers include activists, constitutional lawyer, artists, politicians, academics, entrepreneurs, journalists, composers and poets, including The Guardian’s theatre critic Michael Billington; transgender actor Rebecca Root; top US model Cameron Russell; performer and activistRory O’Neill; artists John Gerrard and Varvara Shavrova; scientist Professor AbhayPandit; and author David Berreby, among others.
Festival 2016 sees the return of the Festival Gallery at the former Connacht Tribune Print Works, home to a major new exhibition and Festival commission, One Hundred Years And Four Quarters, by acclaimed Irish artist Hughie O’Donoghue. This forms part of the official Ireland 2016 Centenary Programme. The Festival will also host exhibitions by Irish artists including Spectres of Modernity by Ruth McHugh; Making Ireland Modern by architects Gary A. Boyd and John McLaughlin; Foreign Bodies by Elisabetta di Sopra, Giancarlo Marcali and Border Crossings presented by Galway International Arts Festival, Galway Arts Centre and SASA Gallery Australia.
Significant state investment is required to address ‘shocking’ inequalities that leave cancer patients in the West at greater risk of succumbing to the disease.
A meeting of Regional Health Forum West heard that survival rates for breast, lung and colorectal cancers than the national average, and with the most deprived quintile of the population, the West’s residents faced poorer outcomes from a cancer diagnosis.
For breast cancer patients, the five-year survival rate was 80% in the West versus 85% nationally; for lung cancer patients it was 16.7% in the west against a 19.5% national survival rate; and in the West’s colorectal cancer patients, there was a 62.6% survival rate where the national average was 63.1%.
These startling statistics were provided in answer to a question from Ballinasloe-based Cllr Evelyn Parsons (Ind) who said it was yet another reminder that cancer treatment infrastructure in the West was in dire need of improvement.
“The situation is pretty stark. In the Western Regional Health Forum area, we have the highest incidence of deprivation and the highest health inequalities because of that – we have the highest incidences of cancer nationally because of that,” said Cllr Parsons, who is also a general practitioner.
In details provided by CEO of Saolta Health Care Group, which operates Galway’s hospitals, it was stated that a number of factors were impacting on patient outcomes.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
On the eve of completing his 150th marathon, an odyssey that has taken him across 53 countries, Loughrea’s Marathon Man has announced that he is planning to hang up his running shoes.
But not before Jarlath Fitzgerald completes another ten races, making it 160 marathons on the occasion of his 60th birthday.
“I want to draw the line in 2026. I turn 57 in October and when I reach 60 it’s the finishing line. The longer races are taking it out of me. I did 20 miles there two weeks ago and didn’t feel good. It’s getting harder,” he reveals.
“I’ve arthritis in both hips and there’s wear and tear in the knees.”
We speak as he is about to head out for a run before his shift in Supervalu Loughrea. Despite his physical complaints, he still clocks up 30 miles every second week and generally runs four days a week.
Jarlath receives injections to his left hip to keep the pain at bay while running on the road.
To give his joints a break, during the winter he runs cross country and often does a five-mile trek around Kylebrack Wood.
He is planning on running his 150th marathon in Cork on June 4, where a group of 20 made up of work colleagues, friends and running mates from Loughrea Athletics Club will join him.
Some are doing the 10k, others are doing the half marathon, but all will be there on the finishing line to cheer him on in the phenomenal achievement.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
From the Galway City Tribune – An impassioned plea for a ‘masterplan’ that would guide Galway City into the future has been made in the Dáil. Galway West TD Catherine Connolly stated this week that there needed to be an all-inclusive approach with “vision and leadership” in order to build a sustainable city.
Deputy Connolly spoke at length at the crisis surrounding traffic and housing in Galway city and said that not all of the blame could be laid at the door of the local authority.
She said that her preference would be the provision of light rail as the main form of public transport, but that this would have to be driven by the government.
“I sat on the local council for 17 years and despaired at all of the solutions going down one road, metaphorically and literally. In 2005 we put Park & Ride into the development plan, but that has not been rolled out. A 2016 transport strategy was outdated at the time and still has not been updated.
“Due to the housing crisis in the city, a task force was set up in 2019. Not a single report or analysis has been published on the cause of the crisis,” added Deputy Connolly.
She then referred to a report from the Land Development Agency (LDA) that identified lands suitable for the provision of housing. But she said that two-thirds of these had significant problems and a large portion was in Merlin Park University Hospital which, she said, would never have housing built on it.
In response, Minister Simon Harris spoke of the continuing job investment in the city and also in higher education, which is his portfolio.
But turning his attention to traffic congestion, he accepted that there were “real issues” when it came to transport, mobility and accessibility around Galway.
“We share the view that we need a Park & Ride facility and I understand there are also Bus Connects plans.
“I also suggest that the City Council reflect on her comments. I am proud to be in a Government that is providing unparalleled levels of investment to local authorities and unparalleled opportunities for local authorities to draw down,” he said.
Then Minister Harris referred to the controversial Galway City Outer Ring Road which he said was “struck down by An Bord Pleanála”, despite a lot of energy having been put into that project.
However, Deputy Connolly picked up on this and pointed out that An Bord Pleanála did not say ‘No’ to the ring road.
“The High Court said ‘No’ to the ring road because An Bord Pleanála acknowledged it failed utterly to consider climate change and our climate change obligations.
“That tells us something about An Bord Pleanála and the management that submitted such a plan.”
In the end, Minister Harris agreed that there needed to be a masterplan for Galway City.
“I suggest it is for the local authority to come up with a vision and then work with the Government to try to fund and implement that.”
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
