Galway City Council’s green light for St Patrick’s Weekend festival

The St Patrick’s Day Parade will make a welcome return to Galway City streets this year, with the Council confirming it is to run a four-day festival over the extended long weekend.

The parade was one of the first events to get the chop in 2020 amid rising Covid figures and did not take place last year as restrictions continued – but councillors gave the green light at a meeting on Monday evening for the 2022 parade to proceed.

A crowd of up to 30,000 is expected to attend the parade on March 17 – set to commence from NUIG at 11.30am and proceed through Courthouse Square, Eglinton Street, Williamsgate Street and Eyre Square before concluding at Prospect Hill.

Senior Executive Planner Liam Blake told councillors that the parade would follow the same route as the 2019 event – avoiding the pedestrianised zones of the city centre.

“It is the same route as was used in 2019. Because of road works [resurfacing on Shop Street in 2019], Gardaí were reluctant to have a crowd down the pedestrian streets,” said Mr Blake.

Gardaí had sought a similar route this year and city planners acceded to their request.

In addition to the parade on St Patrick’s Day, a stretch tent will be installed at the Richardson’s side of Eyre Square where free traditional music concerts will take place at 2pm, 4pm and 6pm, with the event to conclude at 8pm.

Adjacent to the tent, a viewing stand is also to be erected where the Mayor, councillors and others will gather – and special arrangements have been made for wheelchair accessible spaces.

Tourism Officer Ruairí Lehmann told the meeting that a series of events were planned between March 17 and 20 – with Friday designated an additional Bank Holiday this year.

Events include music performances to take place in Eyre Square over the four days and there would be a sports and family fun day in Salthill on Saturday, March 19, he said.

“There will be a number of concerts, some night-time events and there will be some alcohol-free events as well,” continued Mr Lehmann.

Cllr Mike Crowe (FF) sought assurances that there would be adequate sanitation facilities in place around the city for the events planned – in particular bins and public toilets.

“There is nothing worse than celebrating a great day but then seeing the city left in a very poor condition afterwards,” said Cllr Crowe.

Mayor Colette Connolly (Ind) said it was great for the city to return to normal and called for a theme of peace to be adopted for the parade, in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

She said it should be ensured that adequate security was provided over the festivities and said: “We do not want St Patrick’s Day turned into a day of public drinking which causes concern for residents”.

Mr Lehmann said the Council’s Environment Department would be tasked with ensuring sanitation measures would be in place and confirmed that stewards would be operating around the city for the duration of the parade and afterwards.

“There is no specific theme for the parade this year because we wanted as many groups as possible to take part – a number of groups had already prepared for the 2020 parade,” he added.