CITY TRIBUNE
Galway Community Circus celebrates two decades
From the Galway City Tribune – When it began 20 years ago, the Galway Community Circus would gather on a Wednesday afternoon in Westside Community Centre with just a handful of kids meeting for a novel afterschool activity.
Founding members included Maríosa Hume, Karin Wimmer and Lisa O’Farrell, who continues to teach circus skills today.
During the summer, she was one of the 140 people from 15 countries who crossed the Corrib on a high wire in the biggest high-wire spectacle ever staged in Europe.
From small shoots, the circus has grown into a seriously professional outfit, based at St Joseph’s Community Centre in Shantalla for 18 years. Here their eight employees have bright offices and students attend classes at the wonderfully decorated community hall.
It is now the biggest youth circus in the country, alongside the one in Belfast.
In the early days, the building owned by the church was hardly used. It was the location of a lot of vandalism and antisocial behaviour. People used to think it was actually closed, reflects Executive Creative Director of the Galway Community Circus, Ulla Hokkanen.
With 500 active members attending 25 classes in Galway and three now taking place in Tuam, there are plans to create a third base on the east side of the city as part of their medium-term plan to expand their outreach. Summer camps almost always sell out.
Ulla is extremely passionate about the benefits for children of joining a circus.
She was seven when the circus came to her small Finnish town. She and her sister joined a weekend workshop and found the experience exhilarating.
“I was very shy. I would never have joined a theatre group. I hated sports, hated PE,” she reflects.
Her parents, both teachers, thought that this was a fabulous outlet for children of different learning abilities, children who had yet to find a comfortable space in the academic world.
So, they and another couple went and set up their own youth circus.
More than 100 children got involved, which was quite the number when the population of the town was just 5,000.
“My dad was able to juggle clubs, my mum was good at balancing but that’s about it. They did some training courses. All the parents got involved in the set design, in the costumes for the spring show, they made an effort to make our vision happen when it came to the show. Children were encouraged to dream. It was really special to know that parents were interested in something we were interested in and got involved with.”
The focus during the classes is on learning circus skills – things like juggling, acrobatics, rolla bolla, trapeze, silks, wire-walking – in diverse styles such as those used in street performance, in the big top or as part of a contemporary dance show.
It’s a way of getting physical, without being in a competitive environment for youths not into sport. It’s designed to nurture creativity for kids who may not be into performance arts. But the community circus has a much more important social side; it is also about equipping individuals with the necessary skills for society, explains Ulla.
“What we do is really preventative healthcare. It promotes a lifelong enjoyment of physical activity, it gives access to a safe social space where they can meet friends, get a break from the pressure of school, they’re not being measured or tested, they can learn something different.
“Bullying and isolation in schools is a big thing. You’re changing the direction of young people’s life. It’s a place they can develop confidence, resilience, you’re building their empathy, a connection to their community. You’re making sure they have a voice and they can express their opinions. Here they develop leadership skills.
“We live in a society where children are bubble-wrapped, they’re not encouraged to climb or run. Here they learn to take calculated risks. The biggest fear for a lot of adults is failure, especially in front of other people. A circus celebrates failure – when you learn juggling you drop the ball a million times but you keep picking it up and keep practicing until you get it.”
The circus gets one third of its funding from the Arts Council and Galway City Council, another third from funding for projects, mainly from the EU through the Erasmus+ and Create Europe programmes, but also bodies closer to home such as Mental Health Ireland, the HSE and the Science Foundation. The remainder comes from fees from participants, which range from €4 to €9 per class.
“I know so many families are struggling but we always have a lot of equipment and professional teachers – it’s not a volunteer-led club – so there is a cost, but we try to keep it as affordable as possible. We have a bursary scheme offering free or subsidised membership.”
Operating as a social enterprise, it has a remit to develop youth circus across the country so provides training for trainers, mentors other community circuses and organises events at schools and festivals to promote its educational ethos.
There are overseas volunteers who regularly teach at the community circus as part of an EU Erasmus programme. In Europe studying to become a circus performer is not unusual.
Over the two decades, ten former students have gone on to make working in the sector a career. One of them, Freddy Burrows from the Westside, went to Rotterdam in the Netherlands to do a circus arts degree and has since returned to teach here.
“I was doing boxing and football, but Galway Community Circus had such a positive atmosphere. It’s really good for boosting your social skills as well as being hardcore for sports,” reveals Freddy.
“When I arrived, I was doing a lot of aerial rope. The company Fidget Feet were here developing a show so I was able to get stuck into a lot of training with them. When I was doing my leaving cert, I mentioned that I would love to pursue it and then I heard you could actually study it in Europe.”
After his four years in college, he spent a year travelling Europe performing before returning to Galway just before the lockdown. He has just been accepted onto a pilot scheme – launched after the Covid lockdowns decimated livelihoods for people working in the arts – giving artists a guaranteed basic income for three years.
“I’ve just done a circus teaching training programme – it was the first one in Ireland. And the funding will help my training to develop as a teacher. I want to be able to do more work with special needs kids, refugees. The Galway Community Circus is so inclusive, we do a lot of outreach.”
The circus is currently involved in creating a degree programme in collaboration with the University of Galway and other European institutions for circus pedagogy or how to teach circus methods. The first stage of that long process is having modules of it within an arts degree.
Every year the team bring a group of young people to a community circus in Europe. This July the circus hosted young people who arrived to take part in Lifeline, the mass high wire project that was due to take place during the Galway 2020 programme, explains the community circus digital engagement officer Alexandra Stewart.
“That was such as a happy day, a day full of joy. All kinds of people took part, from 10 and 68 years old, including professionals, adults who wanted to take part in something challenging. It was very cool to meet people from the circus sector from all around the world. It really feels like the circus is family.”
Alex, from Michigan in the US, immigrated here with her Wexford husband before the first lockdown. Ulla studied a semester at University of Limerick as part of her social studies degree. She joined the circus as a volunteer in 2008 and has never left.
They are typical of the multicultural team leading the dynamic organisation, always seeking new funding for another project, never content to sit still.
Six years ago, they got funding to completely transform the community centre hall in a venue perfect for a circus school. It was designed by the members, in collaboration with visual artists Finbar 247 and Shane O’Malley, with circus performers Davi Hora, Alex Alison and Jack English, a trainer in parkour, the sport that involves running, jumping and climbing through urban buildings. The walls are splashed with graffiti, with colour every which way.
The Galway Community Circus has many plans for the future. But this year is about celebrating their 20-year milestone. They will hold a three-day conference at the University of Galway and a Youth Ensemble performance in November. They will also mark the occasion with a birthday party.
No doubt another colourful affair in the life of this colourful outfit as it leaves its teenage years behind.
This article first appeared in the print edition of the Galway City Tribune, October 28. You can support our journalism by subscribing to the Galway City Tribune HERE. The print edition is in shops every Friday.
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.”
The new Salmon Weir pedestrian and cycle bridge will be officially opened to the public next Friday, May 26.
Work on the €10 million bridge got underway in April 2022, before the main structure was hoisted into place in early December.
A lunchtime tape-cutting ceremony will take place on Friday, as the first pedestrians and cyclists traverse the as-yet-unnamed bridge.
The Chief Executive of Galway City Council, Brendan McGrath, previously said the bridge, once opened, would remove existing conflicts between pedestrians, cyclists and traffic “as well as facilitating the Cross-City Link public transport corridor over the existing 200-year-old bridge”.
The naming of the new bridge has been under discussion by the Council’s Civic Commemorations Committee since late last year.
One name that has been in the mix for some time is that of the first woman in Europe to graduate with an engineering degree – Alice Perry.
Ms Perry, who was from Wellpark, graduated from Queen’s College Galway (now University of Galway) in 1906. The university’s engineering building is named in her honour.
The bridge was built by Jons Civil Engineering firm in County Meath and was assembled off-site before being transported to Galway. Funding for the project was provided in full by the National Transport Authority and the European Regional Development Fund.
(Photo: Sheila Gallagher captured the city’s new pedestrian footbridge being raised on the south side of the Salmon Weir Bridge in December. It will officially open next Friday, May 26).
From the Galway City Tribune – Minister of State for Local Government and Planning, Kieran O’Donnell was labelled a “disgrace” for overturning councillors’ decisions to rezone land in the new City Development Plan.
Minister O’Donnell (pictured) confirmed in a letter to Council Chief Executive Brendan McGrath last week that he was reversing 25 material alternations made by councillors to the CDP 2023-29. He made the decision on the advice of Office of Planning Regulator (OPR).
Minister O’Donnell directed that 14 land parcels that were subject to land-use zoning changes by councillors as part of the Material Alterations to the Draft CDP should be reversed.
He directed that a further 11 land parcels in the city should become “unzoned”.
The Minister found that the CDP had not been made in a manner consistent with recommendations of the OPR, which required specific changes to the plan to ensure consistency with the national planning laws and guidelines.
At last week’s Council meeting Cllr Eddie Hoare (FG) asked for clarity on the process by which councillors could rezone the lands that had been changed by the Minister’s direction.
Cllr Declan McDonnell said, “What he [Minister O’Donnell] has done is an absolute disgrace”.
And he asked: “Do we have to have another development plan meeting to deal with it?”
Both Cllrs Hoare and McDonnell wondered what would become of the lands that were rezoned or unzoned by the ministerial direction.
Mr McGrath said the Council had put forward an argument in favour of retaining the material alterations in the plan, but ultimately the Minister sided with OPR.
He said if councillors want to make alterations to the new plan, they could go through the process of making a material alteration but this was lengthy.
The Save Roscam Peninsula campaign welcomed the Minister’s decision.
In a statement to the Galway City Tribune, it said the direction would mean the Roscam village area on the Roscam Peninsula will be unzoned and a number of land parcels would revert back to agriculture/high amenity.
A spokesperson for the campaign said: “the material alterations made by city councillors following lobbying by developers continued the long-standing practice of councillors facilitating a developer-led plan rather than an evidence- and policy-based plan that meets the needs of the city.
“The Minister’s direction is an important step in restoring confidence in the planning system. It is clear from the City Council’s own evidence on future housing projections that there was no requirement to zone these lands for residential purposes in order to meet the needs of the targeted population increase up to 2029,” the spokesperson added.
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