CITY TRIBUNE
Galway parade returns to streets as St Patrick’s Day is celebrated in style
Nearly 50 groups are expected to take part in the first St Patrick’s Day parade for three years, with an expanded programme of music, sporting and cultural events likely to attract in influx of visitors over the extra-long weekend.
So far, 46 community and sporting groups have registered to take part, ten of them in just a single day, according to Ruairí Lehman, Tourism Officer for Galway City Council.
That’s slightly up on 2019 when the last one was staged and a crowd of an estimated 30,000 descended on the city.
This time round, Galway’s Olympic rowing heroes Fiona Murtagh and Aifric Keogh will lead the parade as the Grand Marshals, alongside Frank Downes, who was scheduled to be up front in 2020 before it was cancelled in the Covid lockdown. He has generated over €2 million in donations for the Irish Guide Dogs Association during his 40-year-association with the charity.
“We’re seeing lot of groups really interested in taking part. They are just delighted to get back on the street celebrating our national day and not having another virtual event,” stated Mr Lehman.
“We are working closely with the Gardaí and will have security in place to ensure this is a wonderful family-friendly affair. We are expecting it to be a great event for all ages. And so far the long range forecast is promising.”
The theme for this year will be peace, with participants asked to incorporate this into their floats, banners and dress. The Macnas drummers and the Galway Community Circus will be among the perennial crowd favourites marching along the route.
The parade will kick off at 11.30am on University Road before heading over the Salmon Weir Bridge, along Eglinton and Williamsgate Streets before passing the official viewing stand at Eyre Square and heading up Prospect Hill, eventually finishing on Bóthar na mBan.
There will be a packed schedule of events over the four-day weekend, the first ever when two bank holidays have taken place to mark St Patrick’s Day
Taking to the Eyre Square stage On St Patrick’s Day itself will be BackWest, as well as the five-piece multi-instrumentalist Indie/Folk band the Amazing Apples. The concert runs from 3pm to 6.30pm.
On the second bank holiday, music will be staged between 2.30pm and 7.30pm, featuring performances by the Choice Music Prize-nominated singer-songwriter Niamh Regan and the award-winning composer and performer Anna Mullarkey who will weave electronics with piano and voice.
Galway singer-songwriter, Ultan Conlon, who has shared the stage with the likes of John Fogerty and Bryan Ferry, will be the headliner on March 19, alongside ska and rock music nine-piece outfit Big Jelly.
A day of Jazz om March 20 will feature some of Galway’s favourites: Galway Bay Jazz Band, , 4 Men & a Bass, and Aengus Hackett & Barbara Vulso, billed as ‘Galway’s own Queen of Soul’.
Over by the sea, there will be a free family fun sports day in Salthill Park on the Saturday, with the public invited to take part in activities such as beach volleyball, tag rugby, Pilates and Olympic handball.
Galway Lawn Tennis Club will also host an Open Day with games and activities, including tennis, squash and badminton for all age groups.
The festival will mark the real start of the tourist season with the opening of Curry’s Funpark on St Patrick’s Day following their winter break.
Galway City Council has commissioned local lighting artist Brendan Savage from The Galway Light Festival to design a new greening experience, Reflexions on a Nation, that will bring the city centre streets to life, joining other iconic sites around the world by going green.
Bádóirí an Chladaigh in the Claddagh Basin will once again be going green with a fabulous display of lights on their hookers.
For those wanting to indulge in a bit of highbrow culture, Mountain Language is a group exhibition featuring Irish and international contemporary artists at the Galway Arts Centre Duncan Campbell, Ailbhe Ní Bhriain, Sarah Pierce, Alice Rekab, Denise Ferreira da Silva and Arjuna Neuman. The exhibition looks at language and identity through a range of mediums, including sculpture, film, photography, installation and performance. A performance piece by Sarah Pierce will take place on Saturday at 4.30pm in the Arts Centre.
Meanwhile, a group representing local civil, business and academic communities travel to Lorient in France, Galway’s twin city.
The delegation, led by Mayor Colette Connolly, will include representatives from Galway Chamber, NUI Galway and the Portershed as well as French honorary consul Catherine Gagneux and Marian Ni Chonghaile from the Galway-Lorient Committee.
They will meet Mayor of Lorient Fabrice Loher and business, academic, sport and community groups during the four-day trip.
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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