Man who made Galway ‘sexy’

Lifestyle – Founder of Galway Arts Festival Ollie Jennings tells Judy Murphy how the germ of an idea grew into such a headline event

If someone in Garbally College, where I went to secondary school, had said I’d be running Galway Arts Festival in 1985, everyone would have laughed,” says Ollie Jennings. They’d have been wrong. Not only was Ollie running the event in ’85, but he had spearheaded its establishment in April 1978, when the first Arts Festival was held in a pop-up venue in Galway City.

Ollie’s involvement with the arts began in 1974 when he “organised a concert and got a bit of a bug. I liked it and kept going.”

The concert was in the then UCG. Ollie had gone there as a BA student having abandoned a Commerce degree in UCD – he’d done well in exams but didn’t like it. He also spent time studying journalism and a year in a public service job in Carlow. Then, in 1972, he followed his sister to Galway where she was a medical student.

He had “a lovely year, just reading,” but had no interest in academic life.

“Then I fell into a house in Fairlands Park called Comhludhar (Company or Together), where everybody was doing something, being involved in Friends of the Earth and stuff like that. There was very little music in Galway and in February 1974, I organised a gig with (traditional group) Ceoltóirí Laigheann and got 200 people in the Aula.”

Support came from a local group which they’d named Ceoltóirí UCG. They later went on to become De Dannan.

In May 1974, having hitched to Tipperary to a Chieftains’ gig and persuaded Paddy Moloney that the ground-breaking band should do a Galway show, Ollie sold 950 tickets for a Leisureland concert.

Next up was a stint as auditor of UCG’s Arts Soc, following Garry Hynes, who then went on to co-found Druid.

Arts Soc had an annual budget of £300 which allowed Ollie to host events such as an art exhibition with Dublin artist, Brian Bourke and readings with up-and-coming poet, Seamus Heaney.

He was supported as auditor by college friends including Pat Reid, Kieran Corcoran and Conall MacRiocaird – they then decided to broaden their remit.

“We regrouped downtown and renamed ourselves Galway Arts Group,” recalls Ollie. “We had two objectives. One was to organise a Festival and the second was to establish an Arts Centre.”

Broadening their base meant they could apply for Arts Council funding and that’s what happened. The two organisations subsequently diverged – the Arts Centre in Dominick Street has run Cúirt for many years.

By then, Ollie was living in a house in St Mary’s Row with like-minded people, including Ted Turton (who later became Festival Director), Gaby Froese, and Jim Raftery, where the group ran a wholefood co-op. Mary Coughlan was a frequent visitor.

“There was a coalition of people who put the first festival together in April 1978.”

The Festival base was a pop-up arts centre where Sheridan’s Cheesemongers are now. Events included exhibitions by Laura Vecchio and James Coleman, whose installation of a crying baby alongside an Irish flag, had previously featured in the ground-breaking Dublin exhibition series, ROSC. It cost £400 to show it.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.