New work pays homage to church’s role in Galway life

Arts Week with Judy Murphy

Entering St Nicholas’ Collegiate Church in Galway City, you’re immediately struck by its history as well as its sacredness. This place has served the people of Galway for more than 700 years – as an Anglican church since the Reformation of the 1500s – and the legacy of those centuries and the many turbulent events it witnessed are contained in its walls.

A new installation, I Claim Sanctuary, by Clare-born, Galway-based sound artist, Philip Fogarty, conveys some of that history, alongside this church’s contemporary role in accommodating Galway’s multi-cultural, multi-denominational society.

I Claim Sanctuary consists of 12 wooden beams with ropes attached – resembling mooring posts on a quayside. By standing near any one of these deceptively simple structures, you get an insight into the life of this church through words and music.

Philip was commissioned to create this installation in pre-Covid times – the project was part of Music for Galway’s contribution to Galway 2020, European Capital of Culture, alongside a community opera, Paper Boat.

The opera was the brainchild of organist Mark Duley, who conducts the Schola Cantorum at St Nicholas’ Collegiate Church, and was to celebrate the 700th anniversary of this hugely important place of worship, Philip explains. The plan was that the opera would run over three nights in the building.

“The opera would be finite and Mark wanted something that would extend the presence of the opera in the space for a few months and have the themes of the opera extrapolated – he thought in terms of sound,” Philip says.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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