Oireachtas na Samhna would have brought 10,000 people to Salthill

Ireland’s premier festival showcasing the best of Irish arts, culture, music and dance is the latest event to fall victim to Coronavirus – delivering a multi-million euro blow to Galway’s off-season tourist industry.

An tOireachtas has announced that Oireachtas na Samhna 2020 – planned for Galway City to coincide with the European Capital of Culture – has been cancelled.

The annual event would have attracted as many 10,000 people to Salthill, and would have boosted the domestic tourist industry in the off season of November.

Director Liam Ó Maolaodha cited the challenges posed by social distancing rules and restrictions on mass gatherings due to Covid-19.

He said it was not feasible to proceed with an Oireachtas as envisaged and said the health and safety of the participants and public at large was to the fore in the organisation’s decision making.

Mr Ó Maolaodha thanked Galway City Council, and Gaillimh le Gaeilge, an organisation that promotes the Irish language and Galway as a bilingual city, who had worked with Oireachtas na Samhna on this year’s festival. He hinted that there may be an Oireachtas of some sort this year, online.

The event is due to take place in Killarney in the next two years, but it has agreed ‘in principle’ to return to Galway in 2023.

The event was held at Citywest last year – and on a previous occasion it took place at the same venue, back in 2015, South County Dublin Council Tourism estimated it was worth €8m to the local economy.

People travel from all over Ireland to take part and attend the seven-day festival, which is a celebration of Irish culture and the arts, with competitions for Sean nós singing and dancing, storytelling, and performing arts.

It was last held in Galway in 1993.