CITY TRIBUNE
Sean-nós dancer Emma fears new busking bylaws may go too far
Nearly everyone in Galway knows her, even if they don’t know her name.
Emma O’Sullivan has made a living by sean-nós dancing in the city streets every summer for the past few years – and this year she has started dancing in the off-season too.
Easily recognisable with long black hair and green eyes that match her signature velvet dress, she entertains the crowds by dancing outside Evergreen in Mainguard Street, often alongside children or anyone who wants to join in.
After a brief stint in Dublin – she went to study English teaching and busk there, but was forced to leave after two months due to the city’s busking bylaws – the 32-year-old Connemara native came back West.
But she is worried that Galway’s proposed busking laws could put an end to her dancing here too.
She says that the laws in Dublin created arbitrary categories for buskers, so that she was lumped in with ‘karaoke singers’ simply because she uses a backing track for her dancing.
“I’m hoping Galway councillors are very careful about the wording of these bylaws. Because if they decide to ban amps, then I’ll have to leave Galway as well,” she says regretfully.
Emma – like her mother – originally hails from Renvyle, right next to Connemara National Park’s Diamond Hill. Her father comes from County Kerry but has worked as the head chef at the Renvyle House Hotel for more than twenty years.
“He got sent there to do a little bit of sub work, just covering for a short time . . . but he liked it so much, he never left,” she explains.
And she loves Galway city. “I love the atmosphere here. I love the fact that Galway just embraces the crazy, just sees magic in everything you do. Dancing in the street probably isn’t the most normal thing, and yet here in Galway it’s so supported – it’s taken as a given, that you’d be out dancing in the street.”
In Dublin, she says, dancing in the streets is more of a shock to people. “Some people would literally stop and be like, ‘What, what is this?’”
Here, on the other hand, people often come up and dance with her.
Emma has been dancing professionally for the past twelve years. Although she grew up with music and dancing around the house, she didn’t start taking “proper lessons” until she was 18.
She’s spent a lot of time touring the world – in fact, over the past decade, this is the first full year she’s been back in Ireland.
But she worries about the future. “When it comes down to writing the bylaws, if they’re not very very careful about the wording, then one broad brushstroke wipes everyone out. In trying to get rid of one type of performance that they don’t like, they can actually wipe out loads,” she says.
City buskers are attending council meetings to keep abreast of what’s going on, and have developed a busking Code of Conduct to improve their relationship with residents and businesses.
Says Emma: “We heard about these potential bylaws, and that was our first insight that possibly people weren’t happy. Because I think it’s very Galway, someone can be really annoyed with someone playing outside, and they just won’t say it. And then the person outside mightn’t know.
“So when we got the first word of this, I think it was back in April, it kind of opened our eyes. We realised that we needed to have a good go at this Code of Conduct.”
She says that although most of Galway’s buskers do talk to nearby merchants before performing, a small minority might not follow the common-sense rules, which ruins it for the rest of them – and their audiences.
But since the bylaws were proposed, most buskers in the city have made a conscious effort to interact more with local shopkeepers.
They’ve even gone so far as to set up a telephone number for complaints – so people can contact them directly instead of going through the Council.
Ultimately, Emma says, she hopes that the Council will get a drop-off in complaints and that they “will see that we are able to regulate ourselves as a group.”
And she adds that working on the bylaws with other buskers has been “amazing”.
“All of the buskers in Galway have had to sit down together . . . and it’s created this lovely community, where we all know each other now, we all help each other out.”
She smiles. “Every cloud has a silver lining, I suppose.”
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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