Top band leads campaign to get City Council to change its tune on buskers

An impassioned online plea from a well-known Irish band to preserve busking in the city centre led to a flurry of submissions to Galway City Council about its new controversial bylaws.

Keywest released a video on Facebook urging its fans to lobby the Council to abandon its plans to restrict busking through the introduction of new laws.

“Otherwise the next time you walk down Shop Street in Galway, it’s going to be awful quiet and awful sad,” said Keywest frontman, Andrew Kavanagh.

“Cities around the world have opened their doors to street performers. Places that previously brought in regulations have opened their doors again. Sadly, Galway is closing theirs. Circus acts, face painting, bands like Keywest, street performers that need amplification – they’ll be gone,” he said.

The Council was bombarded by emails following Kavanagh’s plea, and it is understood the local authority’s server crashed as a result of the volume of correspondence.

The bylaws would introduce a permit system for buskers, and include restrictions on amplification and ban circle acts in certain places. Breaches of the bylaws could result in fines of €1,500.

Some businesses on Shop Street have lobbied for the changes, which have been met with opposition from buskers and the arts community.

Galway City Community Network said the draft bylaws are an “inappropriate and potentially damaging approach to the regulation of busking”.

The umbrella organisation, representing up to 130 community and voluntary groups, said a code of conduct is a more “sensible and workable” way to regulate and support busking in the city.

In its submission, the group said busking is “an integral part of the social and cultural fabric” of Galway.

Labour City Councillor Niall McNelis said the Council needs to address the concerns of buskers who feel that amplification is going to stop them from performing.

“Large bands should be able to use a ‘band stand’ in Eyre Square or at the Spanish Arch. A band stand in Eyre Square would create an atmosphere in a public park and also help young bands be able to perform,” he said.

“What is being proposed is not to ban busking but to create an environment where shops, businesses and workers can go about their work without the amplification. These can perform after 6pm. Large circle acts are not being banned but restricted until after 6pm so that again businesses and the large numbers in city can get by freely.”

■ For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.