We Galwegians are divorced from the Galway Arts Festival, but want to love it again!

Everyone hates a whinger who comes out with the same knocking copy each year. Yet once again I find myself looking ahead to the Galway Arts Festival with a mixture of excitement, hurt and sadness.
I couldn’t pin down exactly why, until I read in this Noble Rag a few weeks ago an interview with Noeline Kavanagh, the Director of this year’s Macnas Arts Festival Parade.
“Macnas is like the largest divorcee in Galway.” she said. “Everybody has a relationship with it.”
There it was: replace the word ‘Macnas’ with ‘Galway Arts Festival’, and that’s how I feel. We Galwegians used to be married to the Galway Arts Festival. We lived in the same place, loved each other, had our ups and downs of course, but generally knew that we were good together. These days, the people of Galway feel so divorced from the Galway Arts Festival, they can barely remember what it was like to love it.
I want us to renew our vows. I want the Galway Arts Festival to ask us to move back in; to woo us; love us; kiss us and lick us the way it used to.
I’m not sitting here on my voluptuous arse trying to diss that plethora of extremely talented people who put a vast amount of creativity and energy into the two week splurge.
I think they do a fantastic job, but somewhere along the way the whole affair was lost.
I talk to a lot of people, and at the moment the word on the street is that shows are simply too expensive. To be fair, I don’t think that price is the single biggest factor in the decline of the Galway Arts Festival. There are many cheaper happenings in this year’s programme than other years, but through their pricing policy we glimpse how badly the Galway Arts Festival has lost touch with the people of Galway.
I wanted to see the New York Dolls, Femi Kuti and Primal Scream, for which I would pay €112, to stand at all three gigs. But what really made me angry was the fact that if I was on the dole, I’d still have to pay €110 for those three tickets.
For god’s sake, get real, Arts Festival people! Are you trying to intimidate the poor with art? Do you want us once again to believe that art exists only for the affluent élite? Isn’t that the opposite of what the Galway Arts Festival once stood for?
Climb out of your ivory towers and take a look at how many of us have been laid off, or are just plain broke. Cop on to the fact that a night out which starts with a pair of tickets at €90 belongs to a dream of a Galway past, and exists now as an insulting anachronism.
In case you hadn’t noticed, the Tiger is dead, and we’re trying to stay alive by picking mouthfuls from its rotten corpse.
We all have our personal beefs about what is wrong with the Galway Arts Festival.
Project 06 splendidly reminded us how vital it is to include local artists and performers, yet each year, the official word comes forth that the Arts Festival have pulled off another major success.
Trouble is, for years now, it hasn’t felt like a success to us, the people of this city. Let’s learn from the dazzling success of the Volvo Ocean Race. If the organisers of the Galway Arts Festival understand anything of Galway City at all, they know that you could take a burnt banana skin, mount it on top of a bus shelter, and advertise ‘The ‘Burnt Banana Skin On Top Of The Bus Shelter Festival - the biggest thing to hit Galway since last Tuesday Afternoon!’, and as long as the people of this great city were behind it, hundreds of thousands of people would flock to Galway, because we’re the finest hosts in the best city in the world to throw a party, where fun is free and family-oriented.
Don’t tell me a over a half a million people came to our little city to see a sail puff in the wind. They came because Galway is uniquely packed with brilliant, skilful and diverse talents. We’ll give you the time of your lives, as we do every year during Race Week, but the joy of Galway is on the streets.
Doubtless during the Galway Arts Festival, our city centre will be strewn with buskers and performers of all kinds, which is just as well, because this year’s Galway Arts Festival programme lists a paltry 2 street acts, performing in total 5 times on 3 different days.
Shame on you, Galway Arts Festival.
If this marriage is ever going to work again, you really need to listen, learn and understand that whereas 15 years ago we were all buzzed up and proud of you, now you appear like a distant lost relative who expects us to run around, cook, clean, sweat and serve whenever you turn up on our doorstep.
As for the 10.00pm start time of the Macnas Parade, I say again, shame on you!
Parents simply won’t want to expose small children to crushed hordes of drunken midnight revellers. I’m sorry, Noeline, because I understand what you are trying to achieve with your segmented parade that tells a story, but who is entertaining who here?
You don’t see the purpose in “walking along with a rail of images that snake through the streets”?
Well, let me enlighten you. The purpose of the Macnas Parade is to say ‘Thanks!’ to the people of Galway with a dazzlingly fun and colourful event that can be enjoyed by people of all ages. If you are with Daddy at Spanish Arch and Mammy is in Shop Street with Granny, you’ll all see the same parade and later share your thrills and joys: it’s what they call a ‘communal event’.
Do I have any positive suggestions? Why yes! In order to save this sick marriage between the Galway Arts Festival and the people of Galway City, first quadruple the free street theatre; return the Parade to the afternoon; and offer a hefty price concessions on all tickets sold to locals, upon production of a locally-addressed utility bill.
Then we might learn to love you again, and put the best of Galway - the fun, family and free - back into our own Arts Festival.

Even if we never buy tickets, we're all affected by the Galway Arts Festival!

Recently I was asked what I thought about the Galway Arts Festival. Now that nostalgia ain't what it used to be, I tried my darndest not to allow my memory to turn the past into a Bulmer's cider commercial, where buxom girls wore frilly frocks; the sun shone from a cloudless sky; there was not one miserable fecker pulling a long face in sight; and we had all the time in the world to sit around and laugh and flirt and get pissed on cider.
Trouble is, the first memory my addled brainbox harvests of attending a Galway Arts Festival event looks exactly like a Bulmer's commercial.
Hundreds of happy sweaty young bodies are crammed into the Festival Big Top. There is straw on the floor. To my left, thick-set farmer's sons from Abbeyknockmoy; to my right, brick shithouse trucker's nephews from Tuam. The air is thick with the smell of beer and mud, and up on stage, the Saw Doctors are playing a blinder at home.
To this recently-arrived London boy, that night was a revelation. I was so musically and spiritually far away from the Marquee on Wardour Street, I could have been in Nebraska, or a different universe. But hell, I enjoyed the gig. That night was made possible for me by the inestimable Ollie Jennings, himself a co-founder of the Arts Festival.
Back then, writing a colyoom in this Noble Rag under a nom de plume, I had complained that while the Shams were enjoying worldwide success, they were at risk of neglecting the very roots that had inspired their music and their fanbase.
Months later, an envelope appeared in the newsroom, bearing two tickets to the Sawdoctors' gig in the Festival Big Top.
I've been around the block a few times, and am not easily surprised, but this act of professionalism truly impressed me. Not only did Ollie remember an isolated item in an old colyoom, but he then acted to show me that I was wrong.
Ollie was also on board when Project 06 took on the Arts Festival a couple of years ago, in a successful effort to reclaim the Festival for the people of Galway.
Project 06 focused to a great extent on the participation of local artists, performers and artistic talent, while this colyoom has for many years pleaded that the Arts Festival organisers should work harder to excite and stimulate the local population, through a greater emphasis on small street-based performances, so that we all might feel we live in a Festival City, and not merely a city with a festival.
But far too many column inches have already gone that way, while not enough have extolled the Macnas Parade.
When you live in Galway City, the Arts Festival just happens around you. The source of much revenue to some, to most of the locals it's just something that's happening that makes your life a little more difficult for a couple of weeks. There are well-to-do arty-farty types sitting in traffic jams and outside your pubs, and lots of shows you can't afford, or haven't the time to go to.
To us the Macnas Parade is much more than an event. Galwegians take the parade as a massive 'Thank You', and certainly, all of my favourite memories of the Arts Festival come from parades of the past, splendid and vibrant in their larger-than-life colours and forms. I particularly recall the Noah's Ark parade, with the God figure shooting water out of his gigantic fingertips.
The Macnas Parade brings together all the locals, tourists and arty types and stretches across our collective faces the ecstatic smile of an overexcited five year-old.
This year we have another night time parade, bringing to my mind the night of the first, when 'Cargo de Nuit' were due to make their way to South Park.
I was at that time living in a house that faced right onto the Swamp, so I'd have had the perfect view of all the parade madness and promised spectacular firework display, had it not been for the fact that I was working nights, looking after an elderly gentleman suffering from the later stages of Alzheimer's.
As I made my way to work, I was feeling really jealous of the excited crowds I passed heading whence I came, towards the show.
Later, as I ate an evening meal with my patient (let's call him Peter) and his wife, I thought it best to warn him of the night's proceedings.
"Just wanted to let you know, Peter, that if you hear loud bangs later on, it is only the fireworks from the Festival Parade."
Peter looked at me with completely blank eyes, and a little piece of his apple crumble slid slowly out of his mouth and down his chin.
"Who are you?"
"I am Charlie, Peter!"
Peter smiled warmly.
"Oh yes. Hello, Charlie."
At this point his wife, who was as short-tempered and impatient as her husband was delightful and gentle, turned to have a go at me.
"What's the point in you saying that to him? He cannot even remember your name. He cannot remember my name a lot of the time. How could he possibly remember something that won't happen for hours yet? Don't go trying to confuse him with all this nonsense talk of fireworks. Haven't I enough to think about without you worrying my poor Peter with all this fireworks nonsense."
Somewhat taken aback by the ferocity of her onslaught, I turned once again to look at Peter, sitting placidly and apparently completely unaware of our conversation.
Maybe she was right.
Maybe I had been expecting too much.
Hours later, when the firework display started, I heard Peter emit a little whimper.
Leaping out of my tiny bed to stand beside his, I asked Peter if he was okay.
"Oh yes. It was the loud noise. It woke me up. Who are you?"
"I am Charlie, Peter. "
"Oh yes, Charlie. I know you. Thank you, Charlie."
"My pleasure, Peter. Don't worry about the bangs. They'll stop soon."
"Oh I know. They are the fireworks from the parade."
'Why you sly old dog!' I thought to myself. 'You understood exactly what we were talking about, and simply chose not to engage the wife!'
Even though I rarely attend an event, the Galway Arts Festival is as much a part of my city Summer life as rain and wind.

Race Week is pure Galway, and Galway is the essence of Ireland!

Dublin, like many capital cities, fails to mirror the quintessential personality and culture of the nation it sits astride.
Having lived on three continents, I have seen for myself how there are many great cites which are not capitals, that somehow manage to sum up the essence of their country.
There are some cities that define countries. New York City is the heartbeat of the United States. Paris is La Belle France, and London is yer full English Monty.
Then there are yer second favourites runners, much-loved places of art and inspiration like San Francisco, Liverpool, Melbourne and... Galway?
I think not.
Galway City is only Dublin's poor relation in economic and demographic terms.
To this Englishman, Galway City is pure Ireland, and Race Week is the triple-distilled spirit of Galway City.
So Race Week is Galway, and Galway is essentially Ireland: ergo, Ireland is Race Week.
Around the world, magical festivals rip asunder all that claims to be normal, offering a brief and unique insight into the heart, guts and ailing grey matter of their host city.
Nassau has the explosion of colour and style that is Junkanoo; New Orleans simply could not exist without Mardi Gras; Pamplona hosts all that is Basque with San Fermin and the Running of the Bulls.
What does Dublin have? Please remind me.
The other day I was watching the weather forecast on RTE1.
Lo and behold, there's a massive band of rain occupying half of the country, obliterating everything west of the Shannon.
Gerry Murphy, a nice clean young man who has finally managed to overcome his nerves, but still cannot control his
'... We CAN expect We CAN expect We CAN expect',
explains how later in the day, as this band of rain moves east, we CAN expect widespread rain everywhere.
Everywhere? But like, er, derrr... the map on the tele shows half the country bathed in sunshine.
The rain is all over Dublin, therefore it is everywhere.
The psyche of this nation might be geared to Dublin.
But is Dublin the essential Ireland?
Maybe it once was, back in the dark days when it doubled up as the Irish capital whilst also carrying the dubious cachet of 'Second City of Empire' (for less ancient readers, that's the British Empire I'm on about; not the one that struck back in the second movie).
But right now, here, today, Galway City represents all the good and bad that is 21st century Ireland.
Galway has a rapidly growing population and shrinking green areas; a city centre with pubs you can stumble between, shops that still sport family names surviving alongside the multinational franchises; more buskers than silk shirts in a Haughey closet, and even more hyper-rich home-grown characters.
Galway has growing industrial estates and growing unemployment; rising inflation and thousands living below the poverty line; a Gaeltacht as well as a population that includes 10% born elsewhere (that's me folks!).
We've got 19,000 students, 786 different types of weather, 43 tons of vom on the streets; swans, herons, gannets, and wild salmon that leap out of our city centre river.
And we have water you cannot drink.
But the horses can. The gee-gees are lapping up their lovely clean cryptro-free water in the drinking troughs of Ballybrit.
Can you get more Irish than that?
And, yes, we have Race Week. And just to rub your Pale-faced nose in it, we slip the biggest social and sporting week in the country's calendar right onto the end of the nation's biggest Arts Festival.
Galway is the quintessential Irish city, and if the Film Fleadh and the Arts Festival are the sparks that fire up this city's engine each year, Race Week generates such a blazing inferno that it keeps us hot to trot all the way to next year.
Race Week is mad, bad, wonderful and horrendous.
Oh yeh, and it sends you mad. Stark staring cuckoo.
Whoever you are, and whatever you're doing, if you are around Galway City during Race Week, it will infect you, as sure as a gee-gee has a leg at each corner.
Kitchen porters clang and rush, while chefs, barmen and barwomen sweat buckets; hoteliers hop; gamblers and cards sharks are a-pumping; prossies a-jumping; and priests must go insomniac with the overtime work; our streets overflow with eaters and drinkers and dresses and hats, plastic pint glasses and a billion fag butts.
Up above choppers fly everywhere, buzzing-bizzing chugga-chigging in the air like it's all a bad dream of a Vietnam War flashback.
Or is it a film set?
Spot the difference: Galway during Race Week and the set of Apocalypse Now.
Wow. Might just take a moment.
Horror. The Horror.
The Mystery. The marvellous madness.
Race Week - it just doesn't get more Galway than this, and Ireland just doesn't get more Irish than this.

****

Take a tip from an old hand at Race Week. When Galway goes into fifth gear, you can hold on to neither your money nor your clothes.
But you can at least, goddamit man, at least try to hang on to your mind.
So grab a fact and stick with it, and it might just keep you sane.
To help you along the way, here's the First Annual Race Week Survival Kit.
Kind of a wee 'cut-out-and-keep' collection, courtesy of Double Vision.
All you have to do is choose at least one of the facts listed below, and force yourself to remember it, or them.
I promise you, with my hand on my heart and my cute hazel eyes staring at you as if I really care, that at some point in the coming week, you will feel like you are losing it altogether:
Whether you're watching your nag run backwards at Ballybrit, or you're stuck in a five mile traffic jam; waiting forever at the checkout in a supermarket or at a restaurant table; whether you're sitting in Accident and Emergency, or, especially, if you're working in Accident and Emergency, hanging onto and focusing on one of these free and fascinating facts might save your sanity.
Pick one and you'll be safe as houses, guv'nor. Look at me. Am I honest or am I honest? Would this face lie to you? Oh, come on, I deserve better than that!
Now here come the facts.
Did you know that -

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I love film - it's cinemas that I find difficult!

It's 'F' time in Galway City again. With the arrival of the Film Fleadh we hit Festival Season so welcome, all you fans of film. My love of film reigns supreme among the Arts, but it's my relationship with cinemas that gives good tale.
Back in 1982, when E.T. was released on video, nobody was going to the cinema. Mega-Plexes had not yet been invented, and cinemas were decaying single-screen theatres with ancient seats, sticky carpets and crappy sound.
Everyone just wanted to stay home and watch videos.
Unfortunately, I chose this abysmal period to find a job with the famous screen advertising company, Pearl and Dean, (...the tunnel, those flashing lights and the 'ba-bapbap ba-babap ba-babap baaaah!).
It was my job to head off to the southwest of England and Wales and try to sell little local adverts to little local companies. You know those 15 and 30 second shorts, showing the interior of a restaurant, garage, clothes shop that bear absolutely no relation to the one being advertised at all, followed by an obviously different, usually deep male voice that declares:
"Shirley's Boutique, Union Street, just around the corner from this cinema!"
Nobody wanted to advertise at the cinema, because nobody was going to the cinema, but my real problem was not the fact that I offered a shoddy product from an ailing industry, but more that I am not a total shit.
I cannot sell something to somebody, if I know it will do them no good whatsoever.
Picture a tiny Welsh valley community; half way up a mountainside hangs a row of old mining cottages.
"But why would I want to advertise at the Picture House? I am the only baker in the village! Everyone knows where I am!"
Indeed, sir, and although I cannot say it aloud, you have the same face as the rest of the village as well.
Visiting the local cinema manager whilst in town was seen as a simple Public Relations exercise, and in one far-flung west Welsh town, I noticed that the manager's name was distinctly Arabic.
Visiting in the afternoon, I met his wife, a local woman brimming with vitality and a certain hippy charm. Himself was apparently Moroccan, and would be back later. Why didn't I come back that evening, and have dinner with them?
What a lovely invitation! Working as a travelling salesman can be a terribly lonely affair, so I accepted, and enjoyed a great meal and a few bottles of wine.
Pink Floyd's 'The Wall' was the movie of that moment, and I confessed to having not yet seen it.
"Well let's put it on then!" said himself, with a distinct twinkle in his eye.
So we sat, the three of us, alone in his cinema, watching the rock movie, polishing off a plate of home-baked biccies.
Half way through the film, I realised that those cookies weren't just chocolate chip, and enjoyed anew this suddenly epic and brilliant piece of film-making with extraordinary enthusiasm.
Citizens of that rain-lashed Welsh industrial wasteland town were that night serenaded by a singular Adley chorus, as I stumbled hotel-wards through the dark drippy streets:
"Hiiiiigh don' neeeeed noooowww wEddge-yoo-kaaayyy-shuuurrrn!
During that period of employment, I sat one memorable Saturday afternoon with a large group of friends, imbibing way too much alcohol. Pumped up on hubris, I suddenly declared that I could get us all in to the cinema for free.
Off we went, as a raggledy-baggledy drunken army, to the ABC cinema at Edgware Road.
Waving my arms wildly outside the cinema, I shepherded my tipsy giggly flock, explaining that they had to wait there, so that I could keep it together enough to speak to the manager, and do the deal.
Like the Usual Suspects, they all lined up along the huge plate glass window, looking in and waving in that particularly embarrassing way friends do when they know you are trying to keep it together.
Once inside, I took a moment to breathe, groom my hand through my hair, pull up my jeans, tuck in my shirt and stride, purposefully, as a man who means business, towards a door that looked like an office.
Ka-booomph!! Ouch! Bloody Hell!
The worst part of what had happened was how long it took me to realise what had happened.
To my friends lined up outside, to all the staff and punters in the cinema lobby, I had just walked at full speed into a wall-sized mirror, but my alcohol-addled brain just couldn't work out who was this fat bastard geezer who was blocking my way. He wouldn't bloody budge, and he had head-butted me, and as I flailed my arms in an effort to hit him, he somehow managed to punch me back in exactly the same place that I punched him, at exactly the same time.
Finally falling backwards, the terrible truth hit me as hard as had my imaginary opponent.
My head hit the carpet, and I rolled over to see that each of my friends outside was also at ground level, having collapsed in hysterical uncontrollable laughter.
Oh yes, I love a good film, but those cinemas can be a real challenge!

****

Just in case Galway's water debacle is not over when you read this, a wee plea from me to you.
A close friend of mine and I went recently to the excellent Kashmir Restaurant. Indian Sub-Continental cuisine in Galway has improved beyond all measure in the last 15 years, and we enjoyed a splendid meal, top notch food and service.
But what was this ¤3.95 for a bottle of water? We had asked for some water, and given Galway's bug in the bog, the restaurant had to serve mineral water, and as they paid for it themselves, I expected to be charged, but only the cost price which they paid for it.
Instead they slapped a whacking great big greedy profit on it, and when I pointed it out to our charming waiter, he went behind the counter to ask his superior, who merely shook his head.
On the night I let it go, but now, I urge you all, if you would normally be happy drinking tap water at your table, refuse to pay profit prices for bottled water in Galway restaurants. As Johnny Rotten might have sang:
"Making profits from holidaymakers in other people's miser-eeeee...."

When 'prolonged heavy showers' become rain, do they throw a party?

Past Paddy's Day, with the first parade of the year behind us, vernal equinox come and gone: It's not winter any more!
Spring and summer can be indistinguishable in Connacht. On late April afternoons, with a gentle easterly breeze holding the high pressure, I have lain back on the hills of Clare, heated by the glorious sun above, warmth beneath seeping into my spine from the limestone slab.
Mark Twain is known to have said, 'The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.'
Ditto for Galway, where we are just as likely to endure three months of rain as two weeks of heatwave.
'Why all this weather nonsense now all of a sudden?' you ask. 'Weather shhmether!' you cry, "tell us something we don't know already!'
Well, that's why I'm on it, because with the coming of spring there arrive the early enquiries from friends for summer visits, asking the inevitable question:
"What's the weather like?"
Then you have stop and think. We here simply accept whatever falls from above, but these people are coming all the way to see you, and the least you can give them is some kind of guide as to what the weather might be like.
Well, let me think: What is it like?
Smilla had her sense of snow, and the Inuits have their pantheon of words for the white stuff, but by god, we give them a good run for their money with our skies.
Kings of the meteorological euphemism, Queens of celestial subtlety, the English and Irish have created a universe of weather terms that are indecipherable to foreigners, and let's be honest, pretty much incomprehensible to ourselves.
Anyone know exactly what they mean by bright? Are we talking clouds, sunshine, or what?
And when did the word 'rain' disappear from forecasts, to be replaced with 'unsettled weather'?
It's not unsettled at all. It's days and days of rain. Just say it baby, we can handle the truth.
Unsettled, me hole.
Is it breezy or blustery? Windy or just blowy? Is it bright or clear? Does that look like a haze or a fog or a mist, or just plain good ol'-fashioned pollution?
Rain? We do rain in all sizes: soft rain, drizzly rain; damp rain; showers (but is that occasional showers, frequent showers, constant showers; heavy showers, or prolonged heavy showers?); moderate rain; constant rain; heavy rain, and top of the Rain Pops, sideways rain, locally enjoyed in the vernacular as 'lashing rain', which conspires to come at you from the horizontal.
Not good.
When a 'prolonged heavy shower' finally gets called rain, does it throw a party?
Personally, I go with the Snapper's definitions. She divides all precipitation into either 'wet-making' or 'non-wet-making', which is really all you need to know.
Temperatures in Ireland's west come aplenty: we offer mild, warm, cool, bitter, chilly, fresh, coolish, and on the odd summer's day 'shplittin' rocks!'
363 days of the year our reality is sunshine and showers. Quite a simple balance, which the media forecasters go and complicate enormously by predicting 'Rain in places, sunshine at times'.
That, I have to say, is my personal favourite, purely because they have gently overlooked the only important pieces of information: which places, at what times?
Oh yes, and any ideas just what an 'odd shower' might be?
An odd shower? Perchance, one in which the rain falls upwards?
You can keep your extremes. I'll admit to being generally happy living between 10 - 20C, or 50 - 60F in the old money.
We rarely have extreme weather here, but we have an extremely large vocabulary with which to describe it.

*****

So yes, the Paddy's Day Parade has come and gone, and when might we see another?
Having received less Arts Council funding than they anticipated, Macnas understandably intend to focus all this year's artistic and financial attention on their Halloween parade, and every Galwegian will look forward to that with glee.
At the time of writing, several major local arts figures are trying to find funding for a Macnas parade during the Arts Festival.
Oh my, how we would miss their Arts Festival Parade.
I can barely remember the last time I went to an Arts Festival event, just as I cannot remember ever missing the Macnas Parade, if I had not already fled the crowds, the traffic jams and jammed-up pubs, filled with people wealthy enough to go to shows that I could not afford to see in my own home town.
As regular as the cuckoo, this colyoom makes the same noises every year.
If you judge the success of a festival on how many sold-out shows it has, Galway's Arts Festival is a humdinger. But if you bring into the equation the festival's relationship with the people of the city, we're stuffed.
The Macnas Parade was a big smoochy kiss on the cheek and 'Thank You!' to all us Galwegians who had suffered another festival season. We took the jams, the noise, litter and queues, and the parade made us feel special.
The Arts Festival that used to, sadly no longer does.
And sadder yet, the leadership of the Arts Festival appear somewhat entrenched, if not a tad stubborn. Yes, their shows are sold out each year. But Galway has gone from being a Festival City to becoming merely a city that has a festival.
Last year, Galway bit back in the shape of Project 06. Seminal figures from Galway's arts scene, including Macnas founder, Paraic Breathnach and Arts Festival founder Ollie Jennings, helped to put together a phenomenally successful 'festival in a festival', bringing life to the streets of Galway, and Galwegian artists, musicians, writers and performers onto the festival stage.
Indeed, what Project 06 succeeded in doing was making Galway City once more the stage for an arts festival.
To those upholding the Arts Festival status quo, I plead, on behalf of geezers like me, the Galwegian in the traffic jam and bus queue: please consider the recommendations laid out in the recent Project 06 report.
No need to tut or wince. We're not having a go at you.
We just want our arts festival back.
Project 06 was neither a fringe festival nor a rival. It was an outburst of artistic and social longing for inclusion in our own arts festival, and you have no reason to ignore that; absolutely none.
cadley1@eircom.net
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