
Galway International Arts Festival came to a close on Sunday night, with a sold-out Saw Doctors’ gig at the Heineken Big Top capping a great two weeks for Galway City as the festival drew record crowds and put the city in the spotlight once again.
GIAF 2024 again recorded record attendances, drew critical acclaim for its co-productions and international media interest from UK and European publications, including The Guardian, The Telegraph and the Financial Times.
Recording attendances in excess of 400,000 again this year, including 13,379 attendees who queued to see Patricia Piccinin’s We Travel Together visual arts exhibit in the Festival Gallery on Saturday, 20 July alone, GIAF 2024’s free events proved particularly popular, with thousands of people enjoying a weekend of free street events over the middle weekend of the festival, from acrobatics in Eyre Square with Les P’Tit Bras’ West Wind, to Planète Vapeur’s Pegasus, and GIAF’s entire visual arts programme, which is offered free of charge.

GIAF threw open its doors even further this year, with a suite of additional accessibility measures, including ISL interpreted and close captioned performances, a touch tour of the Festival Gallery and the provision of sensory backpacks, all of which proved extremely popular.
The festival as a whole drew widespread praise, with the Sunday Independent calling it ‘breath-taking’, while GIAF’s co-productions also received critical acclaim, with stellar reviews for both its 2024 co-productions, Reunion and Unspeakable Conversations.
Reunion, its Landmark Productions co-production, received five stars from The Irish Times and the Irish Arts Review, who called it ‘exceptional’ and ‘a zinger of a play' and ‘a masterclass’ respectively. The Sunday Independent called it ‘a thundering cracker of pure entertainment … intelligent, funny and thought-provoking’, while RTÉ’s Arena programme called it ‘a non-stop laugh-out loud drama from beginning to end ’. Reunion now goes onto Dublin Theatre Festival, with a run at the Gaiety from 8-13 October.
GIAF’s co-production with Once-Off Productions, Unspeakable Conversations was also lauded by critics, with The Irish Times calling it ‘a thoughtful and thought-provoking, provocative show' and The Telegraph calling it 'brilliantly performed, and powerfully engaging...'.
There were also five star reviews for Druid’s Endgame, with the Financial Times calling it ‘mesmerisingly assured ... without mitigating Beckett’s cosmic pessimism’ with ‘Hynes’s staging shows us that there is still fun to be had'; and The Observer praising Garry Hynes’s ‘searing direction’, which made ‘Beckett new ... assured, meticulous, insightful and emotionally powerful'.
Galway International Arts Festival CEO John Crumlish said:
“It was a privilege to present GIAF 2024 and, on behalf of us all, I would like to thank our audiences who attended in such numbers. This was our biggest festival to date and we are very thankful to all those who came, those that supported us and all the great artists whose work made it all possible.”
Galway International Arts Festival Artistic Director Paul Fahy said: “We have had an extraordinary response from audiences and artists to this year’s Festival. It is always such a thrill to present great art from Ireland and around the world in Galway and our artists loved performing and showing their work to such an appreciative, engaged and enthusiastic audience. We are extremely grateful to all our artists, co-producers and partners for their incredible work once again this year.”

Galway International Arts Festival 2025 will take place from 14-27 July 2025.
Galway International Arts Festival would like to acknowledge the support of its principal funding agencies The Arts Council and Fáilte Ireland; Galway City Council; its Drinks Partner Heineken; and Education Partner University of Galway.
Cover photo by Marc Jennings / Up in the Eire