The Galway 2020 celebration that marked the city’s status as the “European Capital of Culture” was a real tribute to the city's reputation as a city steeped in the arts.
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The celebration was based on the themes of language, landscape, and migration.
Outdoor installations and performances, online events, exhibitions, and broadcasts were part of the celebration, which was hosted by companies like Macnas, the Druid Theatre, and the Galway International Arts Festival.
The Macnas flagship project, Gilgamesh, was reworked to include smaller performances.
Its planned large-scale parade, which was a much-anticipated event in Galway in 2020, was canceled.
Some of the events that took place during the Galway 2020 celebration included:
- Mirror Pavilion – commissioned by the Galway International Arts Festival, the Mirror Pavilion was one of the largest outdoor installations to be seen in Ireland.
The Mirror Pavillon was one of the installations at the Galway 2020 celebration. Photo: Tourism Ireland. - The Druid Theatre Company presented six of Lady Augusta Gregory’s one-act plays at Coole Park in Co. Galway.
The beautiful Coole Park Gardens in Co. Galway served as one of the places where the Galway 2020 celebration took place. Photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cosmok/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/ They served as a tribute to the life and works of the famous dramatist, folklorist, and co-founder of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin.
- Tribes on the Tide was a celebration of Galway’s maritime heritage, traditions, and culture featuring the traditional Galway Hookers sailing on Galway Bay and mooring at the Claddagh Basin.
The Galway Hookers. Photo: Tourism Ireland. - Project Baa Baa was an initiative that celebrated the cultural, economic, and environmental contributions of sheep in Ireland and in Europe.
Project Baa Baa, one of the many programs on offer. Photo: Tourism Ireland. It included exhibitions on historic textiles as well as innovative fashion, sheep portraits in wool, and other education projects.
- Drowned Galway was a series of photomontages held at the Galway Antiquaria. The images showed a city and county changed by rising sea levels and floods.
- Reimagine Loughrea was part of the celebration’s Small Towns Big Ideas project that involved the creation of a temporary architectural display in the heart of Loughrea in Co. Galway.