Line-up for Galway International Arts Festival announced

The festival, which runs from 16-29 July, will also feature Madness, Walking on Cars and The Stunning across the two weeks. Various venues across the city are used to hold the events, with locations such as Eyre Square, The Black Box and Róisín Dubh being used.

Heineken Big Top is also a key venue for the festival, as it will be hosting the larger music acts such as Gavin James and The Flaming Lips.

The festival celebrates other art-forms apart from music with theatre, dance, circus and visual art set to play a prominent part.

In terms of theatre performances, there will be six world premieres and five Irish premieres. This will include first-time showings of plays by Paul Muldoon, Sonya Kelly and Cristin Kehoe.

“We are very excited about this year’s festival. It is our biggest programme ever and continues our build up into 2020 when Galway has the European Capital of Culture designation,” said the festival’s Chief Executive John Crumlish. “We have expanded our theatre and music programmes and have a free programme that audiences will be very excited by.”

President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, will be launching a series of talks at the festival which focus on the idea of home. There will also be various interviews, conversations and debates across the programme which also centre around the theme of ‘home’ called First Thought Talks.

It is going to be a busy couple of weeks in Galway with a programme that is seemingly endless.

For full Programme details, Festival updates and previews, visit www.giaf.ie