Galway is set to become the city that never sleeps over the next two weeks with not one but two arts festivals, Galway Arts Festival and Project 06, running head to head in venues throughout the city.
Galway Arts Festival will be opened this evening by actress and writer Pauline McLynn, but in a special pre-launch yesterday, some 60 people travelled to Inis Oírr for the opening of The Deep, an exhibition of oil paintings by Hughie O'Donoghue.
A section of the exhibition, which is being shown at Aras Éanna on Inis Oírr, was inspired by one of the island's most famous landmarks - the wreck of the Plassey, which ran aground there in 1960.
O'Donoghue, who was born in Manchester to Irish parents, visited the island on a childhood holiday just two years after the ship ran aground, and this was the beginning of his lifelong fascination with the wreck, he said.
The remaining seven paintings that make up The Deep are based on the sea and are enormous in scale. These are on display at the Fairgreen Gallery in Galway city centre, in what festival director Paul Fahy described as "a New York-style warehouse gallery". It is a temporary space, but Mr Fahy said the show would illustrate how Galway could benefit from having a large municipal art gallery.
This year's festival features five world and four Irish theatre and dance premieres. Tonight's opening event, the Irish premiere of a dance show by Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, is already sold out. According to Mr Fahy, there has also been great interest in King Ubu, a play by French writer Albert Jarry in a new version by Irish playwright Vincent Woods.
While Galway Arts Festival went to Inis Oírr yesterday, Project 06 was launched on Quay Street in the city centre by the mayor of Galway, Niall Ó Brolcháin.
It was set up by a group who felt the official festival was out of touch with local audiences and artists, and among its driving forces is the festival's original founder, Ollie Jennings.
Project 06 features local companies such as Galway Youth Theatre, Morwax Theatre Company and Shootin' Star, and artists such as Little John Nee. It will also have its own parade, musical events and exhibitions, including a major exhibition of Irish artists.
Galway's ability to sustain two festivals at the same time has been questioned by some, but Mr Fahy does not see it as a problem. "We are both doing different things . . . there's a lot of work out there that would fit into the context of a fringe festival rather than an international festival," he said.
This year's festival is bigger than previous years, with the addition of seven major concerts at the Big Top tent. "We have 28,000 tickets for seven shows in the Big Top and it is a big task in terms of almost trying to double our ticket sales, but tickets are going well," said Mr Fahy.
Some onlookers are not convinced about Galway's ability to host two festivals concurrently. "We are not taking sides in this, basically we are on the side of the arts," said the director of Galway Arts Centre, Tomás Hardiman.
However, he questioned the wisdom of running Project 06 at the same time as official arts festival. While he did not believe that the arts festival would be affected by Project 06, he was concerned for some of the smaller companies taking part in the alternative festival.