GALWAY:EVERY NIGHT may be culture night in the west, but what better way to spend it than in the 13th- century hall of the Red Earl of Ulster and Lord of Connacht in Galway.
Although Richard de Burgh’s castle has been replaced by a late 20th-century Revenue Commissioners counting house, the restored medieval foundations served as backdrop last night for similarly medieval and renaissance recitals by Galway Early Music.
The Druid theatre company screened its stage version of JM Synge's Riders to the Sea, while several dozen Galway authors who have published work in the past year celebrated the night in Charlie Byrne's Bookshop.
Two larger-than-life galvanised bulls were among the madcap participants in the Earwig Art Group’s street theatre, while drama of a different kind took place in Blue Teapot Theatre company’s premises on Munster Avenue.
The company, which provides theatrical training for people with disabilities, staged several fairy scenes from its recent production of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. It is due to stage the entire play in Ballinasloe's Town Hall in east Galway on September 29th at noon.
As darkness fell, it became “story night” at the same venue with Clare Muireann Murphy and guest storytellers Torgrim Stene from Norway and Dominic Kelly from England. Galway City Library also had a Scandinavian dimension, celebrating the music of Finland and hosting a series of readings.
The late Breandán Ó hÉithir's novel Lig Sinn I gCathúwas celebrated in Aras na nGael, Dominick Street, as one of a number of Irish language events for oíche chultúir in the city.
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