Angling for the best view: arts festival in full swing

A “MISTRESS of Invention” with a troupe of navigators, magicians, mystics and more takes to the streets of Galway tomorrow night as the arts festival reaches its midway point.

The Macnas parade entitled This Fierce Beauty, directed by Noeleen Kavanagh, promises new universes and brilliant beasts, rude charmers, arch rascals and babbling, brilliant buffoons.

Passion, fun, energy, wildness and invention are the parade’s core themes, according to Kavanagh.

As bookings continue to be brisk for the main festival programme, the separate Galway Loves Theatre festival continues at Nun’s Island for a second week – along with a plethora of other on- and off- programme events.

Artist Robert Cantwell, who experienced abuse at the hands of a number of religious orders from the age of three until his mid-20s, has an exhibition in Galway City Library entitled the Nine and Half Thousandseries.

Cantwell used marble slabs retrieved from Conneely’s Undertakers on Market Street to create the series – which takes its title from the cheque he was given by the Patrician Brothers after one of his court actions.

Cantwell said that he had benefited considerably from art therapy. “I was broken, psychologically, physically and mentally, and this work reflects a rehumanisation and reunification,” he said.

Cantwell, who lives in Taylor’s Hill, Galway, began painting in February 2009, and said he had discovered the “goodness in things” with the support of instructor and art therapist Austin Creaven. He said he hoped other people in his situation would find such solace, with the right support.

Another exhibition, 24 Hours in Galway, is running in the library in aid of Irish Autism Action, featuring photos by the Spidéal Photography Group.

Galway market traders have also been licensed to trade throughout the fortnight-long festival for the first time, after a five-year-long campaign.

Galway City Council cleared the way by changing a bylaw during the year to allow weekday trading. The market campaign had pointed out that all traders should have an opportunity to benefit, given that the arts festival is estimated to be worth about €20 million to the city.

The Macnas parade kicks off from the Spanish Arch tomorrow night at 8.45pm.