The prospect of turning an entire city into a medieval street party for over 50,000 people doesn't seem to faze Noeline Kavanagh, the youngest, and first female, director of the annual Galway Arts Festival parade.
At 24 she has been handed a licence to turn the city on its head and she is relishing the prospect of running the biggest Macnas parade on Sunday, July 19th. She has warned the people of the city to watch out for fools, music, acrobatics, fire-eaters and jugglers, plus an element of boldness. There are headaches involved. No fewer than 494 masks have to be made for all the participants in this year's bash, which has the Carnival of Fools as its theme, although the young director has the backing of a very professional and mostly female team.
Macnas has had unbelievable luck with its annual street bash over the past 11 years and Noeline's mother is so concerned it maintain the standard that she has pledged to leave a religious statue in its back yard the night before the parade. She heard that if you put a statue of the Mother of Prague out the back the day before a big event it won't rain.
A recent graduate of the drama and theatre studies course at Trinity College, Dublin, Noeline admits to being a kind of baby of Macnas because her teenage years were immersed in street theatre with the renowned Galway group.
Over the past four summers she has helped out with its colourful, community-based parades. Prior to that she was a teenage volunteer. Now she's looking forward to putting her own energy back into the street spectacle. "I just hope I can do it justice. It is great to have grown up in such an artistic city and to give back some of the influence and energy which it has given to me."
Not that modern-day Galway will escape from social commentary on July 19th. In keeping with the medieval theme of the fool, Noeline and her colleagues are hoping to challenge some of the changes which occurred during the city's massive expansion in recent years.
"It is the one day when we get a chance to turn everything on its head, play the fool, have fun, and make some sort of social comment. It's important to acknowledge the changes in Galway and the effect they have had on the city. "We will be looking at all the new buildings in Galway, at the colours and types of buildings in this medieval city. The city has gone through a lot of changes, but there is a downside to that as well. We have got away from a kind of core energy in the last couple of years and my purpose is to energise and make the city feel vital about itself again."
The parade will feature a large toilet on an island, depicting the controversial sewage treatment plant at Mutton Island.
Noeline has already worked extensively with a community group from Rialto for the St Patrick's Festival in Dublin this year, and admits to loving community-based street theatre.
The women are certainly taking over in Galway. Two of her friends, Judith Higgins and Helen Gregg, are returning from the Le Coque drama school in Paris to put the finishing touches to the preparations and Noeline has been amazed by the freedom which Macnas has given her over the past weeks.