Groove Tube with Cian O’Connell

The June Bank Holiday has history of being a calendar highlight for Galway summers. In 2009, it marked the end of the city’s two weeks hosting the Volvo Ocean Race – an event that is remembered as much for its fourteen days of uninterrupted sunshine as it is the fleet of multi-million-euro yachts moored in the docks.

For forty years, the bank holiday was the time for the Salthill Fives. Coincidentally, following a seven-year hiatus, the iconic soccer tournament is returning to Salthill Park this year.

Alongside it thie year, on June 2, 3 and 4, comes the inaugural Free House Festival in Áras na nGael, celebrating a night that has grown into a staple of the Galway music scene over the last four years.

And its bill features many of the acts that have been involved in establishing the Free House culture – among them the Love Buzz, Oh Boland, Elaine Malone, Rural Savage, So Cow, Adore and Cardinals. Festival organiser Jake Tiernan explains the reasoning behind the line-up.

“Soundness is one thing,” he says of traits linking acts that play Free House. Part of the reason for going with so many bands that have played [Free House] already was that the relationship was there, and we got on.

“All it took was one message to get it sorted.  I didn’t want to have to be negotiating through agents or management companies. All the people we enjoyed hanging out with when they played the shows… We’re bringing them back.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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