The city’s cafés are to be offered grants from the Council to run nighttime events in an attempt to boost Galway’s after-hours offering.

‘Café Lates’, a new pilot scheme, was announced this week in an attempt to emulate the European-style late-night café culture, with grants of between €500 and €2,000 being made available to those who participate.

In order to secure the funding, cafés will have to assist in building a programme of events which the Council envisages will include live bands, acoustic performances and DJ sets.

In addition, spoken word and poetry, book clubs, workshops, tastings and theme nights are also proposed as potential runners, while events targeted at younger audiences are also encouraged.

Cllr Níall McNelis (Lab), who was this week elected to the Council’s dedicated ‘Nighttime Economy Committee’ with Cllr Mike Cubbard (Ind) and Cllr Shane Forde (FG), said this was a welcome start to a broad effort to boost what was on offer in the city at night beyond pubs and clubs.

“We have to be looking at ways of bringing people into the city centre at night, and at having things for the increasing numbers living in the city centre to do.

“At the moment we’re very pub orientated, which is great if that’s what you want to do. But there are a lot of people who would like to go for a coffee or to drop in somewhere when they’re out for a walk in the evening,” said Cllr McNelis.

“And there are younger people, older teenagers who are too young to go into a pub that should have somewhere to go at night too,” he added.

Increased numbers in the city at night would be positive for the general atmosphere, too.

“It creates footfall and that is a positive for many reasons, but one big reason is footfall reduces crime. Having people around and encouraging them out into public spaces can only be a positive,” said Cllr McNelis.

Pictured: Cllr Niall McNelis, a member of the Nighttime Economy Committee: ‘There are younger people, older teenagers who are too young to go into a pub that should have somewhere to go at night.’