Groove Tube with Cian O’Connell

A punk and metal weekender debuts in Galway this January, meshing internationally acclaimed artists with emerging underground acts in appreciation of a scene that is beginning to flourish in Ireland.   TORANN is essentially the first of its kind. A multi-disciplinary celebration of heavy music in the west of Ireland, it features major headliners Primordial, Chewie and Bucket, as well as local acts like Puck, Infared and Numbskull Narrative.

Outside of a stacked list of gigs, TORANN is layered with considered pop-up events including a merch market, a tattoo flash, an art exhibition, an all-ages show and an evening of music scene interviews.

It all takes place at the Róisín Dubh, Sally Long’s and The Blue Note over the weekend of January 9 to 11. Tickets for individual gigs are on sale via the festival website, though a handful of the events are free.

“I’ve been looking at gigs in Dublin, Limerick and Cork over the years and there have never really been big metal events in Galway or the west of Ireland,” says Gugai MacNamara, co-owner and music booker at the Róisín Dubh.

“The Siege of Limerick has become really successful,” Gugai says. “It’s running twice a year now. I kept looking at things like that and thinking, why isn’t there that here? We have the Róisín, we have Sally Long’s.

“There’s even an option, expanding on, to use something like the Black Box or Leisureland for larger shows. That would be down the road. Basically, it’s the same reason I started running gigs in the first place – it wasn’t happening and I thought it should be. And it’s a great time of year, because there’s not much else on.”

Gugai admits that his own expertise lies with alternative indie bands, and he defers to his consultants on the project, Daniel Hielscher and Tebbs, who have been facilitating punk, metal and hardcore nights in Galway for 25 years or so.

For a long time, Gugai has bounced metal and metal-adjacent acts off Dan, double-checking their efficacy. One of the guiding principles for TORANN was to incorporate a wide range of attractions, which Dan believes is essential to excite the modern gig-goer in these genres.

Pictured: Primordial…headliners for Galway’s punk and metal weekender.