Arts Week with Judy Murphy

When Pádraic Boran and Pat Neary – veterans of the Irish music scene – first decided to hold a world music festival in Galway that would involve participants coming from all parts to share songs and stories, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

After all, musicians have always travelled, learning and sharing as they went.

But this event, Songs From an Open Road, was planned in pre-Covid times and was due to be staged in January 2021 as the final event of Galway 2020, European Capital of Culture.

“And if there’s one thing a pandemic does, it puts a stops to musicians moving,” Pádraic says.

He was grounded too. One of the country’s most experienced event organisers, Pádraic has worked on everything from stadium concerts with MCD and the 2018 Papal visit, to co-ordinating sports events in far-off places like the Bahamas. Back in the day, he also managed The Stunning and before that, he was Ents manager at UCG’s Student Union, responsible for the college’s superb entertainment programme.

Pat also has an impressive CV. He was co-owner of West One Studio in Galway City – later Temptation – in the 1990s and has worked with musicians from John Prine to Def Leppard, as well as being a programmer on Body and Soul, the indie festival that grew out of Electric Picnic.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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