Galway Arts Centre’s Oral History Project

Photo Credit: The first Galway Youth Theatre Group, 1991, including a young
Tommy Tiernan, one of Ireland’s most well known comedians

Our beautiful and historic theatre at Nuns Island is closing its doors for a little while, as we begin major renovations to transform and renew this special space.

Alongside our Living Archive Project, we are currently compiling an archive via an oral history project for the theatre as it closes and moves into a new phase.

As we prepare for this next chapter, we’re inviting you – our artists, audiences, neighbours, and friends – to help us gather the stories, memories, and moments that have shaped this space, through our oral history project.

For nearly five decades, Galway Arts Centre at Nuns Island has been more than just a building, it has been a home. A place of bold ideas, shared experiences, and creative risk. A space where generations of artists in Galway have made, experimented, gathered, and grown.

We are inviting everyone who has used, visited or been part of Nuns Island over the years to share their memories with us. We are asking people to write a short paragraph or page on their personal memory / memories.

• This can be a memory of attending a show or event
• Or the memory of a workshop / class
• Or the memory of performing there or rehearsing at this special little venue

It can be a page. A paragraph or an anecdote.

If you feel you have a lot of memories, too many to write, we will meet you and record you in an interview setting.

Whether on stage, backstage, or sitting in the dark as the lights came up, your experiences are part of what makes Galway Arts Centre’s Nuns Island Theatre so special. As we look ahead, we want to honour everything that has come before and all the scenes that stay with us.

Share your oral history, and be part of this special archive. If possible include the year of the event / moment.

Email andrewflynngalway@gmail.com

This project is funded by Galway City Council and Creative Ireland