Galway theatre group gears up for Culture Night with tea, riddles and a dash of madness
One place that never needs an excuse to celebrate the rich cultural motion flowing through its streets is Galway city. It takes its global culture capital moniker seriously and raises it high on a flag that celebrates, highlights, and invites all walks of life onto the cobblestones of the inner city. If there is one thing about Galway, it’s that it does not wait for a special day to showcase its creativity.
Still, once a year, along with the rest of the nation, Galway gathers artists, performers, musicians, readers, writers, and dreamers from the fringes of the county and gives them a city stage. This is Culture Night – a national evening where venues across Ireland open their doors late into the night with free performances, exhibitions, and experiences for the public.
All it takes is a walk through the city to be swept into dozens of events for the 17th annual culture night in Galway city, happening Friday, September 19.
Word on the street is this year, one particularly mad tea party will be stirring about the square outside of the Crane bar. A curious performance of Alice in Westendland: A Mad Craic Tea Party will give you a seat at the tea table with all the characters from the beloved classic – fit with humour, riddles, and red hearts.
As the second production from An Cladach Collective, Alice in Westendland is set to be an “immersive visual project” with dialogue and performance that occurs continuously throughout the night, said Caoimhe May, founder of the collective and director of this Culture Night project.
Interactions between the characters, set at the table in the middle of the square, will last 15 minutes at a time, engaging both the audience and each other. When the fun comes to an end, the White Rabbit resets the clock, the characters return to their places, and the madness begins again on a loop.
Caoimhe is in her final year as a drama student and started An Cladach in April 2025, a product of long commutes to teach drama to young children in Tullamore. “I was absolutely wrecked from teaching the kids all day and travelling from Tullamore. I think it was out of exhaustion, but also just passion.”
That passion was clearly shared. Interest in the new collective skyrocketed, and within a few short weeks, An Cladach’s first show was in the works.
Night In Nighthawks took the audience through a series of small vignettes that sought the hidden story behind the two people sitting at the bar in Edward Hopper’s unforgettable painting Nighthawks.
“We got a group of writers who wanted to be involved to submit different pieces, we reviewed all the pieces, and we selected the strongest piece.” Writer Laura Hutchinson was the one to submit a one-act, 20-minute play that ultimately became the inspiration for the whole show.
Once Laura’s piece was chosen, Caoimhe sought out the strongest remaining submissions to collaborate on combining their stories in line with the painting. “We asked, ‘how can we connect all of these to the painting, using that as our guide?’ So, we got all the stories, and we altered so that it would have a trickled down where they all connected to the painting.”
“Each scene was ‘what could be happening in this painting’ or different scenarios that could be happening in this painting. Then the last scene is the Nighthawk scene where it shows what is actually happening in the painting.”
The best part: the whole show took place in a real-life bar. The stage was set perfectly in Massimo’s, giving the audience an immersive experience that sold out four nights in a row.
It is safe to say a similar brilliance has been applied to the making of Alice in Westendland for Culture Night – a show where the audience feels like part of the team and where real life and the “curiouser and curiouser” intertwine in 15-minute bursts.
Because Caoimhe worked on the organisational side of Culture Night in years past, she knows how exciting and overwhelming it can be with such a variety of events happening at once. With that, she gave some advice: “Go for a walk from one end of the city to the other end of the city.”
“There’s so much going on in almost every single venue in the West End, there's plays going on, there's musicians, there's bands, and it's all around you. It's all right in front of you,” she added.
She also mentioned fan favourites like the Corn Store on Middle Street and popping into Outset Gallery to see what “absolutely unreal” exhibition they have going on.
September 19 will be another day in the life of a vibrant city that shows its love for culture year-round. But for artists like Caoimhe, it’s an opportunity to expand the horizons of what can be produced and shared.
The reality is, as the Cheshire Cat reminds us, “We are all mad here.” And perhaps that madness is what makes Galway truly the best in the west.
You can catch Alice in Westendland outside the Crane on the Westend from 8.00pm to 10.00pm on September 19. No booking required, recommended for ages 13+.