Galway Theatre Festival returns from 30 April to 9 May 2026, and this year the message is clear: this is a city brimming with artists ready to take risks.
With over 60% of the 2026 line-up featuring Galway-based performers and creative arts groups, the festival continues to platform daring new work, amplify emerging voices, and turn venues across the city into hubs of provocation, play, and possibility.
Among the standout works in this year’s programme are three genre-defying productions that capture the dynamic spirit of GTF.
From acclaimed company Brokentalkers comes Bellow, an extraordinary theatrical encounter built around the real-life story of one of Ireland’s foremost accordionists, Danny O’Mahony.
Bellow is raw, intimate and deeply personal- tracing O’Mahony’s lifelong devotion to traditional Irish music, from his first taste of sound as a child to the relentless pursuit of artistic mastery that shaped- and at times narrowed- his world.
With Danny’s sublime live accordion performance at its heart, the production fuses an original electronic score by Valgeir Sigurðsson, new writing and contemporary dance, creating a charged dialogue between tradition and modernity, past and present.
The result is a startlingly beautiful meditation on what it costs and what it means to be an artist.
In a significant collaboration between An Taibhdhearc and Brú Theatre, Neill | PáidÃn reimagines the world of Pádraic Ó Conaire for a contemporary audience.
Inspired by Ó Conaire’s seminal Scothscéalta, two interlinked pieces bring the characters of Neill and PáidÃn Mháire vividly to life, a woman wrestling with betrayal as her moment for revenge approaches, and a fisherman caught in a devastating twist of fate.
Performed in Irish with subtitles, the production immerses audiences in the emotional intensity, rich imagery and lyrical power of one of Galway’s most beloved writers.
Directed by James Riordan, with a live score by Anna Mullarkey and featuring Raymond Keane, CaitrÃona Nà Mhurchú and Eoin Ó Dubhghaill, this is theatre rooted in language, landscape and legacy- and propelled forward with urgency.
Finally, we look at multi award-winning queer circus artist Christopher McAuley who brings ITCH to Galway.
ITCH is a bold, darkly funny and deeply personal work that begins from the skin- with eczema, shame, and the discomfort of never quite fitting in and unfolds into a powerful reflection on growing up queer on the post-conflict streets of Belfast.
Through sharp storytelling and physical performance, McAuley explores the quiet negotiations of survival: the pressure to perform masculinity, the instinct to shrink or blend in, and the toll of reshaping your voice and body to meet expectations.
Wry, tender and at times confronting, ITCH weaves together memory and movement- from sausage rolls to moisturiser- tracing the small, intimate details that sit alongside larger questions of identity, resilience and self-acceptance.
And then a choice. Change yourself to survive? Or risk everything. Produced by Circusful in co-production with Outburst Arts, ITCH blends theatre, trapeze, striking visuals and an onstage conversation with McAuley’s father into a visually arresting, deeply moving journey toward radical self-acceptance.
Full programme details will be announced soon. For more information, visit: https://galwaytheatrefestival.com/.
