Mayor Mike Cubbard has welcomed the use of the city's idle Pálás Cinema for the annual Galway Comedy Festival later this month, which will include a strong Irish language element for its 2025 edition.
The festival, running from October 21 to October 27, is fronted by Paul Smith, Dylan Moran, Deirdre O’Kane, Omid Djalili, and Emma Doran, but one of the biggest headliners is perhaps that of bricks and mortar - the return of Pálás Cinema.
Gáire as Gaeilge, the festival's annual night of rí-rá agus ruaille buaille will take place in the Pálás on Thursday, October 23, at 7.30pm. Hector Ó hEochagáin, Al Porter, Eddie Mullarkey, and Paraic Breathnach are all on the bill.
#GCF25 will also see Pálás host the opening night mixed bill show with Moran, Aoife Dunne, Aideen McQueen, and Karl Spain, and be the location for the festival’s closing gala. There will also be a four-day run of Full Of Mullarkey, where Galway’s own Mullarkey will present stand-up from an intriguing mix of established and emerging comics.
Councillor Cubbard said he thinks the city feels positive about the return of a building “no longer idle but full of life and laughter.”
“When you have somebody with a brand like Galway Comedy Festival, and what that brings to Galway, and using a unique building like Pálás as a hub to create laughter and create positive energy, it’s a massive step forward,” he said.
“This shows what happens when you think outside the box, what you can do with a public building that was obviously designed as a cinema. But here we are now having a comedy festival there, so it'll be a great week.”
Organisers say the Pálás will host a “festival within a festival” with mixed bills and solo shows, improv, a big screen movie quiz, podcast recordings, and multi-lingual comedy, all held in the award-winning building’s unrivalled comfort and style, across three plush rooms.
Pálás will also host live podcast recordings of How To Gael and The Creep Dive; the annual Irish language stand-up night, Gáire as Gaeilge as well as solo shows by David McSavage, Ó hEochagáin, Anna Clifford, and Polish language comic, Alexsandra Radomska, and WOMP Events’ Great Big Big Screen Quiz.
