This book explores the unique interplay between culture, creativity and place. Galway plays a distinct role in the historical and contemporary story of Ireland and Irishness. It is a place at a geographic remove, peripheral but central to the building of a new nation and its national identity.

Galway’s cultural story has been characterised by the dynamic interaction between the city and its surrounding landscape. The book first considers that geography before going on to explore the evolution of different aspects of culture in Galway. It focuses on the Nobel-prize-winning writers, key political leaders in the formation of a new Republic, Academy-Award-winning directors and culture-makers who have helped shape modern Ireland. Language, landscape and a questioning of the status quo are part of the story behind the making of a cultural Galway.

This book offers a fresh perspective on contemporary place development focusing on the role of culture and the creative economy through the use of the unique case of Galway, Ireland. It will be of interest to students and scholars of geography, sociology, planning cultural and Irish studies.

THE BOOK CONSIDERS GALWAY’S EVOLUTION WITH REGARD TO KEY DEBATES AROUND THE CREATIVE CITY, CULTURAL PRODUCTION, PLACEMAKING AND THE ROLE OF ARTISTIC EXPRESSION.

The role that the west played in forming the identity of a newly forming nation. From the art it ignited and the politics that it fuelled.

The use of Galway as a backdrop - beaming its landscape across the world. Hollywood fairy-dust seeding a new set of industries broadcasting the west of Ireland through a different medium.

Considering the fusion of the pagan and the peripheral the Celtic revival and the cosmopolitan in the making of a distinct form of cultural celebration.

CElebrating a distinctive mix of socialism and republicanism in the formative years of the a new nation, inspired by the unique landscape where it was created.

Setting the scene for the eruption of artistic expression from the west. Expression that has not shied away from the political or the contentious.