• Inbound: Whim

    October 6, 2016 - By 

    Whim AKA Sarah Di Muzio was born and raised in San Francisco but moved to Portland “in favour of rain and indie Pacific Northwest music”. A visit to Ireland in April 2015 saw her fall in love with Galway, probably for the same reasons, and she has lived here ever since. At only twenty years old she possesses an ability to craft clever indie-folk-pop tunes, the kind that wouldn’t seem out of place in that particularly American brand of quirky hipster rom-com. In fact, her second EP, The Funeral Guest – released in 2015 – was soundtrack to a movie…

  • Guide To Galway #4: Galway International Arts Festival 2016

    July 13, 2016 - By 

    The Galway International Arts Festival is here again and we’re all really happy about that – it’s the most wonderful time of the year! Yes, it’s the cultural equivalent of the Olympics or the World Cup, a time when the city’s social, economic and design problems are papered over for the visiting tourists. Lovely, lovely tourists with their lovely handsome faces. No, to be honest, it really is great. Galway is buzzing and never looks or feels better than for these two beautiful weeks in July. Shop Street is 110% the best street in the country right now – today…

  • New Pope’s Guide To Galway #3: Bands

    March 23, 2016 - By 

    I like bands that have personality and I like music that comes from a place, be that geographically or socially or mentally or emotionally or philosophically or whatever. As long as it’s honest in some way and thoughtful in some other way and in some other way transcends mindless entertainment and stabs you in your pineal gland, wherein lies the soul. Galway is blessed with a number of such bands and here are five of them.  Oh Boland I’ve known these young gentlemen for a few years and when they got together musically they named themselves Oh Boland, though I’m…

  • New Pope’s Guide To Galway #2: General Election 2016

    February 24, 2016 - By 

    Ah Galway, city of tribes. Hipsters, students, buskers, shams, bogmen, crusties, drunks, Spanish, gaeilgeoirs, nordies, immigrants, the homeless: Galway has them all! And, for the most part, we all live in ignorant tolerance of one another. But who is to represent such a diverse and bohemian jumble of dole-monkeys? Here is my guide to the upcoming election in the constituency of Galway West. I am, of course, going to leave out Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and Labour because they are all shitehawks. Don’t believe a word from any of them. They are liars. Definitely do not vote for them, I’m…

  • New Pope’s Guide to Galway

    February 9, 2016 - By 

    Having released one of our favourite Irish records of 2015 in Youth, Galway dream-folk artist David Boland AKA New Pope sings the varied praises of Galway and all it has to offer in 2016. Galway is great. Everybody loves it. You love it, I love it, she loves it, we all love it. Sometimes I feel weighed down by the love of it. I love it so much that it’s crushing my soul. I feel oppressed by the loveliness of it all. I think someday I’ll go mad with the love of it. The sick smothering love, the clawing breathless…