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festivals · Friday 23 October 2026 · Various 
Gaillimh Ah-Boo! Halloween Festival 2026
At Various venues across Galway City · Galway City, Co. Galway
At Various venues across Galway City · Galway City, Co. Galway
Gaillimh Ah-Boo! is a new festival launching in Galway City for Samhain, the Celtic festival that gave rise to Halloween, expected to run from Friday 23 October to Sunday 1 November 2026. Backed by Fáilte Ireland’s Home of Halloween scheme, it is designed to position Galway as the authentic home of the tradition and to extend the city’s festival calendar into the quieter autumn weeks. The centrepiece is the long-running Macnas Halloween Parade, but the wider programme reaches well beyond one evening, with events built around folklore, food and fire spread across the city’s medieval streets.
The Macnas Halloween Parade takes place on Sunday 25 October, expected to start at 5.30pm and to draw crowds of up to 80,000 along a route through the city centre from the university, over the Salmon Weir Bridge and down Shop Street to the Claddagh. Around it, the programme includes Dark History Tours exploring Galway’s folklore and myth, Féasta Fómhair - a feast of food and fire at St Nicholas’ Church - and Blás na Samhain, a series of intimate supper clubs inspired by figures from Irish folklore such as the Púca and the Banshee. Music and spectacle continue with a Samhain Sing Song and the Tine Lasta fire show at the Spanish Arch. Families can join storytelling sessions, comic-making workshops, and a city-wide recreation of the Thriller dance in Eyre Square. The full programme is still being finalised, so further events are expected to be added as the date approaches.
Galway City is about two hours from Dublin via the M6 motorway, with Bus Éireann and GoBus running frequent expressway coaches from Dublin Busáras, and Irish Rail services from Heuston taking around two and a half hours. Road closures and bus diversions are likely in the city centre on the evening of the Macnas Parade, and parking near Eyre Square and Shop Street fills early, so arriving by public transport is the practical choice that weekend.
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