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arts · Sunday 12 July 2026 · Various 
A Maritime Child at Interface
At Interface · Lough Inagh, Connemara, Co. Galway
At Interface · Lough Inagh, Connemara, Co. Galway
The Inagh Valley in Connemara is one of those places that does not need embellishment - bare mountain, dark water, and a sky that changes every twenty minutes. It is into this landscape that Aleana Egan has brought a new body of work responding directly to Interface, a former salmon hatchery turned artist residency on the shore of Lough Inagh. The exhibition, A Maritime Child, runs as part of the Galway International Arts Festival 2026 and is free to attend. It suits anyone who enjoys art that is genuinely shaped by where it sits - not gallery work transplanted into a rural space, but work that could only exist here.
Interface was built in the late 1980s as part of an ambitious industrial salmon farming project, commissioned by Carroll’s cigarette company and designed by architects Scott Tallon Walker. The hatchery failed within a decade, and the building has since been repurposed as a studio and residency programme for visual artists, dancers, writers and musicians. That industrial past - the tanks, the pipework, the logic of controlled water and managed life - is exactly what Egan’s work addresses.
A Maritime Child is site-responsive: the pieces engage with the building’s architectural history, the Inagh Valley landscape, and themes of adaptation, repair and reuse. During the festival dates (12-26 July), opening hours are 12pm-6pm daily. The exhibition then continues on weekend hours only through to 16 August. An artist talk with Egan and curator Michael Hill takes place on Sunday 12 July at 2pm - an informal walkthrough that is worth timing your visit around if you can.
Lough Inagh is roughly 40km west of Galway city, deep in Connemara. The most direct route is the N59 through Oughterard and Recess, then into the valley via the Inagh Valley Road (R344). Public transport does not reach this part of Connemara reliably, so a car is the practical option. The drive itself - through Maam Cross and into the mountains - is worth the journey on its own terms. Parking is available at the venue.
GIAF 2026 spreads across Galway city and county through July, so a visit to Interface pairs well with the wider festival programme in the city. There is more to see in Galway and across Co. Galway.
Heading to Interface in Galway? Galway has plenty more to see. Read the Galway area guide, find what else is on, and explore the towns and villages nearby.