The Big Top has been pitched, Macnas drummers are out and Galway's 25th arts festival has opened with a promise of sea battles, cattle raids, sword fights and general mayhem over the next two weeks.
And that's just the activities of one production - Gráinne Mhaol, the extraordinary Macnas interpretation of the life and times of Mayo's pirate queen.
Throughout the next fortnight, there will be 185 performances in 28 venues by over 570 artists from nine countries.The audience is expected to reach some 100,000.
About 800 people, including cast, crews, organisers and punters, attended the festival opening yesterday evening in the Galway Bay Hotel where US actor John Mahoney did the honours.
Better known as Martin Crane, the father in the television comedy Frasier, Mahoney is an ensemble member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company of Chicago. He has been a regular visitor to Ireland and plays one of the leading roles in a joint Abbey Theatre/Galway Arts Festival production, The Drawer Boy, which opens in the Town Hall Theatre, Galway, later this week.
"The best arts festival in the world" was how he described the Galway event last night, explaining how he had fallen in love with the city and its surrounds and is thinking of moving to the west of Ireland for part of the year.
He paid tribute to the festival audiences, having performed for them in several productions in 2000 and 2001. "There is a superb commitment on their part and there is nothing at all elitist about this festival," he said. "Much of the success of this is due to the city it takes place in, because it is so vibrant," he added.
For the first time in 15 years, this year's event has no street parade, but Macnas will be making up for that with impromptu cameos from Gráinne Mhaol in various parts of the city this week and throughout the day next Sunday.
St Nicholas's Church will be the venue for several of the major music events, with concerts by US band Lambchop, the Icelandic group Sigur Ros, and Ireland's Divine Comedy and David Kitt.
Dance, comedy and visual arts are all well represented, while Freakshow? is the title of a cross-media production by Stephen Dee, involving sculpture, photographs, music and mime.
Photographer Joe O'Shaughnessy of the Connacht Tribune, whose work has appeared regularly in The Irish Times, opens an exhibition of his work this coming Friday.
The festival is directed by Ms Rose Parkinson. Its manager, Mr Fergal McGrath, leaves in a month's time after a 10-year stint to join the Druid Theatre Company. The festival booking office is at Victoria Place, Galway, tel (091) 566577.
