Bog_Scape

Luke Casserly

Walk / Soundscape

Date: Thursday 17th September 2026, 1.00pm & 3.00pm

Meeting point : The Mick Lally Theatre

Tickets: FREE but prebooking is essential as spaces are limited.

A sonic perambulation exploring our changing relationship to the Irish peatlands.

Bog_Scape is a site-responsive audio work that weaves together interviews, field

recordings, and original composition to explore our changing relationship with the Irish peatlands. In this intimate soundscape, the bog is approached as a form of sonic architecture - an environment continually produced through the overlapping forces of ecology, labour, and human presence. The work considers how listening might become a democratic practice and how landscapes themselves can function as spaces of assembly.

Created in collaboration with two different peatland communities, the work creates a temporary sonic assembly in which different relationships to place are allowed to coexist. For Architecture at the Edge, audiences are invited to walk together while listening to the soundscape before gathering in conversation.

Project Credits

Created as part of the 2025 Artist in Residence programme for the Bog Bothy project, led by the Irish Architecture Foundation and 12th Field.

Pálás Sí by Róisín Murphy

Workshop / Talk >>>

The Mick Lally Theatre, Druid Ln, Galway. 

20:00 – 21:00h, Culture Night, Friday 18 September 

FREE entry - All are welcome, no booking required

‘After an egg was eaten, the shells were crushed or thrown in the fire as otherwise it was believed that they would become the home of the fairies.’

This talk is about the history of collecting and blowing eggs together with a reflection on an how we house our domestic animals how they have impacted our human settlements for millennia.

In particular the are looking at the relationship of the hen to the cottage when hens historically were kept indoors at night for protection and warmth: they were primarily minded by women and after the commodification of eggs through the “dirty egg “ campaign in the 19th century and the loss of access to market for women , the pin money. It tells a story of the impact of modern farming practices, that separated women from land and animal husbandry. The proposal is built on theme of the authors research of the impact of the milk on Dublin , in this work the attention is drawn to the egg. A special commissioned Fairy Nest by Joe Hogan will be displayed and a There will be a talk on the changing architecture of the hen and the history of both the Sidhe and hen in mythology in Ireland. This event marks the start of year of egg blowing by the architect, where she will return nest year and build with a thousand eggs a Fairy palace.

Workshop : People are welcome to come in and exchange with the artist what they would expect to find in eggs as fairy houses and what they know of the Sidhe , there will also be demonstrations on how to blow eggs, with some egg carving.

Project credits

Special thanks Joe Hogan h`ps://www.joehoganbaskets.com

Authentic Japanese Tea Ceremony

Hosted by Wa Café (Wa Sushi)

Join us on Culture Night in the Mick Lally Theatre and experience a real Matcha Tea Ceremony hosted by WA CAFÉ.

The Mick Lally Theatre, in the heart of Galway, is situated in one of the oldest parts of the city. Druid first moved into what was then an abandoned tea storehouse in 1979 and since then the building has been Druid’s home and the birthplace of their work. Re-designed by DePaor architects in 2009, The Mick Lally Theatre has since become home to many visiting and local organisations and is a regular venue for the AATE annual festival.

We invite you to join us in in this historic setting for a Tea Ceremony Event hosted by Yoshimi Hayakawa who is a director of WA CAFE and she has being learning Tea Ceremony 茶道 for 7 years in Japan. She will showcase and share her knowledge and skill of the Japanese tea ceremony. Tea ceremony 茶道 can be counted one of "Tao" (technic, ,method and spirits).
Please enjoy and feel yourself with the real experience of tea ceremony. Admission is free– but prebooking is essential.

Tickets to all AATE events will be available to book from Friday 04th September 2026, at 12:00 pm.

Cois Cuain Chorr na Móna

A launch and preview event on Culture Night

Exhibition 

Doirín na Locha, Corr na Móna, Co. na Gaillimhe, (Cornamona Pier, County Galway)
Launch event / 18:30 hr,  Friday 18 September, 2026.

All are welcome – no booking required. 

Cothaíonn an ócáid seo nasc idir ealaíon, ailtireacht, agus pobal ag Cé Chorr na Móna. I ndiaidh sraith ceardlann i gcomhpháirtíocht le páistí áitiúla ó Scoil Mhuire, ceiliúrann an oíche seo smaointe daoine óga agus ceangail le Loch Coirib, a oileáin, agus a imill.Déanfar croílár na hócáide as an suiteán sealadach, in éineacht le sraith idirghníomhachtaí a bheidh suite ar fud na tírdhreacha. Oibríonn na saothair seo i gcomhar lena chéile, ag spreagadh cuairteoirí chun tuiscint a fhorbairt ar an loch agus ar a thimpeallacht ó dhearcthaí nua. Glacfaidh ceoltóirí agus taibheoirí áitiúla páirt san imeacht ag an gcé,

le haghaidh oíche a chothaíonn teacht le chéile comhchoiteann, agus oíche a dhéanann ceiliúradh ar shamhlaíocht na ndaltaí mar aon le rannpháirtíocht chomhoibríoch le spás poiblí.

This event brings together art, architecture and community at Corr na Móna Pier. Following a series of workshops with local pupils of Scoil Mhuire, the evening celebrates young people's ideas and connections to Lough Corrib, its islands and its peripheries.

The temporary installation will form the centrepiece of the event, accompanied with a series of interventions situated across the landscape. Together, these works invite visitors to experience the lake and its surroundings from new perspectives. The event will feature local musicians and performers at the pier for an evening for collective gathering and celebration of the students’ imagination and engagement with public space

The artwork and installation will be open to visitors until Sunday, 20 September.

Project Credits;

Helena McElmeel Architects leis na comhpháirtithe tionscadail seo a leanas:

Joanna McGlynn, Corrib Beo, Scoil Mhuire, Coiste Forbartha Chorr na Móna,

Inland Fisheries, Paul Coyne agus Seid na bhFear Dhuiche Sheoigheach,

14 Flags of Belonging

Druid Ln, (off Quay Street)
21:00 - 23:30hr, Friday 18 September, 2026
All are welcome – no booking required. 

Meet the designers >>>

The Mick Lally Theatre, Druid Ln, (off Quay Street)

20:00-21:00 hr, Friday 18th September 2026

FREE entry – but prebooking is advised. 

We are thrilled to announce a brand new public art flag display on Druid lane in collaboration with Galway City Council and supported by the Arts Council. The artists vibrant designs entitled 14 Flags of Belonging will adorn the Galway skies from 17th to 27th September 2026.

The 14 commissioned designers have worked to create a series of symbolic flags which represent various identities and communities in the city. These flags are a nod to the 14 Tribes of Galway,  created in response to ‘Le Chéile – the Architectures of Belonging. our theme for 2026.

Each flag showcases intricate geometric patterns, celebrating the multicultural fabric of the city and speak to a place, a feeling, a tribe or community, a memory, and/or ideas and concepts around collective ideas of belonging, wellbeing, identity, imagination and purpose.

Their artwork spills out onto the streets of the Latin Quarter, bringing vivid colours and vibrancy along Galway’s Druid lane.

For the duration of rthe Architecture at the Edge Festival, these striking designs give us a glimpse of what's in store for the city's streets. The designs, responding to the "Belonging" theme, reflect the liveliness and excitement of the city of the tribes. It’s a privilege to work on this project and bring the colour and vibrancy of art out of into the streets of Galway.  

Project credits

’14 Flags of Belonging’, is part of the Culture Night Late programme, funded by the Arts Council and the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport under the Night-Time Economy programme with support from Galway City Council Arts Office.

Flag Designs from;

Emma Doyle

Tess Guillemot

Sean Hanrahan 

Andy Forsythe

Jeremy Madden

Enda Mannion

Alana McDonough 

Tracey O Callaghan

Shane O Driscoll 

Áine Phillips

Jim Ricks

Hannah Vernon

Amelia Walker

William Zweier

For more details on Culture Night Late in Galway City, you can check out the @Archattheedge Instagram pages.

The Gleaners and I (Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse )

2000, France, Cert U, 82 mins, Language – French - English Subtitles.

Documentary about the modern-day gleaners: men and women who make use of the things that the rest of us throw out as rubbish.

Agnès Varda was an early adapter to advancements in digital camera technology and was highly receptive to the unpredictable aesthetic outcomes afforded by their flattened image quality. In this documentary, Varda puts herself amongst a thriving scavenging culture living on the fringes of mainstream society, using her lightweight little camera to glean images as her subjects pick remnants from fields, orchards, roadsides, and supermarkets. Gleaning as a practice has been protected by the French constitution since the 16th century, and the urban gleaners Varda depicts are the descendants of those figures immortalised in paintings by Millet and Van Gogh.

Credits

Cast - Agnès Varda, Bodan Litnanski, François Wertheimer

Director - Agnès Varda

Supported by:

Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse is part of the Culture Night Late programme, funded by the Arts Council and the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport under the Night-Time Economy programme with support from Galway City Council Arts Office.

For more details on Culture Night Late in Galway City, you can check out the @Archattheedge Instagram pages. 

Culture Night Late with Cathedral (AKA Shampain).

Tickets FREE but pre-booking is essential.

Nothing lasts forever and nothing reflects this more than the changing facade of the city that surrounds us. An hour exploring the power of holding onto what makes you happy and ultimately letting it go in search of eternal peace; Cathedral looks to pose the question, not whether change is good or bad, but whether a city can hold its own in a time where its inhabitants have never had such uncertain futures. 

Artist Bio

Having spent years toying with ambient and ominous sounds, Cathedral is the new experimental alias from Shampain. Prior to this he had already soundtracked silent classics such as Man Of Aran, Nos Feratu, Faust and Irish Destiny in celebrated venues such as The Pepper Canister Church, The Complex, An Taibhdhearc, The Galway Town Hall & The Sugar Club. 

Cathedral aims to challenge audiences and explore the boundaries of electronic, underground and avant garde music while presenting a sound that he had nurtured in the club scene with a new artistic vision. 

 Project credits

"Cathedral" is part of the AATE 2026 Culture Night Late programme, funded by the Arts Council and the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport under the Night-Time Economy programme with support from Galway City Council Arts Office.

 For more details on our Culture Night Late events in Galway City, you can check the @Archattheedge Instagram page for updates.

Gathering at Tigh Páidín 

Menlo’s vernacular heritage Gathering

Workshop / Community Event

Venue: Tigh Páidín (H91 YW9W)


2 - 5pm, Saturday 19th September, 2026



FREE entry - All are welcome, no booking required 

Galway City Council have been engaged in a vernacular survey and research over the past year in North Galway City in the townland of Ballindooley, which has been part funded by the Heritage Council.

Following on from this, Galway City Council have commenced Phase 1 of a Vernacular Heritage Survey of Menlo, a vernacular settlement to the north west of Galway City.

The survey will focus on revisiting and resurveying dwellings that were recorded by UCD Architecture students in the 1940s. The survey will utilise these drawings and mapping, which are held by the National Museum of Ireland, as a baseline to undertake the reassessment of Menlo’s vernacular heritage.

As part of the vernacular heritage survey process and in line with the spirit of this year’s AATE festival – ‘Le Chéile – the Architectures of Belonging’, the Galway

City Council Architectural Conservation Officer and the appointed vernacular consultants will host a community event to gather information on Menlo’s vernacular heritage.

Supported by: 

Galway City Council 

settle by TRESTLE is the location for a talk with local food hero Chef JP McMahon

“For me, cooking is essentially trying to tell a story and give a gift.”

JP McMahon is a chef, restaurateur and author. He is the owner and culinary director of Michelin-starred Aniar Restaurant and award-winning Cava Bodega, and runs the Aniar Boutique Cookery School.

He is also the founder of Food on the Edge, an international event that gathers people from all over the world to cook, eat and exchange ideas on how to make the food industry more sustainable. McMahon is committed to buying and supporting the best of local and free-range produce and engaging directly with farmers and producers.

As a director, founding member and the current Chair of the Galway Food Festival, McMahon is an ambassador for Irish food, travelling widely to promote Ireland, its produce and food culture. He is also an ambassador for Spanish food in Ireland promoting wines from Galicia and Jerez.

He is also a published author, a food writer and a contributor to the Irish Times, Radio One and Newstalk Radio and has a monthly slot on RTE TV and was twice the winning mentor for the RTE Series Taste of Success.

Tickets FREE but pre-booking is essential.

Talk at the Table - Lá sa gclaí

Bayanihan returns to Architecture at the Edge with an evening centred on the idea of the wall, not simply as a boundary, but as one of architecture’s most fundamental social elements.

Over two weeks at the European Architecture Students Assembly (EASA), twenty participants came together to construct a rammed earth wall while exploring contemporary ways of making, sharing skills, stories and experiences along the way. The project began with an interest in the role of the wall within the Irish landscape. Across Ireland, walls divide fields, measure land and mark ownership, but they can also become places of encounter: somewhere to shelter, rest, meet a neighbour, tell stories or gather. As the wall grew, it was continually inhabited. At different heights it became a bench, a table, a screen and, ultimately, an outdoor classroom.

The construction was accompanied by a series of collective activities, including a communal meal, storytelling, performances and a film screening. In this way, the wall became more than a structure; it became a piece of civic infrastructure shaped by the people who used it.

The permanent wall remains in Waterford. At Architecture at the Edge, its temporary timber formwork and supporting structures will be reassembled at Printworks Gallery, creating a new architectural stage and an echo of the original project. Rather than simply exhibiting documentation, the installation will be activated throughout the evening through shared food, film, music and conversation, compressing two weeks of collective occupation into a single night.

Alongside the installation, a public discussion will explore the cultural, political and spatial role of walls today- from the Irish field boundary to contested borders, and from shared civic infrastructure to architectures of exclusion. The evening asks how architecture might move beyond the production of objects to create the conditions for collective life, gathering and exchange.

Panellists Include:

Architect Mary Laheen one of the five creative directors of the Ireland pavilion exhibition, at the 18th Venice Architettura Biennale 2023, titled In Search of Hy-Brasil.

Celine Topsakal- Designer, Resolve Collective

Cathedral - the experimental electronic music alias of Galway-born DJ and producer Cóilí Collins, better known as Shampain

FREE entry - All are welcome, but pre- booking is advised.

Supported by:  

Grafton Architects

Tec7

EASA Seanchaí

The Great Together by Docar Films

2025 Documentary 20:14 minutes

Film Screening, followed by an online Q&A with Writer / Director Jasper Meurer

The Mick Lally Theatre, Druid Ln, Galway

17:00 – 18:00 h, Saturday 19 September

Tickets: Free admission, but prebooking is advised as spaces are limited.

“The Great Together” is a free translation of the French term Grand Ensemble, a housing typology that spread across post war Europe. Our film follows four such housing estates in four European cities: Rome, Toulouse, Belgrade and Vienna, tracing the diverse histories they have lived since their construction.

Followed by an online Q&A with Writer / Director Jasper Meurer

Credits

Produced by Museo Maxxi and LIFT Sarajevo. 

Written and directed by Rocio Calzado and Jasper Meurer. 

Edited by Maxime Faure. 

Music and sound design by Jacopo Biffi. 

Graphic design by Jeffrey Annert.

The event takes place as part of the AATE 2026 Film + Architecture workshop supported by Screen Ireland. 

Artists Talk

with Áine Phillips and Miriam deBurca

The Chloran Síle Flag represents a Sheela-na-gig that has been held in the collection of the British Museum since the late 1800s, having been taken from a site in West Meath during British occupation.

Sheela na gigs are medieval stone carvings of female figures displaying their genitalia with exaggerated grotesque and humorous facial expressions. They are found predominantly in Ireland. Experts believe they were protective talismans connected to ancient folk ideas of birth, death and life giving power. Sheela na gigs are viewed by modern feminists as symbols of female empowerment, body autonomy, and resistance against patriarchal oppression. 

The Chloran Sile Flag also confronts colonial legacies, her display highlights the expropriation of objects and treasures from Ireland that are still held in British institutions. This flag, as a symbol of identity, authority and solidarity to communicate shared values, proposes the restitution and repatriation of this ancient carving, echoing the artistic call to be found on the reverse of the flag: Síle come home.

Miriam de Búrca creates highly intricate, research-driven drawings and film works that adopt a forensic approach to uncover hidden histories, confronting the legacies of patriarchy, institutional power, and colonialism. Through drawing and installation de Búrca toys with the vocabulary of colonial aesthetics, using strategies of mimicry and irony as political tools to critique the superiority of ‘high art’. Áine Phillips for over 30 years has explored and engaged with women's lived experience, female autobiography and histories, feminism, community and social justice. She sees her work as a form of social activism through art. The two artists came together to create this flag celebrating the Chloran Síle as an emblem of women’s power and presence, a pre-christian icon representing a time when women had matriarchal status and equality in our society. The taking of this Síle, without consent, stands in for the rape and pillage of all cultures that are subject to colonisation, past and present.

Bios

Miriam de Búrca studied Fine Art at Glasgow School of Art and the Ulster University, Belfast. She is represented by Cristea Roberts Gallery, London and has works in the collection of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland; Arts Council of Ireland; the British Museum; National University of Ireland Galway and private collections. De Búrca lives and works in Galway.

Áine Phillips is a visual artist based in Galway. She makes performances, films and installations often working with communities and collaborators in Ireland and internationally since the late 80’s. Recent work includes a Decade of Centenaries project Reflections Banners commemorating Irish women’s history 1923 - 2023, commissioned by Galway City Arts Office, Libraries and Museum. 

Flag Making Workshop:

with Illustrator & Printmaker Conor Nolan

A one-day workshop, guided by Illustrator & Printmaker Conor Nolan in which participants make their own ‘Flag of Belonging’.

Let your flag speak to a place, a feeling, a tribe or community, a memory, and/or ideas and concepts around collective ideas of belonging, wellbeing, identity, imagination and purpose.

Conor Nolan is an illustrator currently based in Dublin. You can spot Conor’s work through its bold shapes and bright, limited colour palettes inspired by the aesthetics of different analog making techniques such as screen printing and collage. Conor’s work consists of a graphic depiction of a variety of characters and motifs, with interesting expressions, inky lines, and a distinct textured appearance. Conor has been working in illustration since 2016.

Conors clients include:

Facebook, Guinness, Jameson, Scholastic Books, Other Voices, Bohemians FC, Bodytonic, The Irish Cancer Society, Foras na Gaeilge, Seachtian na Gaeilge, Hopfully Brewing, Whiplash Brewing, Beck’s, Grolsch, The Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland, the Dublin Inquirer, the Sunday Business Post, Totally Dublin, Counterpoint Magazine, Belfast City Council, and more!

AATE are working in collaboration with LINA Fellow Blanka Major with the aim to connect food, people and place.

Blanka Major is a Zurich-based architect with Hungarian roots, working independently and collaboratively across scales and formats. Her practice spans architecture, cooking, editing, curating, writing, teaching, and research. She holds degrees in Art History and Architecture, graduating from ETH Zurich in 2022 with the project food forms. She is part of ZAS* (Zürcher Arbeitsgruppe für Städtebau), working on alternative narrations of the existing and contributing civic engagement. At ETH Zurich, she teaches and researches at the Chair of Alexandre Theriot, where she co-edited «Peter Thomann – Hors Piste» (gta Verlag, 2025).

 Her practice is grounded in curiosity about the everyday: how we live together and how built environments shape social roles. She investigates the infrastructures and systems—housing, food, domestic routines—that structure daily life and influence rhythms of coexistence. Alongside architecture, she explores food as a spatial and social medium. Cooking and eating become tools of inquiry and formats for gathering, dissolving boundaries and creating temporary collectivities.

Through performative dinners and installations, Blanka uses the kitchen as a space of experimentation where sensorial and social experiences intersect. These works unfold both within and outside institutional contexts, addressing how we live together in material terms.
Her work with Kitchuan has been shown at Kunsthalle Bern («every instant is at once»), Kunsthaus Zürich’s Clubhaus (invited by Aris Guzman), and Foodculture Days in Vevey. She is currently collaborating with the Art x Science Office of the University of Zurich on «devouring» (Nov 2024) and «argilla» (Aug 2025).

Blanka’s work links body, architecture, and territory to develop spatial formats rooted in temporality, interdependence, and lived experience. Her practice evolves through research, fieldwork, experimentation and speculative design—transforming domestic acts into architectural thinking.

Part of the LINA Architecture programme.

A walk through the exhibition Threshold

with Architects O’Donnell + Tuomey

Guided tour by Sheila O”Donnell + John Tuomey of Threshold an exhibition of the architecture of entrances, porches, foyers and spaces in between, designed by Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey for the 49th Clifden Community Arts Festival. The exhibition will focus on the question of the threshold, how buildings can foster a sense of belonging and promote a feeling of invitation to explore. 

Works exhibited include the V&A East Museum, Sadler’s Wells East Dance Theatre, Liverpool University School of Architecture, TU Dublin Academic Hub and the Culture House Swords. Models, drawings and conceptual sketches illustrate the thinking behind the designs

O’Donnell + Tuomey is a studio-based architectural practice. Committed to the craft and culture of architecture, they have worked on numerous urban design, cultural, social and educational projects and have a reputation for engagement with complex urban situations and sensitive landscapes. They have completed schools and universities, theatres and cinemas, community centres and social housing, art galleries and libraries in Ireland, the UK and Europe. They have exhibited six times at the Venice Architecture Biennale.

Winners of more than 160 awards, RIBA Royal Gold Medal and RIAI Gold Medal recipients, their completed buildings include The Glucksman, Cork; Irish Language Cultural Centre, Derry; Lyric Theatre, Belfast; V&A East Museum and Sadler’s Wells Dance Theatre, London; Liverpool University School of Architecture; London School of Economics Student Centre; Central European University, Budapest,University College Cork Student Centre and The Hedge Theatre, Stone Vessel and Passage House at Fartha, Cork, Ireland.

Exhibition credits: Clifden Arts Festival

A System for Ordinary Housing

SJK Architects in association with Gerry Cahill

Illustrated Talk / Keynote Lecture on a project that was highly commended for the RIAI Silver Medal for Housing 2026.

The Mick Lally Theatre, Druid Ln, (off Quay Street)
17:00-18:30 hr, Thursday 24th September 2026
FREE entry – but prebooking is advised via link below.

“A System for Ordinary Housing” builds on Ireland’s social housing tradition— from the masterplan and house types of Marino in Dublin designed by Horace O’Rourke in the 1920’s; to the Bord na Móna villages designed by Frank Gibney in the 1950s.

Gerry Cahill’s and SJK Architects’ collaboration learns from and follows this experience of simple, high-quality social housing to form connected senses of place in 21st Century Ireland.

“Own-door houses placed close to the street, modest front garden spaces neatly enclosing bin and bike storage, vernacular gables and corner buildings all contribute towards a safe and truly welcoming living environment. Theses are places where the community is clearly thriving. The concept of proposing a system of principles and details for use across the country is particularly welcome - in housing - as an ambition for why design matters.” – Jury Citation, 2026 RIAI Silver Medal for Housing.

bio

SJK Architects (SJK.ie) is an architecture practise established 1954 and led since 2013 by Edel Tobin, Elaine Naughton, Dermot McCabe and their team of talented architects and technologists with offices in Galway and Westport working on projects country-wide. The quality of SJK’s work is consistently recognised for focus in solving client’s problems, delivering excellence on time, budget and quality, and by Irish Architecture Awards; Public Choice Awards and the RIAI’s Silver Medal for Housing.

Gerry Cahill is an Irish architect whose built work is primarily in housing. Most of Gerry’s homes were delivered with local authorities, voluntary organisations, or approved housing bodies. Through his teaching at UCD, Gerry Cahill influenced the work and lives of hundreds of architects practising in Ireland and elsewhere, including the team at SJK. The book “Care and Consideration: on the work of Gerry Cahill Architects” was published 2025

Project Credits;

Employer: National Development Finance Agency (NDFA) / Department of Housing / Cork County Council / Clare County Council / Waterford City and County Council / Galway City Council.

Client Design team information

Architect SJK Architects in association with Gerry Cahill

Dermot McCabe, Elaine Naughton, Edel Tobin, Gerry Cahill, Orla Murphy, Eoin Kavanagh, Blair Stanaway, Ruth Fox, Lisa Fox, Ollie O’Brien, Brian Corcoran.

Project Management National Development Finance Agency

Quantity Surveyor Currie and Brown

Structural Engineer Hayes Higgins Partnership

M+E Engineer Matt O'Mahony & Associates

Landscape Radharc

Planning Consultant HRA Planning

Fire Consultant Jensen Hughes

Assigned Certifier AECOM

Public Private Partnership Contractor Design and Build team information

Contractor JJ Rhatigan + OHL 

Architect Rhatigan Architects and Avanti Architects

Client TORC Housing Partnership

Project Management Equitix and Kajima Partnerships

Structural Engineer Punch Consulting Engineers

M+E Engineer Varming

Landscape Flannery Landscaping

Meet the Artists behind the new flags reimagining Galway’s Tribes for the AATE Festival 2026.

Galway City Council’s Museum Lates is part of Galway’s Night-Time Economy Programme. The initiative extends Museum opening hours on the last Thursday of every month from June to December 2026, with a free programme of immersive performances, talks, workshops and events taking place between 5pm and 9pm.

Funded through the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport’s After Hours at the Museum scheme, with support from Galway City Council, Museum Lates contributes to a thriving, diverse and accessible evening cultural offering in the heart of the city. The initiative also strengthens Galway’s tourism appeal by extending cultural activity into the evening, encouraging visitors to spend more time in the city centre and experience Galway’s heritage and creativity after dark.

Museum Lates offers a unique opportunity to explore the Museum’s collections and exhibitions outside regular opening hours while enjoying live music, engaging talks, creative workshops and community events in an exciting evening setting.

Meet the Artists behind a brand new public art flag display on Druid lane for the Architecture at the Edge Festival 2026. The artists vibrant designs entitled ‘14 Flags of Belonging will adorn the Galway skies from 17th to 27th September 2026.

These flags are a nod to the 14 Tribes of Galway,  created in response to the festivals theme fopr 2026 ‘Le Chéile – the Architectures of Belonging’. The 14 commissioned designers have worked to create a series of symbolic flags which represent various identities and communities in the city and speak to a place, a feeling, a tribe or community, a memory, and/or ideas and concepts around collective ideas of belonging, wellbeing, identity, imagination and purpose.

’14 Flags of Belonging’, is part of the Culture Night Late programme, funded by the Arts Council and the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport under the Night-Time Economy programme with support from Galway City Council Arts Office.

Shane O'Driscoll is a Cork-based visual artist and art director. He is a full time artist that practices mainly in printmaking. Shane has artwork in the permanent collection of The National Gallery of Ireland, Crawford Gallery Cork, Trinity College Dublin, Glucksman Museum UCC, and UCD.

He is also Co director of Ardú Street Art Project, an initiative that has brought a number of large scale contemporary murals to Cork City. 

In 2024, he was an artist in residence for Team Ireland at the Paris Olympics, where he was commissioned to create an artwork to commemorate 100 years of Team Ireland. His art was an integral part of the Team Ireland campaign.

On Site - Údarás na Gaeltachta with AXO Architects

Adaptation and re-use of two 1970s factories at Inverin.  

Architect led Tour

Salerno Business Park, Inverin, County Galway - H91 XHE3

12:00-13:00 hr, Friday, 25th September 2026

FREE entry – but prebooking is advised as spaces are limited.

Architect led Tour with Michael Horan and Seamus Lunn, Axo Architects.

The temptation is to build new….build in the city….add to the congestion.  

An alternative, is to provide employment in your own locality to strengthen your community where families can grow, become neighbours, become friends, attend the local school, play sport for the local teams, support the local shop, cycle to work, socialise, and foster a sense of ’Belonging’.  

InverMed and Advant Medical could have moved to the city, but they chose to stay in their own locality and provide employment, thus allowing both management and staff to continue to ‘belong’ to the area and therefore support the growth and vibrancy of their local community, thus fostering ‘Pride of Place’ and the Architecture of Belonging.

Údarás na Gaeltachta is the regional authority responsible for the economic, social and cultural development of the Gaeltacht. It is a key player in fostering and driving the essence of ‘Belonging’.

Project Credits;

Architects, Assigned Certifier & PSDP – Axo Architects.

Quantity Surveyors – Peter F Costello & Partners.

Mechanical & Electrical Engineers – IN2 Engineering Design Partnership.

Civil and Structural Engineers – CHH Consulting Engineers.

Site info: 

Parking is available to the rear of the site.

The two pharmaceutical units are live operations so internal photographs are not permitted.

Event organised by: Údarás na Gaeltachta.

Book launch and panel conversation with Making Neighbourhoods contributors, Caroline Crowley, Rosie Lynch, Heather Griffin, and Thom Stewart.

Making Neighbourhood charts a story of creative placemaking and neighbourhood making in Ireland, structured through four chapters: care for the future, making as care, care for place, and tools for care. Concluding with a reflection from a Scottish perspective, the book focuses on the stories and experiences of Reimagining Elderhood, Nimble Spaces, Galway Community Cafe, Cork Community Land Trust, Test Site, Cork Women’s Traveller Network, Town Ecologies, Robert Emmett CPD and initiatives in Cloughjordan Ecovillage and Callan. The book aims to provide a concise, accessible guide to making neighbourhoods in Ireland, while signposting broader practices and ideas. Who is it for? It’s for anyone who wants to understand what creative placemaking means in Ireland, and how it can help tackle problems that sometimes seem difficult to solve. It’s for people interested in processes that resource communities, strengthen connections, and build resilience.

Published in 2026 by Workhouse Union Press and co-edited with SOA (Self-Organised Architecture) and Cloughjordan Co-Housing, with funding support from the Arts Council and Kilkenny Leader Partnership.

Event Organiser: Workhouse Union

 Bios of the individual/s participating in the event.

Dr. Caroline Crowley is an independent researcher with a background in natural and social sciences. Her work is dedicated to supporting care-centred systems that promote the well-being of families, communities, and nature.

Heather Griffin collaborates with Patrick Mulvihill through Living Rhythms, a participatory arts practice that has emerged through community-led work. Through creative placemaking, they collaborate with communities to speculate and envision an alternative, just, and regenerative future in response to the crisis of imagination.

 Rosie Lynch is Creative Director of Workhouse Union, a creative placemaking and community co-design organisation based in Callan, Co. Kilkenny. Rosie has extensive experience leading national and local engagement programmes with a strong emphasis on care, access, and place-based storytelling.  

Thom Stewart is a peer practitioner, co-designer, and conscientious objector to the concept of ‘mental health’. Thom advocates for ground-clearing the underlying assumptions about power, ownership, capability, and control that disables our entire society.

AATE Lecture  – Heart of the Matter – Witherford Watson Mann Architects

Exploring the physical and social conditions at Astley Castle and Appleby Blue with Stephen Witherford BA Dip Arch RIBA

Illustrated Talk / Lecture

O'Donoghue Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance,
(University Of Galway)
18:30-19:30 hr, Friday 25th September 2026

FREE entry – but prebooking is advised as spaces are limited.

Through the repetition of chance, winning two Stirling Prizes, 12 years apart, I thought it would be interesting to reflect on the two winning projects and consider them together – the conditions that we encountered, the way we re-imagined these, and the physical and social outcomes that have evolved from this imagination.

It is not obvious how responding to the ruined remains of Astley Castle, at risk of being completely lost, might share any similarities with building the contemporary Appleby Blue almshouse, to provide the opportunity for older people to start again in life. How does making a short-term holiday rental house for 8, mostly financially well-off people, relate to making social housing for 65 people who are in some form of need, to reside for the rest of their lives? Not least, does building in Warwickshire’s rural countryside tell us something about how we might build in the heart of our cities? 

This talk pursues these questions with no preconceptions; exploring the deep and complex relationship between the physicality of buildings and the social experiences that unfold from these. It is never clear to us, until a building has been lived in for a period of time, what we have actually done. Only then does the reality begin to be revealed. 

In Partnership with : 

Arts in Action is back to University of Galway

The Architectural Association of Ireland

Once Upon A Sound

Hosted by Dónal Dineen 

Talk Discussion 

The Mick Lally Theatre, Druid Ln, (off Quay Street)

20:00 - 21:30hr, Friday, September 25th 2026
Tickets €15 (Dancing till late included) 

Back Story Special >>>

Ticket holders for the above talk are invited to join us as we continue into the night with Dónal Dineen’s Backstory special! 

Acclaimed Irish DJ Dónal Dineen’s Backstory Dance has been a mainstay of the music scene for the past decade.

This event follows directly after the screening of Dónal Dineen’s Once upon a story. Tickets can be bought for the Backstory part of the evening only on the door if capacity allows, or book for Once upon a Story and get access to the full evening of events.

The unerring attention to detail on the quality of the music and the atmosphere generated on one heady night after another has become the stuff of legend.

For this special AATE Festival edition at The Mick Laly Theatre, Dónal will be playing an extended set which is like an alternative guide to the musical universe.

Tickets €10 on the door. . 

Dónal Dineen is an Irish DJ, radio presenter and film maker. A pioneering force for a generation of music fans, Donal is renowned for his deep passion for music as well as a curator of unique multi-disciplinary events.  Current projects include the music podcast Make Me An Island podcast and a documentary film Dance to Remember which premiered at the Kerry International Film Festival in 2025.

Dónal will be hosting a special live edition of his Once Upon A Sound video series at AATE where he'll be exploring music as a source of inspiration for creative minds working in other media.

Taking our cue from the Desert Island Discs programme first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1942, guests will be invited to choose a selection of audio recordings that they would take with them if they were to be cast away on a desert island as a jump-off point for a discussion about the role sound plays in their practice.

Dónals Guests include: Artist Joy Gerrard and others TBC 

AATE Flag Display x and a multi-speaker talk on Coastal Decision-Making

— The built, natural and cultural significance of the Irish Coastline

Grattan Beach, Grattan Road, Salthill

Saturday 26th September

12 noon (duration 1.5hrs)

All are welcome, no booking required.

This is an outdoor event, appropriate shoes and clothing recommended

Flag installation on the beach, with a multi-speaker talk and presentation on the built and natural coastline, coastal decision-making and town planning, climate change, endangered species, and the biodiversity on the edge of our city. A variety of species and habitats will be explored.

Project Credits;

Amelia Walker, Flag Team AATE / Galway Atlantaquaria / C-MAP Coastal Monitoring and Adaptation Planning / School of Geography, University of Galway

Speakers Include:

• Amelia Walker — Flag Team AATE, Graphic Designer / Sandlarks

• Axel Leahy — C-MAP Coastal Monitoring and Adaptation Planning, Post Doctoral Researcher, University of Galway

• Garry Kendellen — Galway Atlantaquaria

• Kevin Lynch — Beach & Dune Network, School of Geography, Archaeology and Irish

Studies, Ryan Institute, University of Galway

• Léa Delhaise — Marine Biologist, Sea Science, Galway City Museum

• Amber Parker — Wool Rolls Research Project, University of Galway

• Ultan McManus — Sandlarks

Amelia Walker — Flag Team AATE, Graphic Designer / Sandlarks

Amelia’s AATE design utilises visual art as a conduit for spreading environmental awareness and sustainability; emphasising the importance of endangered species living in close proximity to our human-build world. Finding a White Skate (Rostroraja alba) mermaid’s purse in Furbo has shown that Galway Bay is currently a rare breeding site and nursery for the critically endangered species.

Axel Leahy — C-MAP Coastal Monitoring and Adaptation Planning, Post Doctoral Researcher, University of Galway

Axel’s research assesses opportunities and barriers for the participation of coastal communities within climate change adaptation (CCA) decision-making processes. His work investigates individual’s perceptions of coastal risks and climate change, and engagement at a local level. 

Garry Kendellen — Galway Atlantaquaria

Garry is head of marketing, content and public participation at Galway Atlantaquaria. He holds regular Explore Your Shore and other public events on Grttan Beach. His focus is on supporting and educating a connected community.

Ultan McManus — Sandlarks

Ultan is co-founder of Sandlarks, a Clean Coasts volunteer group based in Galway. Their focus is on community beach cleans, ci>zen science, and coastal conservation along the Wild Atlantic Way. 

Léa Delhaise — Marine Biologist, Sea Science, Galway City Museum.

Léa holds regular educational events on the beach. She curated An Tír Faoi Thoinn – The Land Beneath the Waves, supported by the Marine Institute — “It’s exciting to bring people into conversa>on with the ocean on their doorstep. These events give visitors a chance to discover the incredible species, stories and science hidden beneath Galway Bay, and to understand how closely connected we all are to marine life.”

Amber Parker — Wool Rolls Research Project, Coastal & Marine Processes & Policy, University of Galway.

Amber has been working on The Wool Rolls Research Project; a nature-based research initiative in Galway, that uses wool rolls to support sand dune restoration and coastal conservation. The focus of the project was to test natural, biodegradable materials alongside chestnut fencing to stabilise sand dunes and encourage native vegetation growth.

Building Material – Issue No.25

A launch and preview event introducing Building Material Issue No. 25, currently in development and co-edited by Helen McFadden and Steve Larkin.

Talk Discussion 

The Mick Lally Theatre, Druid Ln, (off Quay Street)


15:00-16:30 hr, Saturday 26, September 2026


FREE entry – but prebooking is advised via Eventbrite.

This event marks the launch and preview of Building Material Journal, a special 25th issue co-edited by Helen McFadden and Steve Larkin, introducing its theme: “Architecture and Landscape: Parts-to-a-Whole.”

Currently in development, the issue will bring together emerging ideas, research and contributions exploring the relationships between architecture and landscape. The programme will offer a preview of the thinking and making behind the publication, alongside a panel discussion exploring how people working across architecture, landscape and related disciplines engage with individual parts, fragments and interventions, and how these contribute to larger spatial, material, cultural and environmental wholes.

The discussion will open the theme to a wider audience, creating a space for exchange between architects, researchers, educators, landscape practitioners, students and others interested in architecture and landscape. As this special 25th issue takes shape, the event offers an opportunity to engage with its developing ideas, glimpse the process behind its making, and contribute new perspectives to the conversation.

Supported by:  

All-Ireland Architectural Research Group
Architectural Association of Ireland
ICOMOS National Scientific Committee for Cultural Landscapes
Architecture At The Edge
Arts Council of Ireland (Project Award)

Making Assembly 

A film directed and produced by Michelle Delea, (Architect, poet, and filmmaker), documenting ‘Assembly’ Ireland’s national pavilion by Cotter & Naessens Architects at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia 2025.

Film screening plus Q&A 

Friday 26th September, 2026

16:30 – 18:00hr 

The Mick Lally Theatre, Druid Lane

FREE entry - All are welcome, but prebooking is advised. 

“To assemble is to gather together as a group of people with a common interest. To assemble is to construct a whole from constituent parts. As both congregation and construction, assembly is at the heart of the architectural process; it is a multi-sensory installation, a soundscape to be inhabited, a space to be heard.”                     

— Cotter & Naessens Architects

Following its presentation at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia 2025, Assembly, Ireland’s national pavilion by Cotter & Naessens Architects, has embarked on a national tour across the country this summer.

Part installation, part resonant chamber, part civic proposition, Assembly is a multisensory environment that explores architecture as a space for gathering, listening, and collective reflection. Inspired by Ireland’s Citizens’ Assembly, established in 2016 to bring together demographically representative residents to deliberate urgent social and political issues ranging from marriage equality to biodiversity loss, the project reflects on new forms of participatory democracy and asks how architecture might support more open, inclusive, and non-hierarchical forms of public exchange. 

At a moment when civic discourse is increasingly fragmented and mediated through digital space, Assembly proposes the act of coming together, physically and collectively, as both a political and poetic gesture. The national tour extends this proposition beyond Venice, bringing the pavilion into dialogue with audiences across Ireland and inviting new communities to inhabit, activate, and contribute to the work. 

The Ireland tour presents the original installation alongside the premiere of a new 27-minute documentary “Making Assembly” directed and produced by Michelle Delea. Structured around the four stanzas of the poem ‘Assembly’, the film traces the design, fabrication, and installation of the pavilion through moving image and sound, documenting the collaborative processes and material labour that shaped the work. 

The tour continues at Architecture at the Edge at the Mick Lally Theatre, Galway, on September 26, 2026 with a screening of “Making Assembly”. Presented in dialogue with the festival’s theme, Le Chéile, a film screening of “Making Assembly” extends the festival’s exploration of citizens’ assemblies and asks how architecture might foster more open forms of communication, participation, and democratic engagement. The screening will be followed by an audience discussion with Louise Cotter (Architect) & Michelle Delea (Architect, poet, and filmmaker), moderated by AATE Festival Director Frank Monahan.

A Place to Gather 

Hosted by Guzzle and Almost Anywhere

Talk at the Table

The Printworks 15 Market Street, Galway, H91 TCX3
18:00-21:30 hr, Saturday 26, September 2026
Tickets  – €65 via Guzzle mag ( guzzlemag.com/events/aate). 

For Architecture at the Edge, Guzzle and Almost Anywhere come together at settle, TRESTLE’s temporary public interior, for a site-specific dinner exploring place as something we create through gathering, rather than a space we are fixed to.

There is a certain freedom in not having a permanent kitchen. We arrive with what we need, find our bearings and begin to cook. The kitchen takes shape around us; the table follows. In this sense, we carry our rituals of hospitality from one place to another, finding a sense of identity and belonging through the act of gathering.

settle feels like a natural meeting point for this idea. Designed to be dismantled, rearranged and reimagined, the installation asks how objects and infrastructure can transform a space into somewhere to gather. Our dinner will extend that invitation, activating the structure as a site of commensality, a dining room and a temporary home. Then, like us, it moves on.

Guzzle is a print food publication and events collective founded in Dublin and now based in East London. The first two issues honed in on nostalgia and love, challenging familiar narratives by approaching them from unexpected angles. Issue Three: A Hunger for Home imaginatively opens doors to spaces and places across the globe, from Irish pubs overseas to a cookbook club in Copenhagen and a writer’s early upbringing in Hanoi.

Since its launch, Guzzle has cultivated an engaged international readership, reflecting a growing global appetite for thoughtful, art-led conversations around food and culture. The publication has appeared at festivals including Body & Soul, Ballymaloe Festival of Food, Bound Art Book Fair in Manchester, Dublin Art Book Fair and Athens Art Book Fair. It has been distributed across 18 cities in 11 countries, toured Berlin as part of a Culture Ireland-funded exhibition, and featured in an exhibition at London’s Gallery of Photographers.

Almost Anywhere is a hospitality collective, hosting feasts at the intersection of food, culture and the arts. Almost Anywhere was founded by Tom Hayes, a Ballymaloe Cookery School alumnus, after training in London and Copenhagen, where he developed a love for celebrating the finest seasonal produce at any given time of year. 

Almost Anywhere allows the best produce of the season to express itself, supporting regenerative farmers along the way. This work has brought them to many interesting locations across Ireland and beyond from art galleries to forests and cliff edges. They have hosted feasts in farmhouses of France and Italy and even as far as Utah in the USA. 

settle is a temporary installation designed and curated by TRESTLE. The project proposes a new public interior for gathering and collective experience in the contemporary city. Inspired by the functionalism and adaptability of Irish vernacular furniture, the installation explores how an infrastructure of considered objects can formulate a new, albeit temporary, public interior. The installation can be recast and reformatted to host a variety of events and gatherings – in this way it acts as an extended invitation to the city.

Níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán Féin -

Cultural Walking Tour led by Róisín Mc Loughlin

Location meeting point: Tigh Neachtains


12:00 noon, Sunday, 27th September 2026 


FREE admission - pre-booking is strongly advised as spaces are limited.

Níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán féin: Hearth to Hearth through Galway City is a guided cultural walk exploring the hearth as an architectural and social space at the heart of Galway’s civic and cultural life.

Moving through a series of historic locations in Galway City, the walk considers the fireplace not simply as an architectural feature, but as a gathering place - a space around which stories are shared, ideas debated, relationships formed and communities sustained.

The route connects Tigh Neachtain, Galway Arts Centre, Nora Barnacle’s House Museum and The Kings Head, drawing out stories associated with politics, literature, creativity, domestic life and belonging.

Responding to Architecture at the Edge’s 2026 theme Le Chéile, the walk invites participants to consider the spaces that bring us together and to reflect on their own understanding of home, community and the enduring idea of the hearth.

Róisín Mc Loughlin, is a Tipperary-born and Galway-based educator, cultural practitioner and community engagement professional with a particular interest in language,place, belonging and the ways people experience shared spaces. Her work brings together education, community engagement, storytelling and cultural participation with a strong focus on creating accessible and meaningful experiences that connect people and place.

Artist Talk / Workshop

with Ambacht Studio

Sunday 27th September, 13:00 - 15:00,

Ancient gathering around the hearth is explored through an installation of pre-modern structures in the form of cyanotype prints and a cyanotype print workshop.

Acknowledging fire’s role in human gathering and pre-modern architecture, this exhibition explores Irish settlement structures from the Grooved Ware period (3000-2400BC), a culture believed to be particularly centred around fire. The installation spatially interprets a typical circular enclosure featuring four internal posts and a central hearth.

The central hearth is represented by a rectangular podium where visitors can handle study prints. Beneath these, an undeveloped cyanotype print is affected by the changing light and visitor movement, serving as a "living" symbolic fire. Surrounding this are interconnecting stools (by Nocht Studio), creating a gathering space. Large-scale cyanotype prints—toned in ash and wheat grass—form a concentric semi-enclosure, interpreting the site plan, individual buildings, and art of the period. The exhibition culminates in a workshop led by Adela Gomez, where participants will create their own cyanotype prints and develop the print exposed under the hearth, actively engaging with the themes of architectural memory and communal creation.

Ambacht was founded in 2020 by Adela Gomez and Bram D’hoedt. Their work finds balance through the act of making, testing spatial configurations and material possibilities. The tactile presence of drawings, models and cyanotype prints allows for cyclical reflection striving to retain the integrity of core design ideologies and the joy of process.

Adela Gómez, co-founder of Ambacht, is an architect and visual artist.. She was awarded the 2023 and again in 2026 Bursary Award from the Irish Arts Council. Her work has appeared in various printed and online publications. Unbuilt and Adela were awarded the Dublin City Art's Office 2026 Incubation Space Award.

Bram D’hoedt, co-founder of Ambacht, conducted his architecture studies at KU Leuven and completed his thesis in association with Columbia University & NYIT. In 2026, Bram was awarded the Agility Award - Architecture by the Arts Council of Ireland.  Bram is also a frequent guest reviewer at TUD, UCD, and SAUL.