The Mácnas Parade

My home town of Galway is well known for the Arts and this is personified by Galway's Macnas Parade. During Covid-19 the parade was cancelled and this year it is back after a 4 year hiatus.

My wife and I brought our children in for it yesterday evening and they absolutely loved, as did we. Mácnas really bring colour and creativity to the streets in their own unique way and I remember going to Mácnas parades myself as a child, so it was really special bringing my own little men to the Mácnas Halloween parade.

Here is what Mácnas themselves had to say about the parade:

Mácnas reclaim the streets of Galway this Halloween with their first electrifying bone-chilling street parade in four years

The world renowned masters of storytelling and pioneers of imagination Mácnas bring a brand new, spectacular and spine-tingling parade of unearthly magic to their native Galway on Sunday 29th October 2023.

The parade is inspired by the legend of La Loba, a wild Wolf-Woman who collects and preserves the bones of animals, humans and gods that are in danger of being lost to the world and sings them back to life by moonlight.

As darkness descends on the Halloween Sabbath La Loba will prowl Galway’s city streets.

Standing at almost 5m tall and coutured head to toe in a unique creation of deathly white skulls, this ancient harvester witch piles bones of almost forgotten Gods and their humans around the fire, La Loba sings life into her treasure trove of “cnámha”. And as her pet wolf looks on, these bones rise and live again on our streets, illuminated and energized - this wise woman reminding us of who we were before we became what we are.

James Riordan, Parade Director said “This year's parade is going to be a feast for the senses as we welcome audiences into the world of La Loba, a wild wolf woman who has sung life back into all manner of almost forgotten tribes and Gods, conjuring them to the streets once more in a communal celebration of the ancestors that have come before us. Expect over 100 performers, dancers, huge puppets and live musicians in stunning costumes, all coming together for our first street parade in four years and bringing with them Mácnas' signature collaborative creativity, electric energy and joyous abandon. We are back and we are ready to make some magic!”

Now let's give you all a flavour of what we saw at yesterday's parade.

This lady and the moon was pretty cool and the photos came out well. Then we had these Papier-mâché looking creations which Mácnas are famous for. We set ourselves up just opposite the Abbey church on Eglinton street, which was a great back drop for the parade.

Scary Wolves

These wolves on stilts were a massive hit with our kids and indeed all of the children on the street near us. There were lots of screams and screeches from the kids, but in a fun and jovial way.

More from the Mácnas Parade

We arrived to our spot at 4:55 and it was just before 6pm when the parade reached us. It was a long wait for young children, but it was definitely worth the wait as they all looked on wide eyed at the scenes unfolding on front of their eyes.

Who are Macnas?

Mácnas is an old Gaelic word that means 'frolicking'. They are a performance arts group who meet up at Fisheries Field in my hometown of Galway in Ireland.

They were founded in 1986 and have been performing at Galway's St. Patrick's Day parade for years. They also do other parades like yesterday' Halloween parade. The parades have previously drawn as many as 50,000 onto the city's streets.

Let's finish out the post with a few more photos from yesterday's parade.

So, if you ever make it to the West of Ireland and Galway in particular, try to time it when a Mácnas parade is happening. The city really comes to life with colour and imagination.

The Mácnas crew have even toured with U2 for their 1993 Zoo tour. These three photos are not my own and were sources on www.macnas.com

That's it from Galway for now folks. Have a spooktacular Halloween wherever ye are and go easy on the sweets and chocolates!

The images used throughout are all my own captured on my Samsung Smartphone, except those last three of Mácnas doing U2

Thanks as always for stopping by everyone.

Peace Out