LookWest.ie Ocean Race Photo Exhibition Eyre Square

Relive Galway’s Volvo Ocean Race Festivities.

The Western Development Commission (WDC) and Let’s Do It Galway have announced that the exhibition of photographs from the LookWest.ie & Pix.ie Volvo Ocean Race Festival photo competition will run from September 3rd until the end of the month in Galway’s Eyre Square Centre.

The exhibition will feature the best 100 photographs from the competition which captured the fun and entertainment that took place during the festival in June.

Admission is free and open to the public from 9am to 7pm Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, from 9am to 9pm on Thursdays and Fridays, and from 11am to 7pm on Sundays.

Joanne Grehan of the WDC said, “We ran the exhibition of the top 100 photos over a weekend in August and it was a great success with over 1,000 people visiting it.  Now we are bringing it to the Eyre Square Centre for more people to have the chance to revisit the two weeks of glorious sunshine when Galway played host to Ireland’s largest sporting event in June.  We are enormously grateful to the Eyre Square Centre for giving us the space to display the photos which cover everything from the opening ceremony, the boats and the air show, to the entertainment, excitement and fun of the race village.  The photos really capture the city, its people and its visitors, and anyone with 10 or 15 minutes to spare at some stage over the next month should pop in to have a look.  It’s a great way to remember the fantastic festival in June and to remind ourselves of what Galway achieved by hosting it.”

Ms Grehan added, “The success of the photo competition really amazed us.  As the people of Galway will know well at this stage, we smashed the previous record of uploaded photos from an Irish event with over 17,000 photos of Galway uploaded to a worldwide audience, making it a fantastic opportunity to promote Galway and the Western Region.  After September the exhibition will travel to a number of locations around Ireland – continuing to promote Galway and the Western Region through Ireland’s largest ever photo sharing project.”

Maria Moynihan of Let’s Do It Galway said, “The LookWest.ie and Pix.ie photo competition was one of the major successes of the two-week stopover in Galway of the Volvo Ocean Race.  The fact that a record of 17,000 pictures now exists will forever keep the event live in people’s memory.  This exhibition in the Eyre Square Centre will feature the top 100 pictures but there are thousands of others that are well worth a look at http://pix.ie/go/lookwest and I would encourage people to also go online to have a look at them”

The photo competition and exhibition were sponsored by The Western Development Commission (WDC) as part of its work to highlight the 'Creative West' as the Western Region rapidly becomes Ireland’s hub for the creative industries.

The three prize winners of the competition were presented with their prizes by Minister for Gaeltacht and rural affairs Eamonn O'Cuiv and marine photographer David Brannigan at an award ceremony on August 20th.