Galway Comedy Festival is bursting at the seams with comedy brilliance, all part of a 70-strong line-up of international stars, homegrown comedy greats, and emerging talent, playing 69 shows across 16 venues over 7 days and nights. You’d best start planning your week of ‘carefully curated craic’.

Joe Rooney
Joe Rooney’s unforgettable turn as gurrier priest, Fr Damo, in Father Ted, forever sealed his reputation in Irish comedy. A stand-up comedian, actor, screenwriter, musician and podcaster, over the last 20 years Joe has performed everywhere from Moscow to Muscat, and all places in between, including the Edinburgh Fringe, Glastonbury, and Kansas City Irish Festival, as well as festivals around Ireland. On his Podarooney podcast he has interviewed Aidan Gillen, Shazia Mirza, and Sean Lock. He also co-hosts the Father Ted podcast, Talking Ted, alongside Patrick McDonnell.

Steve Steen
A leading exponent of the art form, Steve was featured in six episodes of Whose Line Is It Anyway. He also appeared on Have I Got News For You, is practically a mascot of Galway Comedy Festival and had a star turn as Lord Byron in Blackadder The Third.

Sharon Mannion
When Deirdre O’Kane cites herself as one of your fans, you know you’re doing something right – and Sharon Mannion certainly is. She was Concepta on the hit comedy series, Bridget & Eamonn; is resident host of The Comedy Cellar at the International in Dublin; and she has played every comedy festival on our island. She is also an award winning comic writer, scooping a Writer’s Guild of Ireland Zebbie Best Radio Script Award for her RTÉ Radio 1 play, Stuck.

Phill Jupitus
Phill is a British comedy legend, but while comedy has taken a back seat in recent years as he pursues his love of the visual arts, Galway Comedy Festival always gets Phill back on stage. Phill makes his annual pilgrimage to Galway in October, where he will regale us with stories witty and humorous, indulge in some improv, recite some verse as Porky, and maybe even get us to sketch and draw along with him. Comedy’s Renaissance Man? Probably. Great to have him back? Definitely.

Ian Coppinger
A mainstay of Irish comedy since the 1990s, Ian remains one of Ireland’s busiest comedians, regularly playing to packed houses at the Edinburgh, Melbourne, Montreal Just for Laughs, Glasgow, Galway, Dublin, Adelaide and Wellington comedy festivals. A first-rate improviser, Ian is a co-founder of The Dublin Comedy Improv (est. 1992), where he still performs every Monday night in Dublin’s International Bar – Ireland’s longest running comedy club.

DOORS: 19:30 | SHOW: 20:00 | Age 18+