The 2025 Bealtaine Festival provided an opportune occasion to run a creative-writing course at Galway City Museum over a period of five Wednesday mornings in May. Simply entitled ‘Inspired by Objects’, the series was promoted as part of the Bealtaine programme, which celebrates creativity in older people, though anyone was welcome to attend.
In week one, Brendan McGowan, Education Officer, and workshop facilitator Gerry Hanberry introduced the creative-writing course. Gerry spoke to the group about their writing experience and expectations for the course and the group did a brief tour of the Museum. Then, each week the Education Officer introduced the group to a different object (or collection of related objects) and spent around 30 minutes telling its story and discussing its significance.
Afterwards – in a friendly, relaxed, and supportive atmosphere – Gerry encouraged participants to respond creatively to what they had encountered and guided them towards developing their responses in whatever format emerged – poetry, prose, or reminiscence pieces – inspired by the objects and their stories. The object was not necessarily the focus, but rather the object and its story acted as a jumping-off point. Participants were encouraged to develop their material during the week and email their work to Gerry, so that he could provide constructive feedback. Every week, participants shared their work with the rest of the group.
To conclude the project, the group presented their poems to their family, friends and members of the public at a special event. This booklet presents the fruits of their efforts.
-Brendan McGowan, Education Officer at Galway City Museum
A Word from the Facilitator
I was very pleased to be invited to facilitate again this year at Galway City Museum’s Creative Writing course which took place during the month of May as part of the Bealtaine Festival programme. It was a joy to work with all the talented participants together with the Museum’s enthusiastic and extremely knowledgeable Education Officer Brendan McGowan as he introduced us every week to a selection of the Museum’s artefacts and thrilled us with the stories, legends and historical backgrounds to the various objects and characters we encountered. It would be difficult to think of a more stimulating experience or setting, the perfect environment which allowed the writers to set their imaginations free and respond creatively to each new presentation. I found it enormously exciting and rewarding to hear and read the many and varied responses every week from the participants in both prose and poetry and the variety and creativity of the pieces never failed to surprise and delight as their emails arrived in my inbox rarely needing much by way of gentle guidance. A selection of their inspired work can be found here and I hope the readers of this lovely publication get as much enjoyment from the pieces as I did in seeing the efforts grow and develop over the weeks of the course.
-Gerard Hanberry, Creative Writing Workshop Facilitator
Download READINGS, Inspired by Objects 2025
