Easter Hours
Galway City Museum will open Sundays, 12pm – 5pm commencing Easter Sunday 5 April 2026.
Outdoor Exhibition
Faces of Galway, 1988-89 by Suzanne Ahearne
Una Taaffe and one of her dogs at the Galway Fair, 1989.
In the summer of 1988, Suzanne Ahearne arrived in Galway from Canada with a student work permit, a backpack, and a Pentax K1000 camera. At 23 years old, she fell in love with the city and its close-knit community, vibrant arts scene, and bohemian charm. She spent the next year working in local cafés and taking pictures of people on the street during her daily wanderings.
The Galway she captured on black-and-white film feels both familiar and distant: bustling markets, festivals, street-corner conversations, and moments of quiet amid the unhurried rhythms of ordinary life.
With warmth, humour, and a sharp eye for human detail, Ahearne captures the faces and personalities that gave the Galway of the 1980s its distinctive character, preserving a moment in the social life of a city on the precipice of dramatic economic and cultural transformation.
Presented by Galway City Museum in association with Galway International Arts Festival.
BIO: Suzanne Ahearne’s year in Galway was the beginning of a lifelong career in storytelling. She holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from the University of British Columbia and has worked as a photojournalist, writer, and radio and podcast producer. She lives on Vancouver Island.
A collection of hundreds of Suzanne Ahearne’s images of Galway was recently acquired by the University of Galway Archives.
SuzanneAhearne.com/Galway
Photographic Exhibition
Visitors can view Faces of Galway, 1988-89, in the outdoor temporary exhibition space at Galway City Museum during Galway International Arts Festival, 13-26 July and through to 29 September, 2026.