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Closing Time
Gardaí shut down unofficial Galway Rag Week event after crush outside nightclub
The gardaí said the decision to close the ‘unofficial’ Rag Week night was made on the grounds of health and safety reasons.
GARDAÍ IN GALWAY were forced to shut down an unofficial Rag Week event at a night club last night.
A video, which has appeared on YouTube, shows a large crowd queuing up to get into the premises at Electric Theatre and Garden in Galway City last night.
Crush
There is a surge of people at one point, which causes the barrier to to collapse, causing people to fall and spill out onto the road.
(Mantas Pukelis/YouTube)
Gardaí in Galway said they were called to the premises on Abbeygate Street at approximately 11pm last night as a large crowd had gathered outside.
A garda from the Galway station present at the incident last night said that there was a very large crowd at the event and a decision was made by both the gardaí and management of the night club to shut the venue down for health and safety reasons.
“No one was injured in the event,” said the garda spokesperson, adding that it was the safer option to call off the event due to the large numbers.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie, the father of a young woman attending the event likened it to the crush at Copper Face Jacks last month.
“My daughter had to pull a girl up by the hair who was foaming at the mouth,” he said, adding, “my own daughter was trampled on”.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie, the President of GMIT Students’ Union Sam O’Neill said it was not a students’ union event as GMIT and NUIG had cancelled the official Rag Week a number of years ago.
“This is a perfect example of why we called off Rag Week. The crush outside the night club last night shows the type of things that can happen. It appears things got out of hand last night. Hopefully no one was hurt last night,” he said.
He added that the unofficial Rag Week was set up on Facebook by private club promoters in the town who want to promote their events.
“It is very irresponsible and damaging to all the work the students’ union has done over the years to try and get away from that whole thing of going out and drinking all week,” said O’Neill.
He added that the original Rag Week was cancelled as the original message of why it was set up in the first place was lost, noting, “it really is frustrating and a very annoying situation that these promoters get away with this”.
“It was not so long ago that all these deaths associated with neknominations was hitting the headlines, it is just very irresponsible,” concluded O’Neill.
The incident in Galway comes only weeks after a crush at a student night in Copper Face Jacks in Dublin in which a number of young people were injured.
Attempts were made to contact Electric Theatre and Garden in Galway, but no one available to comment.
Read: Seven people injured in crush outside Copper Face Jacks on Harcourt Street>
Read: Video shows crowd crush outside Copper Face Jacks>
