A sad day for Galway’s buskers and free speech

Bylaws placing restrictions on busking and street performances such as acrobatics, puppetry and fire juggling, in the city centre, were passed by Galway City Council this week. The political credit – or blame – for the new regulations lie with Cllr Terry O’Flaherty (Ind), who championed busking restrictions as far back as 2009, and Cllr Peter Keane (FF), the architect of the wording for the bylaws in their current from; and to the other 10 elected members who backed them, and voted for the bylaws. That they passed by a 12-6 majority, is a victory for some businesses, and retailers, who flexed their muscle, collectively, to bring pressure on certain city councillors. It worked. Businesses contribute €40 million in commercial rates to the city’s coffers annually, and they successfully convinced enough councillors that their workers deserve a bit of peace and quiet during the working day. A collection of buskers, no matter how vocal and united, just don’t command that political clout. As has been argued in this column before, and Pauline O’Reilly (Green) pointed out in the debate on Monday, the bylaws smack of nanny-statism. Bradley Bytes believes the bylaws are wrong, and on balance, the damage that their introduction could do to Galway’s reputation as an artistic city, and one which cherishes the arts, and artists, outweighs the negative impacts some buskers’ performances have on the ‘protected streetscape’, as the busking exclusion zone is called. That they’re to come into effect on January 2, 2020, two days into Galway’s European Capital of Culture designation is almost beyond belief. . . it’s worthy of an episode of Father Ted. We won’t re-hash the arguments against the bylaws; that’s already been won, and as democrats, we must respect the decision of the majority of people who we elected to City Hall to represent us. One provision in the bylaws, however, is bonkers. It states: “A street performer shall not act, say, do or sing anything that is likely to cause alarm, distress or offence to any member of the public, and business owner or occupier, the Council, authorised persons and/or any member of An Garda Síochána.” It must be the most chilling, and dangerous attack on free speech in the history of that beacon of democracy we call Galway City Council, and Galway Corporation before it. Cllr Keane, the proposer of the bylaws, said it was included because of one busker who said particularly nasty things, repeatedly, one day. What this nasty thing was, wasn’t divulged to the meeting, presumably to spare all our blushes; maybe it is a thing that somebody somewhere ‘perceives’ to be nasty. But nobody at Monday’s meeting could explain who will decide what acts are allowed or not, based on their capacity – or likelihood – of causing offence. Will City Hall employ thought police, to dilute buskers’ performances? Will they issue fines, if they don’t temper their acts? Without freedom of expression, buskers don’t exist. Without freedom of speech, newspapers and newspaper columns documenting the demise of busking – online or in print – wouldn’t exist either. That anti-free speech clause is almost certainly unconstitutional, it is most definitely unworkable, and is a complete affront to democracy. With all this noise about busking, it’s worth remembering George Orwell’s thoughts on free speech: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear?” Long may it continue . . . For more Bradley Bytes, see this week's Galway City Tribune.