Coffee Concert with Michael Shields at St Nicholas' Collegiate Church

What to Expect

St Nicholas’ Collegiate Church runs a Coffee Concert series, and the October 2026 date belongs to harpsichordist Michael Shields. It is on Saturday 10 October from 11am to 12pm, and tickets are €10. The format is short and unfussy: an hour of music in the morning, priced so that it costs about the same as a coffee and a scone, in a church that is open to the street anyway.

Shields is a familiar name on the Galway early-music circuit and appeared in the Galway Cathedral summer recital series in July 2026 alongside violinist Dorothee Mülheisen in a programme of seventeenth and eighteenth century repertoire. The harpsichord is a quiet instrument and it needs a quiet room. St Nicholas’ provides one: founded in 1320, the largest medieval parish church still in continuous use in Ireland, stone-walled and undamped, with a Saturday market running along the outside wall that adds its own noise before eleven and settles after. The same day the church also hosts an evening show, The Andrea Bocelli Experience, at 8pm, so an early ticket and a late one is a possible pairing.

Good to Know

• Date: Saturday 10 October 2026, 11am to 12pm.
• Price: €10.
• Venue: St Nicholas’ Collegiate Church, Lombard Street, Galway, H91 PY20.
• Part of the church’s ongoing Coffee Concert series; dates are listed at stnicholas.ie/events.
• Contact: 089 489 8084 or info@stnicholas.ie.
• The Galway Saturday Market runs beside the church on the same morning.
• Church opening hours are Monday to Saturday 10am to 6:30pm and Sunday 1pm to 6:30pm.

Getting There

The church is on Lombard Street off Shop Street, inside the pedestrianised medieval centre and about five minutes’ walk from Eyre Square. There is no car parking at the church itself, and Saturday mornings are the busiest time of the week in the centre because of the market, so use a multi-storey car park on the edge of town and walk in. Ceannt Station and the Eyre Square bus stops are both within a few minutes. By road, use the M6 and N6 from Dublin, the N17 from Tuam, the N18 from Ennis and the N59 from Clifden.