Galway Bay fm newsroom - This year's Cúirt International Festival of Literature experienced 'record' attendence numbers - after the event was hosted live online for the first time due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
Cúirt was founded in Galway in 1985 and is one of the oldest and most well known literature festivals in Europe - bringing together high-level talent in fields including poetry, prose, music and the spoken word.
Like many other events in Galway's social calendar, this year's festival was forced to reschedule a number of headline events - but organisers decided the festival itself would still go ahead online.
Over 4 thousand people watched live events on websites such as YouTube and SoundCloud - while overall, 18 thousand people watched, or listened to, Cúirt digital events.
Organisers says they are overwhelmed by the response, which represents an increase of 400 percent in attendance numbers - with viewers tuning in from as far away as Mexico, Jamaica, Iraq and the Philippines.
