Galway Chess Club

The Galway Chess Club meets every Thursday night during the summer at the Cottage Bar in Salthill from 8pm. (From Sept to the first week in May, we meet at the Galway Bridge Centre on St Mary's Road).

News members of all standards are always welcome. The standard in the club is very variable (to say the least!) so please feel free to just turn up on any Thursday night for a game any time after 8pm. We know it can hard sometimes to just turn up at a new club so we try make an effort to match you with someone of the same standard (unless you are brilliant, in which case we're a bit short there). If you can move the pieces and castle, you'll probably beat someone in the club!

If you want any more information, you can contact us at galwaychessclub@gmail.com or else try Ronan Duke (chairman) (phone 086-8072384) or Pete Morriss (treasurer).

Most of the clubs activities are based around adult members (we have talks, run blitzes, a club league and organize one of the top 4 tournaments in Ireland) but we also help organize and promote a club, classes and competitions for juniors. See the senior club news and our Junior Chess page.

Galway Congress 2009

The 2009 Galway Congress will take place from Oct 9-11 in the Salthill Hotel. See here for more details.

Chess Camp for Kids

Ronan Duke and Ron Cummins are running a chess camp for kids (7-14) at the Claregalway Community Centre from July 13-17, 10am-1pm each day. See here for more details.

Keep informed

Keep informed about chess news in the Galway area by watching this website - we update the senior club news page and our Junior Chess page about twice a month. Alternatively, you could sign up to our email newsletter which contains the news posted to the site. Just sending a blank email to news-subscribe[at]galwaychess.net. Our emails go out about once or twice a month (for example, to announce a blitz or a talk or classes). You can unsubscribe at any time by sending another blank email to news-unsubscribe at galwaychess dot net

Junior Chess

Junior Chess news is usually posted to the Junior Chess page. One thing of note is that a chess competition for juniors of all standards is run every month from Sept to April - see here for more details.

Claregalway National School - Primary School All-Ireland Champions 2009!

Coaching/Classes

Tibor Karolyi IM, coach to former world no 4 Peter Leko, is currently in Galway giving training to chess enthusiasts. The original proposal doc from organiser Zaidan Zulkipli is here. You can still attend weekly sessions if you are interested - contact Zaidan directly if you are interested (085-8175889).

Zaidan Zulkipli from NUIG and a member of the Galway chess club, is available for coaching on a 1-1 basis at €30 per lesson. His ICU rating is 1893 (FIDE 1975) and his aim is to help players to "improve opening and middlegames and to prepare for competitive chess". He can be contacted at Z dot Zulkipli1 at nuigalway dot ie or 085-8175889.

There are Junior coaching classes in the Claregalway area and in the Oranmore BNS, Killeeneen NS and Clarenbridge NS schools. Contact Ronan at 086-8072384 or ronanduke[at]gmail.com for more details or if you want to add any detail.

Other clubs

The nearest active senior club in Galway is in Ballinasloe where the junior club is also very strong, having won the Community Games 2007, 2008 and - just recently - 2009 titles at U-12 and U-16.

The Ennis club is very strong and competes in the Munster League. There is no Connacht League at present as there are not enough active clubs.

Contact Ronan at 086-8072384 or ronanduke[at]gmail.com for more details or if you want to add any detail.

Chess Camp for Kids

Ronan Duke and Ron Cummins are running a chess camp for kids (7-14) at the Claregalway Community Centre from July 13-17, 10am-1pm each day. See here for more details.

Galway Congress 2009

The 2009 Galway Congress will take place from Oct 9-11 in the Salthill Hotel. See here for more details.