The Galway Chess Club meets every Thursday night at the Galway Bridge Centre from 8pm onwards from Sept to mid May. New members of all standards are always welcome. We are now on our summer break until Sept.  During the summer break, we meet up in one of the pubs/cafes around Galway.  At the moment, we're meeting every Thurs night from 9pm upstairs in Javas on Abbeygate St (opposite CPs!).

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!

Membership is €50 per year (waged) and €25 per year (unwaged). We normally don't look for the membership until you've been down a few times and want to join so feel free to just turn up and play any Thursday. The junior club meets at the same location for the previous hour so feel free to turn up and help out.

If you want any more information, you can contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Senior Club Activities:

The following is the list of activities going on at the senior (as opposed to the U-14 juniors) club. Click on the links below to get more information. Feel free to get involved in any way you like.

Blitzes	Rapid play tournaments, held in one evening with cash prizes.
Winter League	An ICU rated tournament played once monthly.
Puzzle nights	New feature to improve tactical play with grand prix prizes.
Talks	Instruction and coaching from guests and/or club members.
Galway Congress	One of the top tournaments on the Irish chess calender.
Galway Team	The Galway Chess club team.

Our calendar of events for last year is here so you can check out quickly when any of these events is on. However, we are now on our summer break and back in early-mid September.

Junior Club

Our Junior club runs from 6.45pm until 7.45pm (oct to Easter). The club is now on its Summer break.

The club is for juniors from 7-14 who want to learn how to play and improve their chess.  Any juniors who want to stay on for the senior club are welcome to try their skills against the adults in the club.

Membership for the full chess year (Sept-April) is €25.

If you want any more information, you can contact Brendan on 086-0647816 or email brenbuckley[at]yahoo.com for more information.

Coaching

Brendan Buckley does some coaching in schools in the Galway area.  See here for more information.

There is some coaching done in the Junior club - see above.

Some coaching material has been gathered or written by members of the club for coaching of beginners/intermediates.  See article here with pointers to that material.