THE HEAD OF fast food chain Supermac’s has said that media portrayals of Galway’s unofficial Rag Week were unfair.

Pat McDonagh today said that his experience with students from NUIG and GMIT were “the best of banter”.

McDonagh, whose restaurant on Eyre Square was a focal point for some of the anti-social behaviour that has led to official rag weeks being cancelled, said this year’s event was part of a culture that “made Galway what it is”.

“Students,” he said, “Came into the City and brought youth and liveliness to it without incident and he remarked that the extent of drunkenness was far less than in other years.”

He said that he visited outlets throughout the week and found only “the best of good humour, banter and craic without a single episode of misbehaviour.”

He said the whole experience this year emphasised the “easy relationship and synergy between students and the city” and said “most cities would be delighted to be part of student culture in the way that Galway is.”

McDonagh’s comments come after gardaí shut down an unofficial Rag Week event, after a barrier collapsed outside a nightclub.

The father of a young woman attending the event likened it to the crush at Copper Face Jacks last month.

“My daughter had to pull a girl up by the hair who was foaming at the mouth,” he said, adding, “my own daughter was trampled on.”

Read: Gardaí shut down unofficial Galway Rag Week event after crush outside nightclub