Galway community and voluntary groups to benefit from COVID-19 Emergency Fund

Thu, Jul 23, 2020

Galway City Council has approved grants totalling €38,265 under the COVID-19 Emergency Fund (Phase 2) to support a range of local community and voluntary groups and organisations throughout Galway.

Swim the virtual Galway Bay, your way, anywhere

Thu, Jul 23, 2020

The annual Frances Thornton Memorial Galway Bay Swim in aid of Cancer Care West which is now in its 15th year, will be taking place throughout the month of August this year. The swim which would normally see 150 people crossing the bay in July has had to be reimagined for 2020.

Government staycation subsidy 'too little, too late' for tourism sector, says McNelis

Thu, Jul 23, 2020

Waiting until September to introduce a staycation subsidy will be "too little too late" for the Irish tourism sector, and will mean "little or nothing" to those with children who will not be able to holiday once schools return.

New bus shelter at Medtronic site in Mervue

Thu, Jul 23, 2020

Work started this week on a new bus shelter on Michael Collins Road in Mervue, at the bus stop across from the Medtronic - formerly Covidien - plant.

Government's travel green list 'a kick in the teeth' to small businesses, says Charity

Thu, Jul 23, 2020

The Government's travel green list is "a kick in the teeth" to domestic small businesses which "cannot yet open their doors".

Soc Dems call for 'clarity on financial future and stability' of city council

Thu, Jul 23, 2020

Vital work which needs to be carried out in Galway city, and community support and grants will be, "put on the back burner" so long as there is no "clarity on the financial future and stability" of the Galway City Council.

How to keep the arts alive in post-Covid Galway

Thu, Jul 23, 2020

Right now, we should all be getting ready to enjoy the final weekend of the 2020 Galway International Arts Festival. The arts festival has grown from tiny beginnings in 1977, when a few students at UCG - as NUI Galway was then known - who had no money, still had big ideas, energy, and enthusiasm.

My Kind Of Town - a vision for Galway post-Covid-19

Thu, Jul 23, 2020

Martina O'Connor
Green Party councillor for Galway City Central

Catherine Connolly to seek Leas Cheann-Comhairle position

Thu, Jul 23, 2020

Independent Galway West TD, Catherine Connolly, regarded as one of the most outstanding performers in the current Dáil, will seek election as Leas-Cheann Comhairle today.

McNelis calls for Ireland to adopt universal public childcare system

Thu, Jul 23, 2020

Women's participation in the workforce remains low because of "Ireland’s unaffordable childcare costs", and it will go lower unless the State introduces a universal public childcare system.

Knocknacarra residents call on City Direct to resume bus services

Thu, Jul 23, 2020

Residents in Knocknacarra are calling on the City Direct bus service to resume operations, especially as the service provides "the only routes to the city centre or to Salthill"

Hear about extraordinary exploration tonight— From Space to the Sea Floor

Thu, Jul 23, 2020

Do you want to hear from The Most Vertical Girl in the World. The woman who has made history in sea and space; The astronaut, oceanographer, explorer, author and the first person to ever experience travelling to both deep space and the oceans deep.

Meadow Court Hotel issue statement to deny ‘malicious rumours’

Thu, Jul 23, 2020

The owners of the thriving Meadow Court Hotel in Loughrea have dismissed what they have described as ‘malicious, untrue and fabricated rumours” circulating recently that the hotel was up for sale.

The business has owned and run by the Corbett family since 1979 and is one of the most popular hotel and dining venues in the west of Ireland.

Kirby employees raise €40,000 for the Irish Cancer Society

Thu, Jul 23, 2020

Kirby Group Engineering has presented the Irish Cancer Society with a cheque for €40,000 after a successful fundraising initiative.

PoppySeed is a Business All Star

Thu, Jul 23, 2020

A local café group has recently become an accredited member of the coveted Business All Stars for 2020.

Urban regeneration should enhance city’s natural environment, meeting will hear

Thu, Jul 23, 2020

Terryland Forest Park Alliance will host a public meeting on Zoom at 7pm next Tuesday (July 28) to review plans for major new construction developments on the Dyke Road, Sandy Road and Cuirt na Coirbhe which border the Terryland Forest Park, the country’s largest community involved public urban woodland initiatives that this year celebrates twenty years in existence.

advertiser In brief...

Thu, Jul 23, 2020

Live NUI Galway Event on the COVID-19 One Health Challenge

The Centre for One Health at NUI Galway will launch its Spotlight Series on Monday, 27 July, from 2.30- 4pm with a live online event ‘COVID-19: A One Health Challenge’.

Craic under the canvas as Galway Summer Garden wows

Thu, Jul 23, 2020

If you are missing those festival vibes and want to get the gang back together, then Galway Summer Garden is the place to be.

Businesses and public in Galway City asked to consider accessibility issues associated with social distancing measures

Thu, Jul 23, 2020

Galway City Council, Galway Chamber and Galway City Partnership in association with Access for All, have launched a call for both businesses and members of the public to consider the challenges faced by people with disabilities, including those with visual impairment and those with mobility issues, as a result of the new social distancing regime we all now find ourselves having to adapt to.

Race week, but not as we know it

Thu, Jul 23, 2020

Am here for the races…In Galway... there’s no kapin’ me away from Galway at this time of the year…Social distancing me…whole summer I’d been planning me stay…near panicked when thought it mightn’t be on…savin’ since I got back from Cheltingham so I was…never said I was ovah cos everyone was looking me quare like as if I had some sort of disease… but am here now, like that Boris Johnson lad, head on me like an explosion in a bloody mattress factory…normally mad for road I am……this year mad for cycling lane more like...The clobber on me right out of Peaky Blinders, the kinda clothes me fadder’s fodder would have worn like 150 year ago…looking like an extra on the Irish RM…town is strange…something strange about every wan in the streets like, as if they’re kinda sober or something. Haven’t seen anyone throw a slap at all at all...Families and foreign tourists from overseas like; what are they doing here in Race Week…do they not know ‘tis a week for the likes o’ me having a serious blow-out like...total carnage...a week like for showing after the watershed...sort of Normal People without the Leaving Cert and Trinity...sort of like the lads who were yer man’s friends back home in Normal People...not the soppy stuff like. So anyways here I am...sun rises in the capital of culture…ate a clock in the mornin’…I wake up with a head on me…flat out like Eamonn Ryan during a vote…in a crumpled hape...Went to bed looking like Donal Og Cusack, woke up looking like Dunphy...open shirt buttons and spray deodorant under arms one squirt for each oxter and one for the road with a shot for the lads below…ya can never take any chances like at the Galway Races…could be hit by a bus or a quare wan…make me way around the square…no buses heading out to Ballybrit…Invite only...Did ya ever hear the likes...Town all zoned off into different zones - Serious Drinkers; Maggoty Drunk Drinkers; Absolute Beginners; and Pioneers...One of the lads said he was goin’ to rock up to Ballybrit with a horse and trailer and see if he’d get in...crazy idea to kape us out...’twould never have happened if Fianna Fail were in by themselves...so have to find a base for meself in town like…to watch it on a screen...the new normal…the new nonsense more like...I’m RacingMan…RacingMan…seriously discommoded like by these restrictions but am making the best of it...thinking of me country...pulling on me green jersey and all that...fellas in welder’s helmets pullin’ your pint like…where’s your mask mate, he says to me and I never meetin’ him before in me life…no masks with me, so next day I use a pair of the spare jocks, get a scissors and a stapler and I’ve me mask with a big Y on the front…why would ya be wasting money on a blue nappy for your face when ya could be spending it on skullin’ pints and lashing into beef rolls...Starving…looking at the menu boards outside like… rakes and rakes o’ hummus everywhere cos those woolly feckers in the arts festival and the film thingy were not here this year… hipster fella with a beard asks me do I want brunch like. Says he can do me advocate toast or something strange sounding like that...throw back the lugs and dive in...twas muck...like eating a squashed apple through a sock...try to walk sober like, wan foot then the udder, repeat...I’m Racingman, I’m wide out…I’m part of Galway. I’m Racingman, the boyoh, unleashed for the week…the Welder, I’ll call him Dermot... served me another pint…I asks him are there any quare wans in town this year…jockeying for position for the best apartments…the dominatrix like…Lads have quare wans’ mobile numbers from the Google… A wan called Ivana Legova tells them she want 200 notes for an hour of the socially distanced bould thing...lads laugh when I ask for group discount and take out me social services card….an hour I laugh, an hour of drinking time wasted...she says for 400 she’ll bate me with a whip ’til I cry and give me a happy ending…told her I can get a batin’ for nawthing outside the chipper…and if I want a happy ending, I can watch a video of the 2017 hurling final…and the lads laugh…Am great for the auld repartee, me, cos I’m Racingman. I walk down the street like Travolta in Saturday Night Fever ‘cept without the can o’ paint…baby shakin that ass... they’re looking at me, the wimmen, can’t get enough of me...nawthing like a pair of skinny jeans (no ballroom dancing for me) and a mismatched jacket and tweed jacket and braces and cap to get them going...down the square check out paddys ladbrokes boyles get the odds... and ends..too early to go out to Ballybrit yet...then I remember I can’t, so I sit on bench and look at the pretend fountain that’s never on…sit on steps, legs sprawled...what’s Galway city centre in race week unless ya can get out of it...Galway without getting to the races is like getting to Pisa and finding a pile of rubble; or going to EuroDisney and not matin’ Mickey Mouse. I’ll do it this year...for me country...but next year I want to be out there in person, the sound of the horses, the smell of the people...Hear a shout...Mon is it you...Am hailed by my taxi lad friend from Lagos, sitting bored at the rank, says he’ll me take out to Ballybrit anyway for a look at the gate and then back again, for auld time’s sake...says he knows a farm shed and a ladder at Castlegar where we can go up on the roof and watch the racing and bet online with the wifi from the passing buses...so here we are...not in the Moet or the Killanin but the Corrugated Stand holding me phone to the sky and roaring me head off. See ye next year...because what do they do say, like ya feel after a bad curry, remember, this too will pass. G’luck.

E-paper

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