Drawing cities and conclusions

Thu, Sep 28, 2023

At different times of the year in this city, we have a juxtaposition of people whose objectives and daily pursuits may not seem the same. There is the rollover from the Galway International Arts Festival into the Galway Races where the punters/performers in both are quite keen on dressing up and pretending they are something they are not. There is the crossover of the Solemn Novena and the fringes of Rag Week where sometimes the pursuits of one are not entirely compatible with the other.

Our on-field successes can boost sporting tourism in Galway

Thu, Sep 21, 2023

Tomorrow night, on a field in Kerry, there exists the potential that Galway United will capture the First Division title and with it, seize the sole guaranteed promotion ticket back to the Premier Division. If it happens, and if not, there is another chance at home to Finn Harps next Monday, it will represent a return to the top tier for the first time since the club has dined at the main table under the new ownership.

What it means is that next season, United will be playing among the top teams in the country. The creme de la creme of Irish football will be coming west every two weeks to play our side that has powered its way through the First Division this season. I must admit, after leaving the Markets Field in Limerick last winter after United had unfairly lost heavily to Waterford United, that it was hard to be optimistic, but with shrewd signings and management, the club has now almost certainly regained its place among the best.

Only policing and respect can alter street behaviour

Thu, Sep 14, 2023

There has been only one topic of conversation in the city this week — and that is the fall-out from the incidents that took place over a few days last weekend. Because individuals have appeared before the courts in relation to those events, I am precluded from commenting specifically on them. However, my points this week will be based on the generality of the decline of behaviour on the streets of our main cities and towns, and what we need to do to make sure they are the exception rather than the norm. There is a real fear that someone’s life may be lost, whether a participant or an innocent bystander, as some incidents spill over into the public domain.

That lovely end of season feeling

Thu, Sep 07, 2023

There is a lovely end of season feeling to Galway over the last few weeks. Consigned to memories now are the heady days of the Arts Festival and the Races, there is one eye firmly on the autumn, and how blessed have we been with the wonderful weather of the last few weeks.

New boundaries aim to right electoral wrongs

Thu, Aug 31, 2023

As if it hadn’t happened already, the next General Election campaign kicked off in earnest yesterday morning with the publication of the new electoral boundaries across the country. For politicians, it’s a bit like the World Cup where you know you’ve qualified but you find out the hotels you’ll be staying in and most importantly, the pitch you will be playing on.

Remembering the forgotten women of honour

Thu, Aug 24, 2023

A petition is gaining momentum to name the city's new pedestrian bridge in honour of Julia Morrissey. Who? Some may well ask.

A half century of excavation and provocation

Thu, Aug 17, 2023

There is a cyclical nature to the life of a town or city that is fascinating to monitor from afar. When I say afar, I mean in terms of time. There is nothing like a dollop of wisdom, hindsight and context to bring meaning to any aspect of our lives that we may choose to revisit from time to time. Perhaps this is why I love local news, the humanity of it, the rawness, the pomp and the circumstance; the stories and events that are important because of their grandiosity; or their relevance because the stakes are so low.

New Shannon bridge opens up world of opportunities for Galway tourism

Thu, Aug 10, 2023

It is not every day that you move closer to the far-side of Europe, but that mammoth 5,500km journey became a lot more doable with the opening of the impressive new Athlone Greenway Bridge over the river Shannon.

The need to future proof our culture

Thu, Aug 03, 2023

So here we are, at the turn of the Galway year. They used to say that if there were intercounty players at the Galway Races, that they must be out of the championship, their boots hung up for another year.

Now, in these everchanging times, every intercounty player in the country, bar the camogie finalists, could attend the Galway races and not have a county game left to care about.

Good timing for United's Cup Final stars as all kicks off down under

Wed, Jul 19, 2023

By the time you read this, you will probably be either watching (or will know the result of) the historic World Cup match between Australia and the Republic of Ireland in the opening game. Regardless of the result though, what it represents is not the culmination of a long road to participation, but probably just the beginning of that journey to full appreciation of the potential of women's sport.

Tents and events as the city throws itself headfirst into festival fever

Thu, Jul 13, 2023

As a kid, I used to love when the circus came to town. Early one morning, there would be the ping-ping ping of the tent pegs being driven into the ground in The Green, just behind my home house in Ballinrobe. We would go to school excited with the thought that by the time we ran home at lunchtime across the town for a quickly-consumed dinner (dinner in the middle of the day people, you see), the town park would have been transformed into something colourful and magical and so very different from the nothingness that was normally there.

This week, as I look out the window of my office here at the Advertiser in Eyre Square in the heart of the city, I hear more ping-pings and like my circus memories, they too are signifiers of excitement ahead. Down below us, the construction of the Galway International Arts Festival Festival village is underway at the top of the Square.

JFK’s view from the docks has changed

Thu, Jun 22, 2023

My, how the tables have turned in the sixty years this week since President John F Kennedy stood in Eyre Square and said ‘if the day was clear enough, and if you went down to the bay, and you looked west, and your sight was good enough, you would see Boston, Massachussetts. And if you did, you would see down working on the docks there some Doughertys and Flahertys and Ryans and cousins of yours who have gone to Boston and made good.”

Galway's sporting youngsters set an example to us all

Thu, Jun 15, 2023

Summer is always a time of year that encourages us as individuals, families, and as a nation to undertake challenges we’ve often put on the long finger - helped by a more accommodating climate.

The cost of putting your head about the parapet

Thu, Jun 08, 2023

Normally, the world inhabited by professional golfers would not enter the concerns of mere mortals. From the outside, it seems idyllic; Travel, exercise, competition, excellence, the feeling of representing yourself in the best light, and your country or continent whenever the need arises. No matter what side of the fence you are on with this, we are not trying to create sympathy for those who live such an elite life. And good luck to them, they work hard and deserve whatever success they have.

Bridge sums up a week of pride for city and county

Thu, Jun 01, 2023

There was never anything like the visit by the Yanks to get the best delph out in the house. The blue willow cups with the delicate handles and the immaculately-decorated plates which year round never saw our thick fingers, were paraded out to hold hot tea and Irish salads of ham and corned beef and scallions and ripe tomatoes. Lettuce not forget those days.

Progress in a task of great humanity

Thu, May 25, 2023

It is hard to believe that almost a decade has passed since Catherine Corless first appeared on our pages, on our TV screens, on our radios, telling us a story that defied the prevailing logic. It was a story that resonated around the world.

It was only when we listed the names of those 796 children on our pages that you could feel the humanity of each of them. The names, all of their time. Martins and Williams and Sarahs and Kates and Ellens. The surnames, the type you would see and hear in every village across the west of Ireland. These children were all at one stage, brought together by a twist of fate and inhumanity, destined to live and perhaps die at the one place. Never to know a life outside of the shame, never to have the opportunities that their compatriots outside those walls were to experience.

Make new bridge a symbol of hope and remembrance

Thu, May 18, 2023

I have always had an obsession with bridges. More from an architectural point of view than from the metaphorical images they represent, although as you get on in life, you tend to juxtapose the two wherever you can. The world over, I have stood on and beneath bridges, staring at their girth and wondering how the hell they stay up and what a leap of faith is was for the engineers to venture forth on their construction.

Dancing with Wulf — ‘broken teeth’ remark sparks off a bunfight

Thu, May 11, 2023

We get quite used to people saying nice things about us. The jewel of the west, Ireland’s party capital, the graveyard of ambition; whenever you add ‘happening out west’ to a sentence, it is invariably positive. We have created such a cool vibe around Galway that to be a dissenting voice stands out and invites push-back...and that’s ok. To be protective of the place where you are from, where you have chosen to grow up, to study, to work is only natural.

Let Darkness Into Light help create the possibility of hope

Thu, May 04, 2023

There is not one of you reading this article this morning who has avoided the impact of suicide in Ireland. Right across the country, there are empty chairs at kitchen tables; there are bedrooms left preserved and unoccupied; there are football boots and hurls and rolled up club jerseys, reminders of camaraderies lost; there are siblings and parents left decimated, stunned into surviving life, walking around in a daze, never forgetting the pain that sits at the pits of their stomach. They exist and meet the sympathetic eyes of those who try to share their obvious agony.

Bus plan is a vital part of an inclusive city

Thu, Apr 27, 2023

The old maxim about several buses coming along at once certainly applies to the announcement by the National Transport Authority at a city hotel earlier this week. The headline act is the possibility of a 24-hour bus service, but let’s not go queuing at 4.45am just yet as it could be two years before that bus pulls up.

E-paper

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