At last a chance to mourn properly

Thu, Feb 24, 2022

What strikes me is the ordinariness of the forenames. The Patricks, the Julias, the Marys, the Peters, the Johns, the Mauds. Not names you associate with children. Names you associate with people who have lived a full life, a life they never got to life.

Councillors and officials don’t deserve the vicious abuse

Thu, Feb 17, 2022

And so it has come to this. That after a robust debate and process of consultation on the local issue which saw the highest level of engagement for decades, what has come to light is the extent of the written threats and online abuse that emanated over the past few weeks.

And with the Spring comes change and hope...

Thu, Feb 10, 2022

I am not a believer in the need for utter happiness to be the default mood, perpetuated in the belief that without complete joy, everything else seems mundane. On the contrary, I feel that there is more fulfilling contentment to be secured from having overcome a struggle than being handed joy on a plate.

Perhaps there is truth in the belief that there should be three grand essentials to contentment in this life — something to do, something to love, and something to hope for. It is the latter that allows for the most possibilities and it is in this time of the year that I have always found it the strongest.

A man you don’t meet every day

Thu, Feb 03, 2022

I wasn’t to know it back then, but a moment grabbing a burger and coffee in the late hours in the corner of the Supermac’s restaurant in Headford was the last occasion I had an encounter with a politician I have known all of my working life.

Greater flexibility with employees can change the way we live and work

Thu, Jan 27, 2022

It is hard to believe that we are just five or six weeks short of the second anniversary of when the vast majority of the country’s employees were sent home and instructed to carry out their duties from their kitchen. This was often done through poor broadband with little notice. It was done at a time when employees had to share this poor broadband with schoolchildren who had been evacuated from their classrooms and forced to learn instead at the kitchen table.

A great sadness hangs over the country

Thu, Jan 20, 2022

For the past week, the entire country has woken up with a pain in the pit of its stomach, a gut-wrenching physiological reminder of the great sadness that has engulfed us all in this tragic start to a new year.

Not a moment went by in the past week without the majority of us being deservedly distracted by the overwhelming sympathy we felt, not just for the family of Ashling Murphy, but also for the first class children in her care.

Galway’s game of thrones gives us a bit of hope

Thu, Jan 13, 2022

’Tis hard to beat a bit of hope. It gets the sap rising, gets the dream machine working over time. Gives us the reason to get up in the morning, the pursuit of it exhausts us during the day, and helps us through the night until we start all over again. Ever the optimist, I’m a great believer that tomorrow holds the potential to be the best day ever. And if it doesn’t, well, there’s always another tomorrow. I know it’s difficult to be summoning up optimism at times like this, but we must do it. The world has been kicked in the gut over the past 22 months, and everyone feels it, but you just have to drag yourself up by the scruff.

Last weekend, the pursuit of hope came as Galway felt like it was being thrown back to medieval times. In one of our ancient county towns, a new Archbishop was being installed. In another, a king was beginning his reign. Both emblems of bygone eras, new players in Galway’s very own Game of Thrones. Two new leaders for Galway — one from the north east and one from the south east. Both imported to instil belief and resilience.

2021 — The year through a lens

Fri, Dec 31, 2021

As we bid a glad farewell to another year of The New Way of Living and welcome in the latest instalment, we look back on some key moments in the year 2021 - a year of highs and lows, defeats and victories, learnings, resilience and hope.

Playing it by year — who knows what 2022 holds?

Thu, Dec 30, 2021

They say that an optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves. So it will be for many of us, tomorrow night when we bid a glad farewell to another year of The New Way of Living and welcome in the latest instalment — another chapter in the book of life.

Look after the little things this Christmas

Thu, Dec 23, 2021

Look after the little things in life. Because one day the time will come when you realise they are the big things. And there is no better time to find this out than at this time of the year. And no better year than in the beast of a year we have just had.

In the days leading up to a normal Christmas, it is easy to be consumed by the enormity of it all; pushing ourselves through heartache and stress, and losing the familial feel of togetherness Christmas once had, when there was nothing else or nowhere else to go to.

Need for increased patience as retail staff feel the brunt of frustration

Thu, Dec 16, 2021

There is a greater need for patience among the general population this year. You can feel a tension that did not exist last winter. Last year in the quest for the ‘meaningful Christmas,’ there was some expectation, some risk, a releasing of tensions as people knew that beyond the peaked mountains of the ‘meaningful Christmas,’ vales of great possibilities abounded. The vaccine was on the cusp of general release and people were working out when they might expect to receive the manna from heaven that it represented.

Roads and routes — and the way we’ll move a decade from now

Thu, Dec 09, 2021

Decisions, often the long awaited ones, come along like buses. You wait interminably wondering if one will ever arrive and then, out of the ether, come along several. It is an apt analogy this week because for the past while, Galway city and county has been awaiting decisions which have a lot to do, if not so much with buses, then with ways in which we are set to move around for the rest of this century.

Time to start seeing the invisible homeless

Thu, Dec 02, 2021

There is an easy-held perception of homelessness that it comes about after a longrunning series of catastrophic events; that one’s life must have been on a spiral before they land at rock bottom; without a place to call their own, or a light to guide them in the tumble downwards.

Remembering lives lost on our roads this Sunday

Thu, Nov 18, 2021

It is the worst possible nightmare. Responding to a knock on the door to find a garda outside. A sense of dread. A feeling of disbelief. No greater pain.

Counting our blessings as festivities return

Thu, Nov 11, 2021

There are always times in a day when we need to down tools, even for a minute, stare into space and let our minds wander. Better still, look out a window and watch the world go by.

We still need to be careful

Thu, Nov 04, 2021

While some might have felt it ok to throw caution to the wind in recent weeks following the recent easing in restrictions, the latest figures presented this week show that there are still significant grounds to be cautious when it comes to contracting Covid 19.

Time to protect the heart of the city

Thu, Oct 28, 2021

In an ideal world, Eyre Square should be the beating heartbeat of our city. It should be a place that reverberates with the soundtrack of the city; it should be a showpiece for the delights that await everyone who happens upon it.

Some new freedoms which we must respect

Thu, Oct 21, 2021

While we had suspected for a few weeks that tomorrow would not bring the widescale lifting of restrictions promised back in late summer, there is still a significant shift in what we should or shouldn’t do. None of us are too surprised that everything was dropped and life resumed as per pre-pandemic, especially at a time when our local hospital is under severe pressure because of a Covid outbreak affecting two wards.

Cautious optimism as our lives return to new normal

Thu, Oct 14, 2021

Slowly, if tentatively, we are returning to a life more reminiscent of pre-Covid times, but with necessary adaptions.

Social media outage gave us a glimpse of a life without

Thu, Oct 07, 2021

For five hours on Monday night, the world was thrown back in time a little. Not for the first time in the past few years have we lost something which we had taken for granted. And it bothered people.

E-paper

Read this weeks E-paper. Past editions also available from within this weeks digital copy.