There’s an old country song that has the line “when you’re leaving me, walk backwards, so I’ll think you’re coming home...” And it is kind of appropriate this week as we tell those people who we normally welcome to our city and county, to stay at home, to not be flocking west at a time when to put it bluntly, we are all doing our best to stay alive.
When we dream about the ideals of Galway, we hope for one of inclusivity and welcome and concern, so it is an unusual message for us to be peddling this week, but one we must for all our sakes. The west has escaped the brunt of this terrible disease so far, but we cannot be complacent. In a part of the country so renowned for partying, socialising, sport, the physical expression of our very being, this is a tribute to how well we have taken on the role of social distancing and cocooning. It has not been easy. It can be interminable boredom given that every day seems the same; the weekends bring little in the way of variety as they normally do, but as they used to say, we are offering it up for the greater good.
And that is why we are asking those who normally come to the west for this weekend break, to stay at home.
Like all animals in times of danger, there is a tendency in us all to flee to the coast, to the water, to expose our lungs to the fresh air that lashes in on top of us from the Atlantic. The natural beauty of our region has acted as a magnet for people for centuries, and we are so fortunate to live among those great sights and sounds.
However, we are all prevented from enjoying them at this time. How lovely it would be to head up Diamond Hill; to climb the Reek, to sit by a Connemara lake; to throw rippling pebbles across Coole’s water, or to absorb the silence on the stony shores of Loughs Corrib and Mask.
How uplifting it would be to run across a meadow like Laura Ingalls at the start of the Little House On The Prairie. To have the wind rush through your hair (if you still have hair and to be fair, most of us have now after weeks of cocooning ), to feel the freckle-making summer breeze. How nice all of that would be?
And it will still be nice when it returns next month or the one after.
I passed a cemetery the other day and saw a family funeral taking place. There were about ten mourners in addition to the pallbearers. It was a sunny midweek afternoon, and for this family, their world had caved in, and there they were, walking alone in a cemetery behind the coffin of a loved one who deserved a more fulsome tribute from their friends and community.
This is a scene we would like to eliminate from our lifes at the moment. We can do this. We can enjoy all of the good things again if we just stick together and not act selfishly in the coming weeks.
Most of those of you who have holiday homes in communities in the west, have done so because you enjoy being part of this setup, that you feel the warm old fashioned camaraderie of society. If you are travelling from elsewhere to come to a holiday home this weekend, then you are endangering all of that. If you are renting one out, then you are inviting the possibility of the pandemic into your community.
And it definitely will not go back to its home by teatime on Monday, leaving a key under the mat.
You will see throughout this paper photos of the frontline heroes from our local health and emergency services. Photos in papers are normally given over to notable people and events. They are the notable people of this age.
These are the ones who are getting up every day to risk their lives so that some day we can live ours. It would be the gravest insult to them, if we were to flout the rules this weekend and head out. There will be plenty more sun this summer. Stay in and remember, every day is a day closer to a vaccine and the lifting of restrictions. You are still doing mighty. Keep it up.
