Around this week every year for the past three decades or more, the soul of Galway would be alive by now; the streets would have been festooned with colourful streamers; the street characters who normally provided the entertainment would have sidled off to let others take their place, and the arrival of summer would be marked with a joie de vivre that marked Galway out as a place that was different.
It was a time of the year in the news cycle when things quietened down; the politicians would be slowing down for the summer, the new mayor would have been elected in time to open the Arts Festival, and Galway would relax itself into a cycle of cultural appreciation continued by a completely new cast who would take the stage for the week-long racing festival.
So, today it feels like a vacuum — the arts will wait until the autumn, there will be only 1,000 going to the racing every day, and heck, even the Connacht Final will take place in Dublin, which I suppose allows both teams to say they got out of Connacht this year.
It’s summer, but not as we know it. but par for the course for a great of the great disruptions. The races and the arts festival and summer sport acted as a subliminal calendar the vagaries of a year in the west. Without them as we knew them, the economy that thrived on them is thrown a bit askew.
One of my favourite yarns from the races is the tale from about five or six years ago when three lads, bedecked in tweeds and skinny jeans, complete with peaky blinder caps found the job of getting a taxi in from the racecourse a bit demanding, so they forked out €1,200 for the three minute spin into town on a chopper. Prepping for a night of pints, they said they were famished and in order to get a good start on the night, they said they’d eat first. As they stepped out of the chopper, their nostrils were assailed by the scent of some wonderful cooking, so they followed their noses and found a rustic eaterie devoid of pretension which was serving from a pot of delicious Irish stew.
They were seated at a table and three stews arrived down, and when they had eaten those, they asked for more and got second helpings. With their bellies full, they asked the manageress for the bill and it was only when they were told “sure, whatever ye can afford now lads,” they realised that they had just availed of the hospitality of a facility for the hungry and homeless. One hopes they donated well.
Enjoy the vacuum, next year normal service will have been restored.
