I’m a great believer in taking a look back to the past to understand the present and plan for the future. To see if a culture pervades that will enable you to set targets, to develop and to progress.
A few months back I read a fascinating book by Jackie Ui Chionna about one of Galway’s earliest businessmen, Mairtin Mór McDonogh, driver of the originally local but now massively successful Thomas McDonogh business. While, he himself was a fascinating subject, my interest was not so much in his character, but in the environment in which Galway business was swimming at the time.
Allowing for the turbulence of the age a century ago and the status and positions taken, what emerged from my reading was that even back then, with Galway a town of poverty and misfortune, there was a strong belief that given the right drivers, the place could massively exploit its natural location.
Remember this was a time when the business of a culture was even considered. There was hope that Galway could take advantage of its proximity to the sea, to the wonders of Connemara, to the possibility of power generation.
What saddened me upon the conclusion was that now, a century later, that potential has not been realised and that a hundred years of discourse ended up with very little having been done. Granted, the city has developed in line with other places, but maybe not to the extent that it should have.
In weeks like this, when once again the issue of traffic congestion and the Galway City Ring Road has been placed on the long finger, I fret for the hopes and expectations of those who will and hope and dream in this generation. Will another century go by before progress is made to free up the city to what it can be? Will it become a place where people can have a realistic expectation of being able to go to and from their place of work or education without having to sacrifice huge swathes of their times?
There are pros and cons on both sides of the roads debate, but the question has to be asked how a decision was made on planning permission at a time when the dogs on the street knew that a climate action plan was being drawn up that would drive a horse and carriage through it.
Think of those 51 families along the route who are left in a property limbo - in a house where they cannot stay. In a house that they cannot sell.
Think of those, stuck in ten hours of traffic a week; for whom the prospect of cycling or getting on the bus a few cars ahead or behind, isn’t that appealing.
Galway has a lot going for it, but the attractions we currently use to bring in investment, clean jobs, talented people will soon wane if housing, congestion, littering and culture are allowed to drift.
Galway needs to take a long hard look at itself. For too long the Emperor’s Clothes have been the uniform of desire. Too many sacred cows left to graze untended.
We are settling for the hens and the stags; we have allowed our city centre to become a no-go area. We have permitted neglect of public areas to be branded as rewilding. Let’s be honest, we have made a hames of every big event we have tried to hold in the past two decades.
And now, once again, there is uncertainty about where the roads issue goes.
The events of the past few years have shown that nothing can be taken for granted anymore. In sporting parlance, Galway is not too big to be relegated if it continues to score the number of own goals it has in the past while.
The eye is off the ball. Big time.
