Galway's St Patrick's Day parade has become, somewhat unexpectedly, one of the things I most look forward to in the year. Some of my earliest memories are of uninspiring parades in the dreary 1980s. I swear that one year it consisted only of flat-bed trucks, with nothing on them. Before Macnas imported a theatrical approach to street performance, the parade was often more obligation than entertainment.
Now, however, the parade draws on the full range of creativity and cultural heritage of our increasingly diverse community. Cultural associations celebrate dual identities, and the full range of their hybrid heritage. It is a joyous occasion; a celebration of the diverse communities that call Galway ‘home’. At a time when the world feels a little more brittle, a little more harsh, these moments feel particularly important to celebrate.
Galway has been transformed over recent decades, from a quiet backwater to a dynamic manufacturing hub, a cultural powerhouse, and - for a period - one of the fastest-growing regions in Europe. This energy and growth has been fed by an increasingly diverse population.
In the 2022 census, 28 per cent of Galway's population was born outside of Ireland, with 12 per cent born outside Europe. Twenty per cent of the population speak a language other than English or Irish as their first language. There are other measures of cultural and ethnic diversity too: two per cent of our community are Travellers, and fully 10 per cent identify with a non-white ethnicity.
Everywhere, we look we can see how our lives have been enriched by this diversity. From street performers to ground-breaking biomedical engineering; from restaurants to our classrooms. Each year my sons' primary school hosts an international week bazaar, with parents from dozens of countries sharing little morsels of their culture. It is a riot of colour and sound, as sugar-fuelled pupils wander from stand to stand. "What's this food? Where's it from?" Little morsels of food; little nuggets of experience and knowledge.
My mother was a great believer in the power of travel: the notion that getting to see new places, experience new sights and sounds, broadened our understanding of the world, and of our place in it. How far we have come from when I was in primary school myself, when my classmates were encouraged to write letters when I visited the US, because knowing another child who had spent a few weeks outside Boston was exotic.
My children are much more equipped than I was to thrive in a multi-ethnic world, as they, and most of their friends, deftly manage the blending and juggling of different parts of their identities. They thrive on celebrating two or three sets of cultural practices - all the more so when accompanied by a tasty treat.
There are those who rage against the new strands of our cultural mix; those who would rather Irish culture be sealed in aspic, frozen in a moment in time. But as I teach my students, there is no 'pure' culture preceding hybridity and globalisation. There is no Macnas without Footsbarn, and European street performance. There is no Druid, without Chekov.
At a time when so much of our lived experience is mediated, shaped and flattened by corporate-designed algorithms, how wonderful it is to sit in a coffee-shop (*cough* globalisation writ large ) or pub, and hear a mix of accents and voices. To see a capoeira display during the parade, and be reminded of a friend from my college days. To see videos of hurling (HURLING! ) being played amongst the rubble of Gaza.
Multi-culturalism is not assimilation. Nor is it an erasure of what already exists. It offers us new perspectives and new stories. We are at our most human when we are curious and hopeful, when we learn from others. I'll be there on Monday to learn and drink in the experience. I hope you will too.
Dr Andrew Ó Baoill is a lecturer at the School of English, Media and Creative Arts at University of Galway.
