Bring on the sounds of summer

Thu, May 12, 2022

Each day of our lives, it is our duty to make deposits in the memory banks of those who come after us, to create signifiers of different times, some far away place we can then all go to when we need to let ourselves drift from the humdrum of the present, while contemplating the future.

Younger than the Cathedral

Thu, May 05, 2022

Give or take a few weeks, I'm the same age as Galway Cathedral. Both of us have aged gracefully, one a bit greyer than the other. To be fair, the Cathedral looks like it has a few years on me, as all such buildings should.

An air of change abounds

Thu, Apr 28, 2022

There’s a lot of change in the air at the moment — Galway gets its new bishop this weekend; the University formerly known as University College Galway and latterly NUI Galway will soon be known as Ollscoile na Gaillimhe — University of Galway; the RTC/GMIT is now ATU; Jurys is to become Leonardo; and there’s a new bridge due to span the Corrib; and dare I say it, Galway are beating Mayo again.

Tragedy resonates with us all

Thu, Apr 21, 2022

There are some tragedies in life that resonate with us all, but those that feature the commonplace are the ones that hit home the hardest.

Fifty years of the giant that changed Galway forever

Thu, Apr 14, 2022

Life in Galway certainly changed at the start of the 1970s. Prior to that, it was a large market town with an historic university. Its new cathedral still had the freshness of new about it.

There is wind behind the drive for offshore energy

Thu, Apr 07, 2022

It is quite ironic that for a city so perched on the western edge of Europe that in economic terms we have spent such little time in actually looking out to sea. Perhaps back in the Middle Ages, when the city was accessed easier by the water, we looked out to sea for protective reasons, to ward off any dangers that might come in on the overnight tide.

However, more and more we are realising that great potential lies in those great waters that lash against us every winter to remind us just how fierce they can be.

Atlantic University tide will rise all our western boats

Thu, Mar 31, 2022

Not far shy of 40 years ago, I entered college in Galway at what was then Galway RTC. College is an exciting time, as you throw off the shackles of your life up to that point and set about reinventing yourself. You walk onto a new stage, with a different supporting cast. Whether you were a star actor in the drama of your life up until that point, or whether you were a backstage hand, all bets are off when you go to college. All roles are up for grabs.

For the next four years, the college became my second home. I worked for a year in the Student Services office after that and became entwined with the workings of academic institutions. I set up a college magazine, wrote a book about my time there (Kittyland) and made lifelong friends. I still have a tremendous affection for the place and the people there who gave me a chance (Bernard O’Hara in particular).

Never was the ‘grand stretch’ in the evening needed so much

Thu, Mar 24, 2022

For a world that has been in hurt to some degree or other for a few years now, there is a comforting lick for us all from the soft-creeping light bursting its way through the curtains these Spring mornings.

We deserve to enjoy this St Patrick’s Day

Wed, Mar 16, 2022

It is hard to believe that tomorrow afternoon when parades wind their way through the streets and boreens of our cities and towns, that it will have been three years since we were last able to enjoy such a vista.

Show spirit of lockdown to our welcome guests

Thu, Mar 10, 2022

There have been many reasons why we have been collectively shocked by the horrors emerging from Ukraine. There is the visceral evilness of it all; the relative proximity.

Embrace Ukrainians in our hearts and in our homes

Thu, Mar 03, 2022

This time two years ago, who among us knew that our capacity for awe was about to tested? For a generation or two, we had just suffered setbacks on an economic scale.

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.

You could say they were old people’s names. Martins who became Matties; Sarahs who became Sallys; Johns who became Jacks. Run a finger down the list of the names of those who died in the Tuam Mother and Baby Homes from the 1930s onwards and you are overwhelmed by the fact that they existed... and then they didn’t.

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.

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.

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.

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.

E-paper

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