Trains could breathe fresh life into our towns

Thu, Aug 01, 2024

The railway station in my home town was taken up and closed down about a decade before I was born, so I grew up with the shell of a cut-stone station that represented a possibility long gone. We played basketball and indoor soccer in the empty goods shed for the station. We looked at the shut-down building, the in-filled tracklines and wonder how that closure could be ever considered as progress.

Galway, be emboldened by all who wish you well

Thu, Jul 25, 2024

So here you are, men of Galway; for the second time in a generation, back to a familiar field. And you are here because you have faced down every challenge laid in front of you....and this Sunday, will be just another.

Happiness in a time of plenty

Thu, Jul 18, 2024

We’re never short of things for doing in this neck of the woods at this time of the year.

A magician who brought wonder to the West

Thu, Jul 11, 2024

I have always looked back on the 1970s with a sense of wonder. The summers seemed to be longer, and sunnier. It was a time when we felt less connected to the outside world, although the passing of Elvis impacted us all.

The undeniable lightness of contentment

Thu, Jul 04, 2024

The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us. And so, has been the case this week as we bask in the glory of a victory that was as thrilling as it was unexpected.

Right, let’s start getting things done

Thu, Jun 13, 2024

And with the last vote counted, that was it. The choices have been made and the composition of the local councils that will oversee our city and county is known. While many of the experienced councillors have retained their seats, there are plenty of new faces too, to create the ideal sporting blend of youth and experience.

At time of going to press, they are still counting in Castlebar across this ridiculous constituency they call Midlands North West. A plain of land that encompasses some of the most disadvantaged and the most lucrative areas of the country, thrown together for political expediency. The extremes of this constituency bear no relation to one another. The issues of one side of it are not the issues of the other side. One side has all forms of public transport. Another part has a few counties that does not even have a single train. But, then again, that issue will not be solved today or tomorrow.

Vote for those who propose to shape the society you want

Thu, Jun 06, 2024

It is Friday, June 8, 2029. Five years hence. On that day too, the electorate will be going to the polls in their droves to pass judgement on those of you who were elected in the elections of the summer of 2024.

I hope that whoever is writing this editorial on that week or passing judgment on the term in whatever form public comment takes at that time, does not have to use the line of “Galway has tremendous unrealised potential.” That they do not have to write on the possibilities that existed but has now passed. That we do not have to talk about missed opportunity. Or that the society you have created is one that is lacking in cohesion and equality of opportunity.

The cello, you can bring it anywhere

Thu, May 23, 2024

There is a wonderful flow to Galway’s year - from the sounds and smells of the Christmas Market to the last chuckle of the Comedy Festival, each period is marked by a differing attire. From the tweeds of the Races, to the polo necks of Cuirt, to the summery freckled skin of the Arts Festival. Aliens arriving from space to visit would be able to determine what is on by virtue of what people have on.

A woman you don’t meet every day

Thu, May 16, 2024

There are people who do great things for their city by virtue of the position they hold; that an extra element of their public role enables them to do with ease the good things that make a difference to those who need a bit of a lift in life. These people are worthy and deserving of our acclamation for the good they do.

A nostalgia for the concept of good service

Thu, May 09, 2024

It’s a cliche that Ireland would be the best country in the world if the sun just kept shining a bit more, but there’s no denying that there’s nothing like some rays to bring out the best side of us.

The ball has been thrown in — let the banter begin

Thu, May 02, 2024

It has become de rigeur in recent years in GAA circles to not name the proper starting line-up until about an hour before throw in, lest you should be giving away any vital information about the composition of the mark-ups in a game. Indeed, it is often not only until the game has started that you know who is up against who and what strategic role they have been given for the task ahead.

Government should never bully its people just because it can

Thu, Apr 25, 2024

“We walked in the cold air
Freezing breath on a window pane, lying and waiting

50 days from the polls — time to do your bit

Thu, Apr 18, 2024

You can smell the election now... not in the way you smell it after four days of counting in a cramped community centre somewhere, but in the air, there’s a real sense of people wanting to be part of our new Councils.

The marketisation of our creativity

Thu, Apr 11, 2024

There is nothing as innocent as the process of passion that drags you on the path to whatever you choose to do in life. The excitement of eking out a wage, of convincing yourself that people will want to consume what you produce is common across all occupations.

A year tinged with heart-numbing sadness

Thu, Mar 28, 2024

When the bells peal on a new year, we enter it with a bucket of fresh hope that the changing of what are just numbers will alter what lies ahead. It is a naive but innocent assumption that does no harm.

Yet, we hope that there will be a new beginning, that this year will be better than last; that the mistakes we made in the past will be rectified by the new knowledge of the future.

Play your part in the shaping of a new Galway

Thu, Mar 14, 2024

The present and the future have an annoying habit of conspiring to show just how silly we might have been in the past. Armed with foresight and hindsight, something that might have seemed like a good idea at some stage in the past is ridiculed by the present and put right by the future.

The heads above the parapet

Thu, Feb 29, 2024

In a hundred days from now, most of us will go to the polls to elect new city and county councillors and new MEPs. The race for the European seat used to be a lot more interesting when the constituency was merely the West...now it goes from Rossaveal to somewhere near the Mull of Kintyre. There is never any shortage of candidates for the European gig...as political posts go, they are the most desired. If I ever come back in the next life as a politician, you’ll find me in Brussels or Strasbourg, eating starters instead of main courses to keep the pounds down.

Sleepwalking into the repeat of history

Thu, Feb 22, 2024

I had coffee with some old friends the other day; people who had devoted their lives to doing the right thing; never ones to let a cause go unfought. People who took an interest in the world; people whose emotional ebb and flow was determined by the general state of mankind.

The reinvigorating power of February

Thu, Feb 01, 2024

My mother used to say that you kept something long enough, it would come back into fashion. But of course, I never heeded her, and so all my trendy Gola sports bags and original three-stripe Adidas tee-shirts were discarded, not knowing they would come back into vogue. So too with flared trousers. It must have been the devil himself who designed those in the 1970s and thought it was a good idea, but back they have come again for certain age-groups.

I thought of all that this week with the news that starting today, you can get money back for your old bottles again. In the early 1970s, in the town where I grew up, and where if a dog went through with his tail on, he was a tourist, opportunities for pocket money were rare.

Galway facility can sate the palates of the world

Thu, Jan 25, 2024

For anyone who has studied the history of Galway over the past century, you will see therein a repeated window of opportunity which has either been grabbed with both hands (as in the case of our early cultural and artistic endeavours) or frittered away (as was the case with our continuing failure to benefit from the proximity of the waters along which we live).

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