Galway: E2 start point

A day of travelling and memories to reach the start of my walk in Galway.

Despite its large size, Cardiff airport was a quiet place. There were only two flights on the departure screen for this afternoon, and mine to Dublin was the only one being checked in when I arrived. A queue of people in an otherwise empty departure hall. Ryanair does not have the best reputation so I was concerned as I stood in line to drop off my rucksack, wondering if I would be asked for more money for something hidden in the small print. However, all went well. The check in clerk even advised the lady in front, who had three hand luggage bags as well as a large suitcase for the hold, on how to minimise the extra charge.

My arrival at Dublin was ten minutes late, and I had a train I wanted to catch. The distance from the gate to immigration and the baggage reclaim was great. Although I overtook quite a few people with my fast walking I still had to wait for my rucksack to come through (fortunately intact). I reached the bus for Dublin with three minutes to spare. However as we moved, with excruciating slowness through the traffic filled streets of central Dublin, every traffic light red, my anxiety was rising with the fear I would miss my train to Galway, especially as I had to find the machine from which to extract my pre booked ticket. I glared at the passengers leaving and joining the bus at each stop, stowing and retrieving their bags, in leisurely slow motion. In such a state of stress I did not appreciate the view of the River Liffey in the afternoon sunlight, with its modern bridges, new and classical buildings, although I did spot the Guinness brewery I had visited on my first visit. Despite the bus's crawl along the riverside road I arrived at the railway station in plenty of time!

I had visited Galway and Western Ireland two times before. On the first occasion I came with a group of university friends for a week in a cottage near Miltown Malbay. We travelled on the same train across the flat Midlands of Ireland (although without the long Gaelic messages that now preceded every announcement on the train's public address system). There were three bedrooms in the holiday house and six of us, three girls and three boys. We picked lots to decide where to sleep and I was lucky, fortune (or destiny) delivered me a room with my future wife, rather than than one of the single sex bedrooms. Well matched we hitch-hiked to the Cliffs of Moher (hugely high), Kilfenora (limestone pavement at the Burren) and Kilrush (estuary of Shannon), generally alone as the others were not quite so adventurous. However, one of them joined us for the long, evening walk, in complete darkness, to Miltown Malbay, where I enjoyed a pint of Guinness in a small, one room pub. The Guinness was served slowly, with great reverence, the excess froth being carefully scraped off with some special implement. After a few ups and downs we married and have shared our love and lives together in the decades since. For one of our many wedding anniversaries we revisited Western Ireland. In our absence Ireland had become wealthy, joining the EU probably helped. Now instead of small, one room pubs, Miltown Malbay had seafood restaurants and the number of holiday homes seemed to have proliferated. Gone were the donkeys who pulled carts of hay and whose noses we had stroked. We struggled to find the fiddle music that had entertained us before. So on this trip I was keen to find out how Ireland had developed. Were there still echoes of the country we had enjoyed so much on our first trip? Or maybe my memories of that first trip had been coloured by our new found love...

View from train.

I arrived in Galway as the setting sun was colouring the lines of fluffy clouds. After checking into my hotel I ate in a restaurant by Eyre square. An area of grass, paths, sculpture and concrete, people walked across it and sat on steps. A lively area with a ruined section of house in a central position, lit by garish, but effective, pink floodlights.

Eyre Square at night.

I wandered down to the pedestrianised streets of the "Latin Quarter". Buskers were singing Leonard Cohen and the like, a few homeless people were making their beds in doorways. Despite it being Monday the streets were busy, and I was conscious of wearing rather more clothes than the younger women and men around me. I crossed the river, admired the white, lit waterfall over a weir on the canal, and braved a bar, from which I could hear traditional Irish music. I was allowed in after the guy on the door checked I was not wearing track suit bottoms(!). The bar's walls and ceiling appeared yellowed by years of cigarette smoke, from which it was now mercifully free. I struggled to obtain a drink at the busy bar, but fortunately the younger crowds were collecting at the far end of the pub, well away from the musicians, leaving a few of us older men able to sit in comfort and listen to the music making. The group's instruments included a fiddle (crucial for the sound of traditional Irish music), two guitars, two flutes, an accordion and something like bagpipes. It seemed a fitting start to my walk around Ireland. 

Bar with traditional music.