Galway Getaway

Imagine you're in the 1600s. You're a lot more racist, way more sexist, and there's a decent chance that either you or a couple of your 17 siblings totally didn't make it past infancy.

Anyway, that was a long route to say that in the 1640s, one of Oliver Cromwell's surveyors were over in this part of Ireland (as a sidebar, literally every square kilometre of Ireland has been wrecked in some way by Oliver Cromwell, so when the BBC listed him among the Top 10 Britons of all time, an entire country across the Irish Sea were fairly against it) and came to the Burren, looked out upon the land, and aptly described it as “a savage land, yielding neither water enough to drown a man, nor tree to hang him, nor soil enough to bury.”

You can imagine you're in the 1600s if you want, but in 2014 not much has changed, at least not here.

We left Doolin in the early morning on Friday, no breakfast other than instant coffee at the hostel so we stopped for some pastries in Lisdoonvarna a stone's throw outside the hidden valley. Looking out over Galway Bay from the south, there is a hillside, affording you a vantage point of the grass and trees turning into the desolate land that Cromwell's buddy so correctly described 400 years earlier.

Limestone rock, bared to the elements by erosion and rainfall and peeking out among the dips in the landscape. Before you enter this country, you go via Corkscrew Hill, a great description for the sputtering road that runs down the hillside and into the barren landscape of the Barren.

Once you get to the Burren proper and off the main highway, there's nothing but these coarse lattices of limestone in every direction. How cool would it be if every day you got a chance to see something that was literally unlike anything you've ever seen before? It would be a pretty good life.

Signs warn you to go slow. Now, I don't know if you've been paying attention, but the worst roads over here are 80 km/hr zones. If the road signs actually warn you to slow down, it's kind of like if Justin Bieber were to tell you you need to get your act together—you should probably listen.

Moderately wide roads became single lanes with thick bushes on the side and the constant chance of meeting oncoming traffic and even hikers on what was now known as the Burren Way. Oftentimes you weren't aware you were holding your breath until a sudden straight and clear path opened and you released it.

Rainwater is mildly acidic, and over hundreds of years, the tableau of limestone has been worn away into bizarre shapes. In the midst of this twisted rocky landscape is Poulnabrone dolmen, a portal tomb reminiscent of Stonehenge, probably because it's built with a purpose that is such a mystery to us today. A portal tomb was a ceremonial burial chamber, and this one could be as old as 4200 B.C. This is around about the time where one dude on the block had the thing that was all the rage, and that thing happened to be the wheel. It's a long time ago, and Poulnabrone still stands stark and prominent, in spite of the hostile environment of the Burren in north-west Ireland.

Further on we came to the small village of Carron, where we went for a short walk across the fields to stretch our legs before getting back in the car and embarking on the rickety roads. The closer we came to Galway Bay, the more the roads opened up, until we were cruising to Ireland's third biggest city at near highway speeds.

Galway is a university town, population 75,000 with the River Corrib running through it. Our bed and breakfast was just outside the city centre, near the National University of Ireland, at Corrib Haven Guesthouse, a multi-storeyed guesthouse. It wasn't long before I was along the busy, shoulder-to-shoulder crowds of the pedestrian avenues of Shop Street and High Street.

The Spanish Arch looks out to Galway Bay, a relic from 1584 that's a reminder of the stone wall that once kept Galway safe. This city was once controlled by 14 merchant tribes, but the wall led to siege and eventual downfall. Remember Cromwell? When he ousted the ruling Galway families and sent them to live in the tiny fishing village of the Claddagh just across the mouth of the Corrib in 1652, the economy of Galway crashed, and economic recovery has apparently only been a reality in the past 30 years.

The Long Walk leads from the Spanish Arch to Galway Bay. Turn If you follow it in the other direction, once you cross the Wolfe Tone Bridge and continue along the water's edge, you really are pointed towards the suburbs of Salthill, and the promenade there. If I were to write a song about a chance encounter out this way, I'd probably call it the Salthill Prom.

McDonaugh's on Quay Street has a reputation of being one of the best fish and chips spots in Ireland, and the queue out the door was testament to the fact that a lot of people believed it. We waited in line for our cod and mushy peas, and headed in for an early Friday night—once we lucked into an acoustic band play an Irishified version of "Sonny's Dream," with plenty of folks from Galway singing along.

Come Saturday morning, after breakfast in a busy downstairs dining room, it was back to the city, where I checked out the Galway City Museum. Two distinctly Galway displays greet you where you enter the free display. The first is a statue of Irish author Pádraic Ó Conaire, whose carved image was a welcome relief to citizens of Galway when it appeared in the city decades earlier—see, he wrote in traditional Irish about Ireland, and he was no English monarch on the street corner, but rather an Irishman through and through. Secondly, hanging from the ceiling is a Galway hooker—not that, a traditional fishing vessel from this city.

Just before lunch, there was time for another free-but-tipping-optional/expected walking tour. After our awesome experience in Dublin we had high hopes for this one, and assembled on the lawn in Eyre Square at noon. Most of the tour were new international students—somehow in the midst of this trip, I forgot that classes start again next week. We went through the expected sites, the Corrib and Galway Cathedral and the Spanish Arch, but other than learning that “Sparching” is the word when you bring a picnic and booze to the lawn by the Spanish Arch on a sunny afternoon and enjoy an afternoon of muddled enjoyment (and observing quite a few people busily engaged in it), I can't say I really got anything out of it.

Alright, it kind of sucked. Sorry.

When I lost the group, it was legitimately an accident, but I didn't try too hard to find them again. Having successfully pipped off, I bought a sandwich and returned to Eyre Square, to watch the assemblage for the Gay Pride Parade underway.

On the pedestrian streets, aside from the cluster of people and shops, there are a lot of street performers, ranging from bands and a cappella singers to dancers and acrobats. Quite a few cool shows on a warm Saturday afternoon.

One of the little quirks about Europe is the flexibility of bringing your drink out on the street. I grabbed a pint of Guinness at Tig Coili, where there was a session of traditional music in the corner and no room to stand, but plenty of elbow room out on the cobbled entrance way to watch the show going on out there.

Between the the Gay Pride after party, pulsing like a disco at the gay bar on Dominick Street, and the folk singers working up a sweat all along the city core, Galway is a cool place to be in your twenties, especially if you luck into one of the student bars where pints are dirt cheap.

When I awoke, I had no broken heart, but I've got the ticket home. It's not time for that yet, but two weeks goes by fast, and a dreary Sunday morning is no match for a drive through the stunning countryside of Connemara when there is still plenty to see.

What else is a fellow to do?

Cheers,

rb