Galway 2020 ECOC: #ibackgalway people should back free speech

Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley

Phew! Glad that’s all over. Now you can all go back to saying what you really think. The European Capital of Culture judges have had their say, so we can collectively loosen the top button on our trousers.

Or as PenisHat Industries (@iamjasonroche) put it rather well on Twitter, we can all go back to drinking cans down by the Spanish Arch. Unhindered by the omertà that surrounded the Galway 2020 bid, let it all hang out.

Anyone who hadn’t tattooed ‘I back Galway’ onto their eyeballs, and had a blue 2020 wristband surgically attached to their genitalia, was branded a traitor in their own town.

Regardless of how supportive of the arts they were, and are, and regardless of the love they have for this city.

Galway’s stakeholders joined together to declare Galway 2020 was good, and anyone who deviated from that was a backstabbing defector. A deviant dunce who didn’t understand culture. Or worse still, they DID understand culture but were still turncoats for not toeing the line.

That wonderful Irish logic – ‘if you’re not for us, you’re agin’ us’ – prevailed during the 2020 process.

Well, no. Sorry. But life’s not black and white.

Galway won. Obviously. So well done Galway, you ride. And well done to the Galway 2020 team, you’re all rides.

But everything wasn’t rosy. The ‘spontaneous’ clap-off down the Docks for the judges as they left town was mortifying. Did we have to give the judges the clap?

It was like blowing smoke up a referee’s bottom before the ball is thrown in. The sucking-up of it all smacked of an inferiority complex. Too needy. And it was unnecessary.

The bid book was – clearly – exceptional in its own right; and Galway is good enough without drooling over judges.

Nobody could say that at the time, though. People were reluctant to speak for fear of upsetting the 2020 team. Or worse still, the judges.

But one of the things that makes Galway such a top-class place to live is its diversity. Its openness. Friendliness. A place where creatives are left to create. Artists flourish. And that stems from our culture of free speech. In a democracy, there must be room for critical analysis.

Criticism is healthy. Embrace it. Accept it. If your team wins the game, you should still question the tactics, without fear or favour.

Guys being told to ‘pull on the green jersey’ is what bankrupted this country, and heaped penury on its people.

Let’s not be browbeaten into pulling on the maroon jersey. Because if that’s allowed to happen, Galway will be culturally bankrupt by 2020.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.