Galway’s far from perfect – but I love it!

Double Vision with Charlie Adley

A few weeks ago I was sitting on the loo, perusing The Guardian newspaper’s G2 section. For years I’ve been amused by its Pass Notes column: a daily dialogue which asks cheeky questions of a topical subject, with responses in kind.  No. 3,851 was headed ‘Galway’, solely because of the presence of Ed Sheeran and the video he filmed in the city.

I didn’t make it past the first four questions, which went like this:

“Location: The middle of the west coast of Ireland. Age: About 900 years. Appearance: Oh, you know, it’s a perfectly nice old Irish port city. Small. Don’t expect Venice or good weather. Known For: Arts festivals, horse racing, Ed Sheeran.”

Even though I knew I was being foolish, for some reason this innocuous whimsy managed to bug me for weeks.  Can’t I take a joke anymore?

After 25 years here, have I become parochial and petty?

Yes I can and no I’m not.  So why was I feeling so defensive about these throwaway comments?

Gradually I realised that the day had come when I felt more of a Galwegian than a Londoner. As such, my answers to the last two questions would be powered by so much emotion, they’d produce more of a wrench in the heart than a wry smile on the lips.

Such is the nonsensical nature of comparatives, if you come from somewhere bigger, Galway might indeed seem small.  As someone who comes from a city which makes many others in Europe appear meagre, I feel one of Galway’s greatest qualities is that it’s a perfect size.

No seething metropolis, you need neither bus nor taxi to fully appreciate this city centre. You can walk from one end of it to another in 20 minutes, but it’ll take a lot longer than that, as you’ll be stopping to enjoy the music on the streets, or watch someone wearing burning underpants walk a tightrope at Johnny Massacre Corner.

To read Charlie’s column in full, please see this week’s Galway City Tribune.