Galway’s phone boxes are unofficial toilets and dirty eyesores

Bradley Bytes – a sort of political column with Dara Bradley

A stream of liquid flowed gently along the footpath at Bridge Street, early one Friday evening.

Closer inspection indicated it was streaming from the phone box at the corner where Bridge Street meets Market Street.

Rising steam and the smell confirmed it was urine, coming from a man, albeit one with animalistic instincts.

He was half-cut, and sure where else was he going to relieve himself before dusk of a Friday, other than in a phone box, in the middle of one of the busiest streets in Ireland’s fourth city, a European capital of culture in 2020?

Closer inspection again showed the footpath was already stained and soiled; Mr McPisserson was not the first reveller filled to the gills with porter who unzipped their trousers and used the phone box as a public convenience. Nor will he be the last. Unless, of course, the phone box is removed. It’s one of many dotted around town that’s fit for the scrap yard.

The phone booths and kiosks are owned by a private company. They’re on public property. And they’re dragging down the city’s image.

It’s not just the ones turned into unofficial port-a-loos. There are two rusting and covered in graffiti, blighting the landscape at Galway Library and another on Dominick Street that sticks out as a dirty eyesore beside the picturesque waterway.

Leaving aside what tourists must think (presumably that we’re a pack of philistines in Galway), the locals are sick of filthy, disused phone infrastructure from another era.

All they’re good for is making money for private enterprise through advertising. That, and makeshift toilets for lager louts on stag parties. Their days are numbered, surely?

This is a shortened preview version of Bradley Bytes. See this week’s Galway City Tribune for more. You can buy a digital edition HERE.