Return to Galway a culture shock of calmest kind!

Double Vision with Charlie Adley

When I returned to Galway from California in 1999, I moved into a house on Grattan Road, overlooking South Park. Perfectly placed for my habits, if I turned right out of my front door I’d be heading up the Prom, while a left turn took me on a very short walk into town, along the Claddagh Basin and over Wolfe Tone Bridge.

The very first morning I attempted that walk, it took me a lot longer than I anticipated. As I approached Claddagh Hall I looked across the river Corrib. The previous night‘s downpour in Connemara had been transformed into furious brown waves, tumbling one upon the other, licked in grey and sepia spume, raging to catch up with each other.

That alone would have been enough to stop me in my tracks. I love Galway City’s river, and sometimes while standing on O’Brien’s Bridge, watching the whooshing flow disappear out into the bay, I fantasise that I’m standing on the stern of a mighty boat.

But that morning it wasn’t the river that made me stand motionless. It wasn’t the sight of the opening to Quay Street in the distance, sucking locals and tourists alike into its medieval orifice like a Faustian temptress.

It wasn’t the beauty of the bay, or the shimmering allure of Clare’s Burren, purple limestone hills promising days of gentle walking followed by nights of raucous craic.

I wasn’t frozen in my tracks by anything that was there. The pleasure I found was in what wasn’t there at all.

There were no hordes of people, walking six deep across the pavements, struggling to avoid bumping into each other. There was no constant roar of traffic. Yes, of course, the number of cars on our streets has risen substantially since then, but believe me, even today, compared with the major urban centres of the UK and USA, Ireland’s most brilliant city is still a gentle place to be.

That first morning of my return I didn’t so much stop, as perform an upright slump. My shoulders dropped and my neck drooped, my knees crumpled and I couldn’t move an inch. Didn’t want to. My body was awash with fast-flowing inner rivers of relief, stomach-wrenching rolls of gratitude and sharp glass shards of remorse that cut through all the rest.

Standing there I thanked the universe for returning me to the calm. My soul was bleeding from the massive gash of guilt I felt, for all the pain I had recently caused others whom I loved.

So there I stood, with a heart tormented and a head that could not believe the calm.

Looking to the city across the river, it all seemed so placid. After many years in America, this major city of Galway seemed like a slow peaceful oasis of sanity.

Of course I knew then as I know now that Galway is as insane as anywhere else in the world, but that feeling of peace and tranquillity revisits me every time I return to Galway City and County.

As regular colyoomistas know, I have recently visited both London and West Yorkshire, and thoroughly enjoyed my time in both places, with each beloved person I visited. Yet nothing compares to the joy I feel each time I return to the West of Ireland. Whether I’m driving down the N17 from Knock Airport, or hurtling along the wonderfully empty M18 from Shannon, I always raise my fist in the air and shout out, loud and triumphant: “Yes!”

For more, read this week’ Galway City Tribune.