Connacht Tribune
Twin 2020 Capitals of Culture will be making hay in the rain!
It rains quite a bit in Galway. It rains so much in Galway, in fact, that the wet weather has provided the inspiration behind one of the flagship events for Galway 2020’s cultural programme.
Rather than complaining about the water that falls from the sky, Hope It Rains, through a series of collaborative cultural events, aims to make Galway the place to be in 2020 because it rains so much.
BY DARA BRADLEY IN RIJEKA
This is something the people of Rijeka, including the Rijeka 2020 project team, understood immediately. Because it rains a bit in the Croatian city, too.
Indeed, one Sunday in 2013, Rijeka set a world record for being the rainiest city in the world – close to 250 litres per square metre of rain fell in one day.
The 128,624 inhabitants of the seaport along the Adriatic Sea can relate to the West of Ireland’s winds as well – the famed bora winds produce gusts of up to 160 kilometres per hour.
The Galway delegation that visited Rijeka last weekend were lucky to have avoided any downpours, although they did experience first-hand the bora gusts.
They would have noticed many other similarities between Galway and Rijeka, which jointly hold the European Capital of Culture designation in 2020.
Both are port cities, although Rijeka’s working seaport is far bigger and busier than Galway Harbour. It used to be a big industrial city but it has been replaced by pharmaceuticals; while ship-building is also an economic driver.
Both are university cities. Both have rivers running through them, and pedestrian streets. Both are surrounded by rural hinterlands – Galway 2020 and Rijeka 2020 were joint bids by their respective urban and rural local authorities.
Seafood – shrimp, monkfish, mussels, octopus – is big in Rijeka; so too potatoes and a stewed cabbage-like vegetable. The two dozen or so food festivals in Galway, many of which focus on seafood, offer opportunities for further cultural connections between the two cities.
Both cities are diverse. Rijeka celebrates and is proud that it is a city of 23 nationalities. Its buildings even reflect the various influences: Austro-Hungarian, Italian, and Venetian.
It is a multi-lingual city. Croatian is the first language but almost everyone speaks English, many fluently, and Italian is also dominant.
Rijeka’s core concept in its cultural programme of events in 2020 is ‘Ports of Diversity’, which focuses in on a rich culture of migrants.
This multiculturalism is evident in Galway, too, where almost one quarter of the city’s population was born outside of Ireland; there are Brazilians in Gort, and East Europeans and Africans in every corner of the county.
Bilingualism, and the Irish language, is an important part of the Galway 2020 bid book and programme.
Another commonality between Galway and Rijeka is inhabitants of both have difficulties with the pronunciation of the other. Rijeka (Wry-A-Ca or Rye-A-Ka) is a bit of a tongue-twister but some of the locals there – including their equivalent of Cathaoirleach of Galway County Council – struggled to pronounce ‘Galway’.
Some things are different. Rijeka, for example, is bypassed – and its infrastructure in general, including tunnels through mountains that are feats of engineering, is more advanced.
Graffiti is everywhere in Rijeka. Some of it commissioned street art, a lot of it non-commissioned colourful political stuff that the authorities turn a blind eye to. The ‘Beanstalk’ mural that the City Council got a court order to remove on Shop Street would have been welcomed in Rijeka.
Its cultural infrastructure is far superior than Galway’s. Rijeka has five museums, 20 galleries and exhibition spaces and two theatres. The Galway delegation were given a tour of one of the theatres in the city centre, a 670-seater venue that was refurbished with citizens’ donations. It was decadent and classy, not unlike something you’d find in London’s Westend. Imagine the mortification of the Galway 2020 team when they bring their Rijeka 2020 on a return visit to the Black Box. Yikes!
While in Rijeka, Marilyn Gaughan Reddan, Programme Development and Legacy with Galway 2020, and Catherine McConnell, Acting Director of Services for Planning, Community, Enterprise and Economic Development at Galway County Council, whose brief includes the Galway West of Ireland Region of Gastronomy designation in 2018, focused on making connections.
Already this has borne fruit. Brendan ‘Speedy’ Smith in Galway City, for example, has been in contact with Rijeka’s equivalent, who runs a technology museum. There may also be opportunities for the likes of Blue Teapot, an award-winning theatre company for people with intellectual disabilities, to team up with a similar specialist theatre company in Rijeka.
Some ties are less obvious but could be developed. The Irish Ambassador to Croatia, Olive Hempenstall, pointed out a James Joyce connection: the author stopped off in Rijeka on the way to Pula, another Croatian city, with Nora Barnacle. There is a possibility of some sort of plaque unveiling in Rijeka and perhaps at Nora Barnacle’s old house at Bowling Green in the city.
Living standards are poles apart though. Dorian Celcer, a member of the Rijeka 2020 project team, explained it best when he said in Rijeka they have East European wages but West European prices.
Mr Celcer expressed surprise at the €130,000 salary, which comes with the Galway 2020 CEO position that is due to be filled in the coming months. It is about five times the salary of Rijeka 2020’s equivalent, he said.
But wages don’t tell the full story – it is a socialist city and so healthcare and dental care are free, and rents are cheaper, although eating out and clothes are similar in price to here.
And Rijeka 2020 has a staff of 12 – compared to Galway 2020’s six – and the Croatians are recruiting 19 more this year.
Irena Kregar Segota, of the Rijeka 2020 team, said unemployment remains stubborn at 20%.
No wonder then that Mr Celcer said that the biggest problem Rijeka 2020 faces is managing expectations – locals expect that the yearlong designation will solve all its social ills, and transform it economically.
Marilyn Gaughan Reddan, Programme Development and Legacy with Galway 2020, could relate to that too – managing expectations in Galway is just as difficult a balancing act. They’re reluctant to ‘big it up’ too much but at the same time want to give the year the prominence it deserves.
Significant state investment is required to address ‘shocking’ inequalities that leave cancer patients in the West at greater risk of succumbing to the disease.
A meeting of Regional Health Forum West heard that survival rates for breast, lung and colorectal cancers than the national average, and with the most deprived quintile of the population, the West’s residents faced poorer outcomes from a cancer diagnosis.
For breast cancer patients, the five-year survival rate was 80% in the West versus 85% nationally; for lung cancer patients it was 16.7% in the west against a 19.5% national survival rate; and in the West’s colorectal cancer patients, there was a 62.6% survival rate where the national average was 63.1%.
These startling statistics were provided in answer to a question from Ballinasloe-based Cllr Evelyn Parsons (Ind) who said it was yet another reminder that cancer treatment infrastructure in the West was in dire need of improvement.
“The situation is pretty stark. In the Western Regional Health Forum area, we have the highest incidence of deprivation and the highest health inequalities because of that – we have the highest incidences of cancer nationally because of that,” said Cllr Parsons, who is also a general practitioner.
In details provided by CEO of Saolta Health Care Group, which operates Galway’s hospitals, it was stated that a number of factors were impacting on patient outcomes.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
Galway 3-18
Cork 1-10
NEW setting; new opposition; new challenge. It made no difference to the Galway minor hurlers as they chalked up a remarkable sixth consecutive double digits championship victory at Semple Stadium on Saturday.
The final scoreline in Thurles may have been a little harsh on Cork, but there was no doubting Galway’s overall superiority in setting up only a second-ever All-Ireland showdown against Clare at the same venue on Sunday week.
Having claimed an historic Leinster title the previous weekend, Galway took a while to get going against the Rebels and also endured their first period in a match in which they were heavily outscored, but still the boys in maroon roll on.
Beating a decent Cork outfit by 14 points sums up how formidable Galway are. No team has managed to lay a glove on them so far, and though Clare might ask them questions other challengers haven’t, they are going to have to find significant improvement on their semi-final win over 14-man Kilkenny to pull off a final upset.
Galway just aren’t winning their matches; they are overpowering the teams which have stood in their way. Their level of consistency is admirable for young players starting off on the inter-county journey, while the team’s temperament appears to be bombproof, no matter what is thrown at them.
Having romped through Leinster, Galway should have been a bit rattled by being only level (0-4 each) after 20 minutes and being a little fortunate not to have been behind; or when Cork stormed out of the blocks at the start of the second half by hitting 1-4 to just a solitary point in reply, but there was never any trace of panic in their ranks.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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GARDAÍ and the IFA have issued a joint appeal to all road users to take extra care as the silage season gets under way across the country.
Silage harvesting started in many parts of Galway last week – and over the coming month, the sight of tractors and trailers on rural roads will be getting far more frequent.
Inspector Conor Madden, who is in charge of Galway Roads Policing, told the Farming Tribune that a bit of extra care and common-sense from all road users would go a long way towards preventing serious collisions on roads this summer.
“One thing I would ask farmers and contractors to consider is to try and get more experienced drivers working for them.
“Tractors have got faster and bigger – and they are also towing heavy loads of silage – so care and experience are a great help in terms of accident prevention,” Inspector Madden told the Farming Tribune.
He said that tractor drivers should always be aware of traffic building up behind them and to pull in and let these vehicles pass, where it was safe to do so.
“By the same token, other road users should always exercise extra care; drive that bit slower; and ‘pull in’ that bit more, when meeting tractors and heavy machinery.
“We all want to see everyone enjoying a safe summer on our roads – that extra bit of care, and consideration for other roads users can make a huge difference,” said Conor Madden.
He also advised motorists and tractor drivers to be acutely aware of pedestrians and cyclists on the roads during the summer season when more people would be out walking and cycling on the roads.
The IFA has also joined in on the road safety appeal with Galway IFA Farm Family and Social Affairs Chair Teresa Roche asking all road users to exercise that extra bit of care and caution.
“We are renewing our annual appeal for motorists to be on the look out for tractors, trailers and other agricultural machinery exiting from fields and farmyards,” she said.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
