Galway Walking Tour
After two driving days, we took ourselves on a walking tour of Galway. I won’t post too many pictures today lest I repeat myself. I wish that I could post something more useful, too, like what it’s like to drive in Ireland (awesome, but impossible to depict without videos), but I couldn’t think of anything—so if you’re curious about the culture here, then do give a shout and I’ll holler at you.
I do like the sea here. It is wilder than my Atlantic, but I like thinking of what’s on the other side of the ocean—and knowing the answer. There were so many who didn’t know who chose to leave this land—including the branches farther down the tree that begat me—and it’s worth reminding all Americans not necessarily that we are the children of immigrants, but that someone in our ancestry was crazy or desperate or opportunistic enough to leave their homeland for a great unknown, and all of the potential gains available therein. And they survived long enough to bear progeny. (Put another way: stop thinking that you have to wait until you retire to live the life you’ve imagined.)
This picture is most evocative of Salthill to me, right down to the playful Ferris wheel
The other side
Low tide
The water is different here. It’s wild, sure, and it’s rowdy, but it’s also bewilderingly clear—even in the river, just before the mouth. It must just be rocks upstream; no sand or silt.
Seeing stones at the bottom of the swift-moving River Corrib
And seeing the individual leaves of seaweeds at the bed of one of the middle waterways parallel to the river
We walked along the river up to the Cathedral.
Galway Cathedral
The organ for you, Gary
The flags were admittedly a little weird
I took in the church, built a scant 50 years ago. There are towns in the west older than that. It’s but a babe.
I looked up at the rough hewn stone walls. I cupped my hand and placed my fingers over their holds. Limestone dust made chalk on my fingertips, tempting me. I stared up the stone walls and I climbed them all, hold by hold, step by step. I sat in the rose and I looked down upon the congregation in prayer.
My wall, tucked away where god couldn’t see me climbing it
And of course, we ended with a pint.
In Seaghan Ua Neachtain