* take nothing for granted    
Unless otherwise indicated all photos © Richard McKie 2005 - 2021

Who is Online

We have 7 guests and no members online

Article Index

Galway

Out next 'sleepover' was in Galway.  But on the way we wanted to see the famous Cliffs of Moher by driving along the 'Wild Atlantic Way'. There it was cold.  The large car park is some distance from the costal reservation and we quickly realised we needed more clothes returning to make a second attempt.  The main lookout has shops and other facilities set into a hillside and it's a brisk walk up the quite steep hill to the top.  Like the Grand Canyon it's a world famous view with many potential suicide leaps and numbers of people daring to stand toe to drop in contemplation of mortality or bravura.  But nowhere can compete with the Grand Canyon's cliffs for the thrill of sheer danger.  Nevertheless we were quite impressed.

See the Ireland Album - Click Here...  

After an hour or so gazing at the coast upon which some of the Spanish Armada foundered, we set out for Galway.

We had booked a room in a B&B in Galway, an Irish 10 minutes' walk to town (20 min and we are not slow walkers).  By now it was dinner time and we found a very commodious pub featuring a portrait of W B Yeats, winner of the 1923 Nobel Prize in Literature: "for his always inspired poetry".  When I asked if the picture was of Yeats, the young woman serving us asked a colleague and then went to check with management.  Neither had heard of him nor had either thought to ask who the bloke in the prominently positioned picture was. 

Apparently Galway went through hard times during and after the Great Famine and was a somewhat depressing place.  From this low ebb it recovered spectacularly with the economic revival at the beginning of this century.  Now it remains a vibrant place with lots of bars and a thriving retail area. 

On our walk into town there was a leafy park, Eyre Square, featuring a bronze replica of seated man. He was small and somewhat wizened and might have been a leprechaun. That was entirely wrong, although there are two identical green men.  The museum keeps the original safe, due to the susceptibility of the other to beheading.  There we were informed that it is the likeness of the local writer, Pádraic Ó Conaire. It further informed us that Ó Conaire was a leading member of the Gaelic League, promoting the revival of the Gaelic (Irish) language. He is largely unknown beyond Ireland's shores because he died young and wrote most of his considerable output in Irish.  Yeats and several of his circle were also supporters of the revival of Gaelic and at least one, who wrote an eulogy, was a close friend of Pádraic Ó Conaire. 

Like several other cities and ports Galway was fortified by the Anglo Normans (see the history above...) where the River Corrib flows into the Atlantic Ocean.  Throughout the middle ages it was Ireland's principal port for trade with Spain and France.  As a result, remnants of the original walls at the harbour are now known as the Spanish Arch.  Adjacent to this is an excellent museum that in addition to the history and pre-history of Ireland teaches children about the marine science that's one of the City's areas of expertise.  All-in-all a good and informative way to spend a couple of hours.

We were somewhat intrigued by our B&B that's one of several such nearby.  It appeared like the others to be a conversion of a large but quite recently built, probably 1950's, domestic dwelling.  The recent conversion is of a high standard. There are now six bedrooms each with an en-suite bathroom; a downstairs living area and kitchen and a back conservatory, for breakfast, looking onto a small but well-groomed garden on the remainder of the block.  Next door was much the same.  As family houses they would have been huge, as are many others in the area.  It seemed to run counter to the idea of Irish depression that we'd learned about in the museum and elsewhere.  Clearly not everyone was poor.  We were reminded of the beautiful Georgian Townhouses in Limerick.

 

 

 

Comments  

# Michael 2020-08-28 06:06
This article is brilliant. I've learnt a lot from reading about these travels

You have no rights to post comments


    Have you read this???     -  this content changes with each opening of a menu item


Travel

More Silk Road Adventures - The Caucasus

 

 

 

Having, in several trips, followed the Silk Road from Xian and Urumqi in China across Tajikistan and Uzbekistan our next visit had to be to the Caucuses.  So in May 2019 we purchased an organised tour to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia from ExPat Explore.  If this is all that interests you you might want to skip straight to Azerbaijan. Click here...

Read more ...

Fiction, Recollections & News

Skydiving

 

 

On the morning of May1st 2016 I jumped, or rather slid, out of a plane over Wollongong at 14,000 feet.

It was a tandem jump, meaning that I had an instructor strapped to my back.

 


Striding Confidently Before Going Up

 

At that height the curvature of the earth is quite evident.  There was an air-show underway at the airport we took off from and we were soon looking down on the planes of the RAAF  Roulette aerobatic display team.  They looked like little model aircraft flying in perfect formation.  

Read more ...

Opinions and Philosophy

Population and Climate Change – An update

 

 

Climate

 

I originally wrote the paper, Issues Arising from the Greenhouse Hypothesis, in 1990 and do not see a need to revise it substantially.  Some of the science is better defined and there have been some minor changes in some of the projections; but otherwise little has changed.

In the Introduction to the 2006 update to that paper I wrote:

Climate change has wide ranging implications...  ranging from its impacts on agriculture (through drought, floods, water availability, land degradation and carbon credits) mining (by limiting markets for coal and minerals processing) manufacturing and transport (through energy costs) to property damage resulting from storms.

The issues are complex, ranging from disputes about the impact of human activities on global warming, to arguments about what should be done and the consequences of the various actions proposed.

Read more ...

Terms of Use                                           Copyright