10,000 Galway Howyas, Curried Wisdom and Freedom Fries!

(clips from the DV archive never before seen online - here's come 2004!)

March 2004.

Freedom Fries and a Justice Burger! 

It’s late as I stumble out of Taylor’s Bar, and follow my tipsy chin over the road to Vinnie’s Takeaway. While I wait for my chicken, I’m entertained by the Dominick Street late night show.

Over by the wall, two 20something American tourists are chatting, flirting, cavorting with the lads behind the counter.

One of the girls is quieter, hanging back, while her friend appears to want to embody the image we have of her Mother Country: she’s loud, proud, and wants everybody to know it, standing out like a beautiful sore thumb.

She's the one everybody is watching, and not only is she evidently aware of this, she seems to like it.

Standing centre stage, she yells

“Can I come behind the counter and see your kitchen? Do you have ketchup over here? Do you put beef in your burgers?”

Not USDA baby, I think to myself, but say nothing.

By now the air is thickening with the need for some kind of response, and sure enough, it comes, in a European way that contrasts with the brazen abrasion of yer one from across the pond.

One of the lads by the window calls out (in a thick and chewy Dublin accent)

“Err, couldja change moy orda to a portion of Freedom Froize … yez, oid loik some Freedom Froize and … and … and … a Josstiss Burrga, tanks!”

The place erupts with laughter, a sense of relief and camaraderie spreading throughout the non-American munchers.

I cannot help myself, and laugh alongside them.

The quieter American girl looks up, aware that not all in da Hemmarold Hile are the dingly-dell-leprechaun-luvvin’ folk we’re supposed to be.

Trouble is, I feel unsettled and displeased with myself for mocking the young lass. It’s not fair to exploit her naïveté, just so that we can vent our collective spleens over Dubya’s imperialist ambitions.

May 2004.
More Sligo curry than Tubbercurry.

Just south of Sligo I see a vision of my new Ireland.

We take sanctuary from the wind and rain in the warm glow of a pub, where an Indian gentleman behind the bar is chatting to two older farmers on barstools.

We’re excited to find a comprehensive curry menu, and as we peruse, I sit back and enjoy eavesdropping on the banter between the landlord and his customers.

“Yez cannot be sheerious!”

“But yes I am. I am being very serious.”

“Ye’d seerioushly prefer to have the Hin-glish back than have yer own independence?”

“I am being very serious. With the English yes, we had suffering, but we knew where we were. Now there is much fear. There is sometimes chaos and always there is fear. Fear of a war with Pakistan. Fear of many religions.”

“But but but to be free! Jaaayyyzus chroisht man, what can be more important? How can you shtand there and tell me dat dat’s not the foinest feeling?”

“Free yes, freedom is a wonderful thing, yes it is. But freedom is not about who rules you. It is about how you rule yourself.”

“Sure, and tell that to the millions who starved to death!”

“You are right, and I was wrong, but I am meaning no offence. I think what I am saying is that the country was much more organised with the English. Now it is a mess, yes, messy, and there is not an order to things as there was before.”

“So why are you opening a restaurant here?”

“Because I am not a good cook!”

Flash of toothy smile and all three men laugh together.

Our curry arrives, and it tastes really good, washed down by pints of Guinness.

I am in heaven.

April 2004.
In off the wall genius.

Big Ron Atkinson has taken the football cliché and turned it on its head.

No time has he for the ubiquitous ‘sick as a parrot!’ or the execrable ‘It’s a game of two ‘alves!’

Not a bit of it.

“Zola’s split the defence with a birthday ball. Candles, the bumps, and a sloppy kiss off his Auntie Rita. The lot.”

and

“Blanc’s been caught by the quick ball over the top. He was expecting The Troggs and they’ve gone and hit him with a right Frank Zappa.”

or my personal favourite

“You’ve got to blame the defence there. The left-back came home early for his tea and got jam in his eye.”

April 2004.
We raised the flag of Hollow Strangers on Mount Howya! 

Walking from Nimmo’s - Seeya! Seeya!- through the Spanish Arch and onto Buckfast Plaza - Howya! - over the road to Quay Street - Howya! - Howya!- up to Cross Street - Howzit goin’? - Howya! - Howya!

If I was being watched by a tourist, they’d think I was the best-known person in the country.

But then again, if they watched any Galwegian, they’d see the same thing.

Galway is the Capital City of Howya Culture. There’s 10,000 faces out there that you recognise, and seemingly more that recognise you, and when it suits, when you’re in the mood, or have da hin-inclinayyyshun, you smile and raise an eyebrow, or even go mad and wave a hand to embellish your gesture.

At this time of year, before the tourist madness starts, it’s still possible to spot Howyas in the crowd. Sadly, most of us have lost just too many brain cells to remember who on earth all those Howyas are.

Maybe you chatted her up one night. Possibly you were the friend of a friend six months ago. Perchance he crashed your party, and you made a mental note to avoid him like the pendulous drop of snot hanging from a cavorting child’s nose. 

Some Howyas you wish you knew better. Some you wish you’d never met, but every single one of them is part of this city.

Depending on your mood, your 10,000 Howyas can either be a wonderful phenomenon or a source of horror. If you’re on the up, they create within you a warm spreading glow of community and belonging; feelings of identity as part of the whole; a sense of place, time and history mixed up into a heady brew of humanity.

When you’re feeling down, they seem pointless, hollow and the worst possible representation of how false and fickle Galway life can be.

Sure, you say hello, but you don’t give a damn about any of them. The darkness within you asks ‘What’s the point?’

You don’t know their names, or where they live. You don’t care and they don’t care and yet you pretend to be a part of each other’s lives on some shallow and insincere plane.

More often, it’s neither one extreme nor the other. Most of the time, your 10,000 Howyas are a benign and relatively pleasant part of everyday life.

Sometimes, however, you stray from the path, and all of a sudden, you’re forced to break all the unwritten ways of the Howya.

As I stroll along Mainguard Street, I walk past a tall lad in a grey greatcoat, long grey hair sweeping over his shoulder.

We ‘Howya!’ and walk on, but for some reason, I double take, and look back over my shoulder as he passes me. He is a good five paces away, yet just as I have done, he too has looked back.

We stare into each others eyes.

Had we been old friends, this would be a moment of joyful reunion. We might jump in the air, and run toward each other, clapping manly hands on each others’ backs in that macho hug thing, both talking at the same time as we excitedly pour forth question after question.

But we do nothing of the kind, because we are mere Howyas. Trouble is, we have now strayed across a boundary. We have stopped walking, faced each other, engaged in something more.

A simple single salutation will no longer suffice. One of us has to have the balls, the cojones, to ‘fess up pronto, to admit we thought the other was someone else entirely, but we’re both social cowards.

Now we are condemned to cross into an unknown and slightly terrifying netherworld; a place that lurks way beneath the heights of real friendship, and yet outside the safety of the Howya.

I’m by Pound City, himself by Myles Lee. Slowly we shuffle toward the middle of the street, standing by the cycle racks, each shifting from one foot to another.

This is dangerous territory. One false move and there’s terminal embarrassment to be endured. Too invasive an approach, and the emotional wounding might be severe.

I have not a clue who he is, where he’s from, or what his name is. I do not know if he has led a happy or miserable life; whether he is a teetotaller or a happy drinker. I do not know if he’s straight or gay, whether he has kids; maybe a wife?

For a few moments I am silenced by fear. What if I ask about the kids but should know only too well that tragically he lost one years back?

In his deep blue eyes I see a similar nervousness, but by now we are two men physically facing each other, and so we must walk the high tightrope of Howya.

Without ever looking down, we must engage in conversation.

Stare neither to the left nor to the right. Just ask and acknowledge. Search not for details, specifics or facts.

Let’s test our Galway City skills, push our Howya abilities to the limit.

“So how’s life?”

“Moity!”

“Same here I have to say! Just moved back from the country.”

“Oh, were you out there long?”

“Three years.”

“Oh really!”

“And how about yourself?”

“Can’t complain, life's pretty good. How’s the house?”

“House is fine, same as ever, d'j'yaknow.”

“Oh yes, same as ever. And what about the ...errrm... social life?”

“Not bad. Can’t complain. I get out once or twice a week, not as much as I used to.”

“No no me too, can’t take it like I used to, not at all. So how’s your work?”

“Well, coming along, spend too much time not making enough money.”

“Yeh yeh tell me about it, seems never-ending, really doesn’t it? What about the ol’ love life, eh eh?”

“Well, not much happening there, and yourself?”

“Well, still with herself, so that’s not going to change.”

“Good good, can’t be bad. City’s gone bananas hasn't it?”

“Jaize you’re right there, can hardly hear myself think these days.”

“Ah well, great to seeya!”

“Yeh! All the best now, now so, now, so ... now! Good to see you too buddy!”

Pheeee-yeeeew! We pulled it off. Both of us walked away none the wiser, but with integrity and emotions intact.

Ironically, we now truly have a bond.

We made it!

Together, we raised the flag of Hollow Strangers on the summit of Mount Howya!


©Charlie Adley
12.05.2026

I'm so not super excited that I said 'Super excited!'

 

Great artwork from Allan Cavanagh of Caricatures Ireland.ie

I can remember neither what I was talking about, nor to whom I was talking.

Maybe the horror of the moment blew a few neuronic fuses.

What I know for sure is that I said

“…super excited…”

to somebody about something.
I'm unsurprised yet sorrowful.

I know all that ‘language is a liquid’ stuff and I’ve had fun observing how my spoken idiom and vernacular have wobbled and whimpered as I moved around the world.

After three months of working in a garage in Melbourne, doing B-Hits with my Work Mates during Smoko, a city taxi driver said

“Chroist, ye dant sowned loik a Pom.”

Let me tell you, as a Pom speaking here: taxi drivers don’t like losing the chance to deliver a good slagging, so I must’ve talked pure Aussie after only 12 weeks.

Here in Ireland my accent wanders from full Mitchell Brother to Plastic Paddy, but errs mostly towards the Home Counties, as we privileged few from the Home Counties like to call the Home Counties.

I know I’ve been culturally colonised by the USA. I drink coke and wear jeans, eat burgers and watch movies. I love American writers and remember when people started saying “No Way!” in our suburban London lives in the early 80s. Might’ve been the 70s.

Who knows?
Who cares?

Do I sound American yet?

Point being, we all loudly cried “No Way!” with smiles on our faces, to get a laugh, because to us, back then, it sounded aggressive, impolite and over-assertive.

Yet now it sounds so weak that’s hard to believe.

The hyperbole that started way back with freedom, contraception and The Beatles, that’s all ended up as meaningless vacuous iconic super excited sick super great crap.

And it’s not going away, but it will morph into something else.

And I said “Super excited” and a part of me hates that I’m so weak.

And the other part of me knows that has nothing to do with it.

I’m just assimilating.

Grunt by grunt, inflection by verbal twitch, blow-ins like me start to osmose the Irish way of speaking English.
 
Despite Howya! sounding so similar to the English ‘How are you?’, the Irish person saying it requires no response, or one of three answers.

Back in England it would be perfectly acceptable to reply
 
“Bloody terrible actually. The dog bit me, I got burgled and then the bloody car broke down.”
 
But here in my adopted country, the only acceptable responses must be either

Grand! 

Mighty! 

or

Not a bother on me!
spoken as one word.
 
It’s tough on depressives, especially during periods when your voice doesn’t sound as convincing as it might.

At those times so as not to draw attention to your pathetic human neediness, it’s best to string all three responses together, and utter them at speed (for the more advanced class):

Mighty grand not a bother on me!
 
Then there’s the shopkeepers’ masterpiece of enigma. Now! fired across the counter.

Now what?
Now who?
Should I do something?

Takes you by surprise at first, alongside the So! and that much-beloved double whammy 

So now! and Now so!
 
Next out of your mouth comes the positively effervescent Thanks A Million!

Such hyperbolic gratitude for buying a single postage stamp in England would sadly be seen as taking the piss, but here it offers a delightful alternative to the bland English Ta very much!

The wonderful Why Wouldn’t I? now tumbles out of my mouth alongside all variations of Yer Wan, Yer Man and the splendid No Finer Man.
 
Sometimes my assimilation can take me by surprise. Never thought I’d become a Day That’s In It person, but now that’s there, and on at least one occasion I’ve been deeply shocked to hear myself go

Lookit!
in public.

I had to take a moment.
What next? 

I Do Be?

Now in the latter stages of my assimilation, I play arpeggios of my adopted lingo.

String together C’mere to me!, add a little Now! and a smidge of So! and all of a sudden I’m inviting Dalooney to

C’mere to me now, so! and it all feels right and good.

The first time I felt fully assimilated was actually a non-verbal experience.

From the moment I arrived in Galway, I noticed how people here sometimes offered agreement by sucking a sharp intake of breath onto the roof of their mouths, loud enough to be heard, yet too soft to be spelled.

Far from that dreaded disapproving flared nostril sniff, this hissy breath is used to offer some kind of guiltily-agreed censure, such as when your friend offers:

“Oh he’s an awful man, so he is!”you respond with the inward hiss.

Gathering words and picking up accents are understandable but this sharp inward breath is a physical phenomenon, so I was shocked to find myself unthinkingly doing the intake response.

My time in Ireland has changed my breathing patterns. That’s a different level of assimilation altogether, so it is now.

Behave, Adley.

Be respectful.

And while we’re at it, while this Grumpy Old Colyoomist is on a roll, I can’t be doing with any TV or movies that describe themselves as any of the below.

Madcap. Romp. Cringe. Caper.

What’s that got to do with the price of eggs?

Nothing, but it felt so fine dumping it out of me and dropping it here.

Caper, indeed.


 

 

©Charlie Adley
09.05.2026

Bertie, blaming and bar craic in Ballina - it's 2002!

       Thanks to caricatures-ireland.com

(More from the DV archive never before seen online - these clips are from 2002.)

October 2002.
Switch off your Irish blame reflex - sometimes life just go wrong! 

In their ability to find blame, the Irish are united: in all 32 counties, you blame as one.

When colonised, the Irish naturally blamed the English for all ills.
Ireland still does, and probably forever will blame the English for anything and everything that doesn’t have a visible blame label on it from somewhere else.

In the Irish Dark Ages between Independence and joining the EEC, when it seemed like everyone else had what the Irish wanted. Ireland became the land of begrudgery.

Then, after 1973, Ireland behaved like a petulant teenager, pleading

“Leave me alone!” to the world, all the while enjoying substantial handouts from EuroMum on the side.

Now EuroMum has cut the allowance, and worse, those Bureaucratic Belgo-Bastards say they want Irish contributions. 

Broke? Blame the EU.
Blame a loss of sovereignty.
Blame electronic voting.

So the boom didn’t last forever? Oh really? You poor sweet nation, that’s such a shame, because look, everybody else’s booms last forever.

Get real.

Rich becomes poor like life becomes death.
It’s nobody’s fault, it just happens.

Lost your job? Hey look, there’s a Romanian.
Bloody Romanian. Lost me my job.

I was in Ballina the other day, cold and hungry, in search of a small portion of chips. In my pocket sat the grand sum of €1.50. That must be good for a small chips in North Mayo, I said to myself.
But no, small chips were €1.85. I asked yer wan what was the story with the price?

“Oh I know, terrible isn’t it! Everything’s gone mad since the Euro came in!”

Want to put up your prices?
Blame the Euro.

Pissed of with inflation?
Blame the Government.

It was England and the Empire.
Then it became Europe and the Euro.
Now, it’s Mick McCarthy.

Never mind the fact that Mick took you out of a World Cup qualifying group including Portugal and Holland.

Blame Mick.
Love Keano.
Irish good.
English bad.

As if to prove it, there’s Dunphy on RTE’s ‘The Premiership’, claiming the English press are racist against Keane.

Give me a break. It wasn’t England that screwed up your World Cup. 

It was your very own beloved captain, forsaking his team mates in their hour of need.

Roy Keane: diva and blamer supreme.
Eamon Dunphy: blame on the end of a glass.

Make like the Nazarene: check out your faults before you point your national blaming fingers elsewhere.

Sometimes life just dumps pooh on your parquet, and there’s simply no point in blaming anyone.

October 2002.
At least I wasn’t wearing a hat. 

Arriving in Galway from my home in North Mayo, I say “Howya!” to the Guru at his market stall, and stray into the middle of Shop Street, my jaw dropping at the sight of the Saturday afternoon crowds.

Evidently, my transformation from cynical streetwise urban guerrilla to wide-eyed clueless culchie is more complete than I realised.

When I lived in Galway City, I never went out at the weekend: that was when the country folk came in, with mud on their boots and eager smiles on their ruddy faces, bursting to drink pints of ‘Special’ and enjoy the mad craic.

And now I am one of them.

           Gone but not forgotten: Paddy Jordans in Ballina 

December 2002.
Ballina: No better place to wait for a bus! 

Opposite the bus station is a pub, red carpet brass rails, with a coal fire and a cluster of auld fellas.

I have an hour to kill, so I order a Jamie, approach the Observer crossword, and sigh with contentment.

The lads down the far end of the bar have had a fine day, are well oiled and good humoured, ripping the proverbial out of each other with the cruel sharpness of men who have drunk together for years.

The young barmaid hums happily, well able to handle her regulars.

“I love you Aoife!” exclaims bald rakey-thin oldie, as she hands him his ‘pointa spesh.' 

“I’m glad somebody does!” she returns, leaving himself with a gaping toothless smile, mumbling “Ahh, but I do! I do, I really do do do...” as his mouth sinks towards his beer.

Chunky beetroot-faced flat-hat boy turns to his mates.

“Here’s one! Here’s one, I tellya! Tink of a number. Go on!”

“Oh, hmm, yesh, I have one.”

“Double it!”

“Ohhhh, jusht a second now. Hmm. Okay.”

“Now, times it boy ... boy ... boy shix!”

“Ohhh jeezze Mikey, what’re ye feckin’ at?”

“Just do it man. For feck’s sake, it’s not dat hard izzit? And now ... now add ten ... divoide by two, and take away the .. cof cof cof wheeze oh feckin’ jeezus mary and jo jo jo ... cof cof ... take away shix, and you have da nomber ye firsht tort of!”

“No ... no, I don’t. I have terteen, and I shtarted wid sheven!”

“No you don’t!”

“Yes oy do, ye old bollox!”

“Well, ye got it wrong den, dincha? Can ye not add and shubtract? I feckin’ said double it and add 22!”

“Ye never shed nuttin’ like dat, not a bit of it, oh no not a bit of it!”

“Ah well, try it again!”

“I will not. ‘Tis borin’ and you got it wrong anywayze. Here, I have one for you now. Listen to dis one. Hey, Aoife, c’mere and lissen to dis one! Now, if it takes me a week to walk a fortnight, how long will I walk in a day?”

“Eh? What da cof cof wheeze cof what da fock was that?”

“Oh, maybe I got him wrong, now ... lemme tink ... or is it a fortnight to walk a week?”

“I love you Aoife!”

“Like I said, thanks, I’m glad someone does!”

“I do I love you Aoife.”

“Thanks, and by the way, I’m Deirdre!”

Much roaring laughter from all, followed by some reassuring backslapping, and finally, from somewhere deep in the huddle:

“Ahh, a bit of auld craic, dats wha’ ye want! A drop of liquid in yer glass, and a bit of auld craic!”

Time for me to head off. I wish them well, and leave them to their lives. Outside the weather has cleared, stars peaking out of the night sky.

If there is a finer country in which to wait for a bus, I’m in no need of it!

May 2002.
Free ice cream anyone? 

Of course Bertie will win, and lead his Fianna Fail into another long government, escaping the voter’s natural urge to go with the swing of the pendulum.

His main opponent, Fine Gael’s Michael Noonan, graduated with honours from the University of Bland Slaphead Opposition Leaders, in the class that gave us William Hague and Ian Duncan Smith.

Noonan’s dull droning monotone radio voice actually became life-threatening the other day, forcing me to wind down my car window, so that I didn’t fall asleep at the wheel.

Away from Treaty politics, Mary Harney’s boat race peers down at me from a million posters on the N17. On each is posed the question of what her PD’s might do with 8 seats in the Daíl.

God knows, and god help us if we have to find out.

Meanwhile Ruari Quinn and his Labour Party are offering more Bank Holidays and free ice cream for Senior Citizens and schoolchildren on the third Thursday of each month.

People don’t vote for holidays. They vote for ideology or money.

With no attractive political ideologies kicking about these days, those lucky winners with more money will vote for the status quo.

Bertie will win for just the same reason that Maggie Thatcher and John Major kept on winning: to borrow James Carville’s well-worn political maxim: it’s the economy, stupid.

But what of us, the bottom feeders who live west of the Shannon?

What of us poor folk who have only read and heard of this ‘boom’, yet never seen a penny of it?

We will do what the English did back in those Thatcher years.

We’ll vote for the dream too, in the hope that wealth might spread west, where so far the Celtic Tiger has looked more like a paper moon.

June 2002.
Come on ye boys in Green, stop reminding me of the English!

There’s a part of me that’s happy Ireland is out of the World Cup.

Whassdat?
Sacrilege!
Treachery!
Treason and unbelievable effrontery, from an Englishman of all things!

It would be impossible for the English to see any England defeat as a reason to celebrate. In Ireland, the celebration of brave (perennially losing) heroes is reason to party through the night, set fire to tyres, down gallons of Buckfast, inflate giant plastic hammers and most of all, feel oh so very proud to be Irish.

Well, that’s how it used to be.

Nowadays that Ireland only exists on postcards showing redheaded girls, donkeys and baskets of cut turf.

Above all I am an England fan, but I know that what you get out of a country is directly related to what you put in.

I cheer for the boys in green, the girls in green, and however scandalous it may be, I cheer for both Galway and Mayo GAA teams.

Last Summer, while the late afternoon sun shone bright, the locals in my village paid no heed to the efforts of their national team.

I though was to be found skulking in pubs, watching the Irish team play qualifying group games against Andorra and equally obscure opposition. I didn’t miss one Ireland game in the last couple of years; friendlies, the lot.

Without turning my back on my Englishness and Jewishness, I am totally committed to this country and its people.

Over the past few weeks, I have huffed, puffed, supped and screamed for the Irish lads, happy to watch the team that Mick built evolve from Saint Jack’s block and hoof into a mature modern outfit that likes to go forward.

As the national World Cup hysteria built up, a predictable ABE (Anyone But England) element grew in Ireland’s pubs. That in itself was no big deal. I’d never be happy in Ireland if I couldn’t take shtick.

I love the cut and thrust of Irish repartee. Each time a local gives me a hard time over being English, I in turn take the opportunity to offload back and everybody’s happy.

Recently however there’s been precious little wit in these exchanges.

It’s perfectly reasonable and even desirable that the successful 21st century Irish should see themselves and their country on a level playing field with other countries, but alongside their new affluence and confidence there has come an aggression that reminds me why I left England in 1992.

Being a mensch among men, I braved my local village pub to watch the England v Argentina game. Naturally, I was expecting and easily handled the hard time I got from the villagers.

Indeed, in some kind of weird masochistic way, I went down there so that they could have their go at me, and I was not disappointed.

However nothing could ready me for the reception I received when I turned up to shout for Ireland in the big game against Spain last Sunday.

I’d been looking forward to it; as excited and nervous as a native all week, but as I walked into the packed village pub I was greeted by a local lad pointing his finger at me, yelling

“Fuck off you!”

Over the long wet Mayo winter this lad and I had on many occasions sat watching Old Firm games at this very bar, himself clad in his Hoops jersey.

We had shared pints and a bit of craic, but now he’s infected with ABE, and I’m just not up to it. If he’d said something rude that made me laugh, I’d have been encouraged to enter.

“Fuck off you and go away!” he persists.

Don’t need it.
Fed up with it.
Not up to it; not today.

“Fuck you too!” comes my equally lucid intellectual retort, and I turn dejected and forlorn, heading home to watch the game alone.

If you’re going to slag, do it well. ‘Fuck off and go away’ hardly makes it to the group stage of the Wit Cup.

For the first time in my sojourn in this country I feel truly deeply weary of this Irish attitude. Now that Ireland is doing well, good old-fashioned patriotism could so easily have become internationalism, but no, instead they turn to wretched nationalism.

Such hostility is pathetic, especially given the level of goodwill and support that the English offered the Irish team.

The BBC, in the shape of Gary Lineker, described the Irish participation thus:

“It was a brave and bold effort by Mick McCarthy’s men. The World Cup will miss them, and so will we!”

This was followed by a montage of Irish goals and hysterical fans set to a soundtrack of Have I told you lately that I love you?




©Charlie Adley
01.05.2026.

The Winter of Burning Cars.

Photo courtesy of LA Fire Department.

 More from the DV archive never before seen online. This is from September 2002.

The Winter of Burning Cars. 

As that Autumn of 2002 came around, we had no idea what lay ahead. 

No idea that the war would be over without a shot fired. No idea that we would lose.

September came and went in a blaze of sunshine.

October gales plucked leaves from the trees, scattering them over the earth.

Talk of war seemed almost safe, remote.

‘Everything’s going to be alright’ I told myself.

We’d heard it all before. Same old macho politicians posturing and pratting around the planet, desperate to try out some strategic nuclear weapons in the field of battle.

Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleeza Rice droned on and on, just like Daddy Bush back in ‘92.

“Blah blah U.N. resolutions, blah blah weapons inspectors, blah blah Saddam must go.”

Same-old same-old.

With the coming of a cold November, my first coal fire of the season was lit. More talk on the news about the protection of freedoms, limited strikes, and somehow, there’d been so many far-off wars I’d grown immune.

Of course it was a terrible thing and all that, but rain was still going to fall on Ireland’s fields. Still does.

Now I know how complacent I was.

This is the Winter of Burning Cars.

It happened so quickly. That was what shocked everyone.

We all felt so deep-down secure in our western civilisation. Whatever atrocities were visited upon distant villagers in crumbling stone desert huts, it wouldn’t really stop us living our day-to-day lives.

How could it?

One interview, that was what did it in the end.

The US and UK forces were building up on the Iraqi borders, trying their best to provoke Saddam into attacking first. They desperately wanted war, but all they got was entrenched defiance, and then Condoleeza Rice gave ‘that’ interview to CNN.

“So Condie, can I call you Condie? So, Condie, how is this war on Iraq going to help the USA’s war on terrorism?”

“Well, I see this chapter as part of a greater book. George Bush is a great man, a good man, and his policies will make the world a safer place. After the Taliban and Saddam’s regime have been replaced by democracies, the US can turn its attention to Iran, and then Saudi Arabia.”

“But the Saudis are our allies. Does this mean a shift in policy toward the Saudis?”

“Well, it has to be said that theirs is not a very attractive society.”

“So is it now US policy to gradually replace all Middle-Eastern regimes with the American-Israeli democratic model?”

“If you put it like that, yes, that’s a dream I hold dear. What’s so bad about a world where elections give everyone the leaders they want?”

“But what if they elect leaders who are anti-American?”

I missed Condie’s answer. My spuds had to come to the boil.

As I ate my dinner, reports were coming in about the beginning of the end. Condoleeza’s interview had provoked an immediate and massive response from a belt of countries from Libya to Pakistan. Sunni and Shia together for the first time: a consensus of outrage and direction.

No more oil. That’s what they decided.

Rather than sit and watch their own civilisations fall foul of the infidel predator, the western war machine was going to be starved of oil.

Middle-Eastern populations were already living with the threat of a costly deadly war with the US, which would leave their countries destroyed, the survivors condemned to slow deaths from depleted uranium.

The prospect of abject poverty was not too hard a sacrifice.

The US had stockpiled their Texan oil, and started to intercept (pirate) any tankers that sailed the Atlantic from the Venezuelan oil-fields.

The Russians managed to secure supplies from Azerbaijan, but for Western Europe, the brakes came on unbelievably quickly.

By the time European governments realised what was going on, it was too late.

The Americans shut up shop, becoming instantly uncooperative. They were plain doolally terrified that their combustion-engined world was going to dry up, and when your back’s up against the wall, you don’t look out for your mates.

Well, they didn’t, anyway.

Petrol stations and civil liberties are, naturally, the first to go.

All Ireland’s manufacturing industries are shut down in the first two weeks, but it doesn’t matter. People can’t get to work even if their jobs still exist, because their cars don’t run on air.

They turn our electricity off at 22:00 each night, while the military convoys escort road tankers from the docks to oil depots. 

Riots swarm over Europe’s capitals as mould on an old loaf.

After a month, income as we know it is a thing of the past. We cycle, walk, beg, borrow and steal to get through this fierce cold winter.

And finally, as an expression of our pain, We The People push our cars out into the city streets. We build huge towers of our wrecked, impotent, pointless cars.

Tens of thousands of angry Celtic Tiger Cubs, who'd seen their brand new 99 and 00 reg cars as shiny proud membership badges of the club of new-found affluence: now nothing more than pathetic lumps of metal, as cheap as the 'high-flying economy' in which they were built.

We pile them high, and they burn beautifully; massive bonfires all over the land.

Drifting into the freedom of anarchy, the people of Europe finally grasp our chance to stand as one.

We stand together as we watch the flames of our burning cars.




©Charlie Adley 24.04.2026

Stolen Galway memories, Celtic Tiger madness, filth and debauchery. It's 2001!

 

January 2001.
Galway isn’t a dream - it just seems that way! 

It is the week of the Great Return. Whatever ‘normal life’ in Galway City may be, we now return to it after the double whammy of the festive season.

Herself returns from her European tour. The Guru returns to his life of contemplation, having made a rare excursion into the world of work for the month of December.

We raise and clink glasses in Tigh Neachtain with the furious happiness of reunion.

The Guru raises his pint of Murphy’s aloft and declares:

“We have all died and gone to heaven!”

and in a peculiar way I think I know what he means. Coming back to Galway is always a sincere pleasure.

My soul exhales a breath of relief as I see the raging beast that is January’s River Corrib.

As I look along the empty evening streets of the town centre, my brain always has a little trouble acknowledging that it is real.

No, this is not Toytown: it’s where I live and, more than that, where I belong.

Despite all this sentient knowledge, for the 24 hours following my return, Galway always seems somehow surreal compared the seething megatropolis that is the city of my birth.

June 2001.
The sun is out at night... 

As I guide my wee blue car out of the car park at Knock International Airport, I punch the air out of my (open!) window, and let out a triumphal scream of return.

All the way down the slip roads of this little airport in the beautiful middle of absolutely bleedin’ nowhere, I join myself in an exuberant chorus of ‘Home on the Range’, adapting the American lyric to 

“ ... where we drink beer watching culchie-lopes playy-aaayyy ...”

Back in the gentle buzz of early June’s Galway City, I’m delighted to find the Guru has once again signed away his soul to work alongside Grumpy Chef, the Snapper and Snarly Artist, down at Nimmo’s.

Within a couple of hours ingesting grape and digesting gossip, me poor auld ears are frothin’ wid a torrent of news about the utter filt’ and deborcheree that have filled the weeks of my absence.

Ah me, the midsummer sun is out at night, people are drinking like sponges, shagging like rabbits, and of course they’re digging up the city centre again.

All is well with Galway, I tell myself.

July 2001.
Hey, you, leave my memory alone! 

‘Everyone deserves a Galway memory!’ claims the latest radio ad. 

Explains a lot.

How many of you Galwegians have sat in the bright harsh light of the Morning After and complained that you’ve lost your memory?

There are hordes of ye out there, drinking coffee in the kitchens of Shantalla, lying sprawled on the sofas of Knocknacarra, straining your necks down the toilets of Newcastle, desperately trying to remember what the hell you did last night.

You sad memory-theft victims suffer the embarrassment of having to ask

“Was I bad?”, as well as the legendary “Who was she?” and that old classic, “How on earth did I get home in that state?”

This colyoom can now reveal where your memories have gone:

The tourists are robbing them. It said so on the radio: 

‘Everyone deserves a Galway memory!’

I'm sure they do, but there’s only so many memories to go around. What could possibly be more private and personal than the process of recall, so give us back our experiences, ye shifty holidaying bunch of tea leaves.

We’ve all heard the stories.

“Well, I met this gorgeous French geezer, and then it all goes a bit blurry!”

“I can’t remember a thing after I started chatting to that Yank bird.”

Hmm, methinks another Galway memory nicked by a passing Dub; purloined by a touring pack of Americans; lifted by Franz from Mainz; all taken without permission, back whence they came.

Our only consolation for such vile robbery is the knowledge that at some point down the road, they are going to awake with a Galwegian’s memory kicking around their mind.

Let’s spare a moment for the ultra-swish Parisian accountant, staring out of the window of her minimalist Montmartre loft, wondering what hon hearth can means ziss bizarre memory of ‘... sheefting Donal in Central Park?’

Pity the poor 53 year-old Christian fundamentalist from Cookieville, Ohio, who came to Ireland to find her roots and buy Aran sweaters for all 15 of her nieces.

Now back home at a PTA cookout she suddenly ‘remembers’ taking Ecstasy, dancing in Salthill Park through the night and making love to a 20 year-old aerobics instructor in Bearna Woods at dawn.

Maybe everyone does deserve a Galway memory. But you can’t go nicking ours.

July 2001.
Diary of a dribbling fool. 

Come with me, dear reader, all the way back to the timeless wastes of last week. Journey with this Jewish Gobshite into the long dark light of a Co. Mayo Monday: 

Monday: Grey cloud. Write. Walk. Two movements. 

Tuesday: Grey cloud. Rain. Write. Walk and get wet. One movement. 

Wednesday: Rain. No writing. No walking. Just rain. Lashing rain. Think I might eat the cat. 

Thursday: Rain. Lashing rain lash lash ha ha ha rain oh rain of my toes, rain of my athlete’s foot, rain on me. Hahahaha. Oh comforting warm wet showers of the goddess fly-producin’ rain.

Play the Ramones ‘It’s Alive’ with volume at ‘11’, and hoover like a sad basstid.

Win £8.00 on a scratchcard. Go straight to pub. Drink Guinness, eat cod and chips. Drive to Galway.

Arrive in Quay Street, and my legs stop moving. The Arts Festival hordes make me feel I’m in the middle of the river that flows past my house, but instead of water and sea trout, this is a torrent of Culture Wannabes.

The sight of all this bourgeois humanity gushing and splurting down Quay Street makes my legs refuse, like a horse in front of a jump.

Into Taylor’s Bar. Seamus Mulligan jabs me in the ribs and tells me a joke, which is in itself, quite a memorable event.
No idea of movements. 

Friday: Morning sunshine in the city, so I grab a pew outside Neactain's, and drink coffee while thoroughly enjoying watching Galway doing its festival thang.

Hours later, gently off my head, I float off into Friday night Galway. A night now lost to me, you will doubtless be delighted to hear. 

Saturday: Out of bed with the lark. I want to be a tourist. Jumping onto the first brightly-painted double decker Tour Bus that passes me in Eyre Square, I am entertained for the next hour, being driven past houses I used to call home. 

As we pass the Atlantaquaria, our guide bursts into a slightly croaky but brave early morning rendition of ‘Galway Bay’, and fair play to her.

However, the highlight of the tour was not her singing, but her explanation of the route:

“For those of you following our journey on the leaflets we gave you, well, if you’re confused, that's because today we are doing the tour backwards!”

The Arts Festival crowd are not yet gone, and with the hot weather, the Race Week hordes have arrived early. 

Galway City is building to a whirling frenzy of consumption, and I’m drinking Red Bull like a madman as I plot my escape.

February 2001. (From Irish Post UK)
The Celtic Tiger is a fragile, imaginary beast. 

Mary from Ballycaloony is on a radio phone-in, giving out to poor Georgio, an Italian official from the European Union.

“Oh yes, Georgio, we hed some verra verra haird toimes in this conchee, so we did, back in da Aytiz, but do you know what we did, Georgio, do ya, do ya?”

Poor Georgio doesn’t quite grasp the rhetoric inherent in Mary’s question.

“Way-all, Mary, I donna hexackerlee-”

“Well, Georgio, oil tellya what we did. We pulled in our belts, and we pulled up our shocksh, and we ate bread and water, and we worked like divills, and we went without holidays to Shpain and da like, and gradjally … gradjally we made it to where we are today, the most succeshful conchee in da world, which we are, I think you’ll find. And now, soon as we have got ourshelves out of the gutta, and made some money so’s we can go on holidays to Shpain and da like, you lot in Europe come along and tell us that we are doing it wrong. Do ya know what I says to dat? Do ya? Do Ya?”

By now, poor Georgio is just the slightest bit wary of Mary and her rantings.

“Er, yes, I mean no, so, we are hall very ‘appy for hireland’s success and-”

“Do you know what I says to dat, Georgio? I says you have no right, dat’s what I say. Joss because your Euro is so patettic and all that, and you haven’t done as well as we have at making a go of it, you can’t shtand seeing the little cunchee doing well, can you? Dat’s da trobble widjall your brossels broorocrats.”

At this juncture, the radio show host jumps in, but sadly fails to bring any sense to proceedings.

“So, Georgio, you can see the feeling in the country is running pretty high. Answer me this, Georgio, on a scale of one to ten, how does Ireland score for unemployment?”

Naturally, poor Georgio evades a direct response to such a crass line of questioning, but our host continues unabashed.

“Okay, so Georgio, on a scale of one to ten, how does Ireland rate for old age pensions? How do we rate for education spending?”

Poor Georgio states the obvious, that it is pointless to score points in this manner, but our host, (and Mary, whose continued presence on the line is heralded by her 40-a day wheezy breathing) are in the mood for a scrap, and any European foreigner will do.

“So Georgio, tell me, would you like to take back the tax cuts? Would you like to stop the old people getting a rise? Tell me, Georgio, which bit of our success would you like to put a stop to?”

I can’t take any more and turn the radio off.

What on earth is it that possess the Irish when they talk about their economic progress?

Everyone, from Mary out on the bog, to Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy, chooses to behave like four year-old children, if that’s not being completely unfair to toddlers.

Personally no, Mary, I don’t get what you’re saying to be honest, because, to use the vernacular, you’re talking absolute bollocks.

As a child I was taught that when one friend tells me I’m wrong, I’m right, but when five friends tell me I’m wrong, I am wrong.

Charlie McCreevy came out of a meeting where all 14 European Finance Ministers admonished him for his inflationary budget, and just like Mary, Charlie stuck his tongue out and shouted:

“I’m the King of the castle, you’re the dirty old rascals!” Then he ate some mud and was sick on the carpet. Well, no, he didn’t, but he might as well have. Instead he adopted the same infantile argument as the radio host.

“Is anyone suggesting we take £500 million from health? Is anyone suggesting that we don’t go ahead with the very necessary roads infrastructure?”

No, Charlie, I’m not. I’m just taking a look at all those new roads, and Ireland’s improving infrastructure, and appreciating the billions of pounds that Europe have invested here over the last few years.

Everywhere you go in this country, huge signs proudly fly the European flag, informing us that European funds have helped build this hospital, that road, this causeway and that airport extension.

What planet is Charlie McCreevy on? Given the billions of pounds of Structural Adjustment Funds that pour into Ireland from Europe every year, how can he have the gall to say:

“Over the last five years we have not received any particular favours from the EU. Anything we got, we got on its merits.”

Right, and I’m Napoleon Bonaparte.

Why do Charlie and Mary both fail to realise that far from wanting to spoil the party, the European Commission is trying save the Irish from rampant inflation, a misery that affects the poor worst of all?

For god’s sake, grow up and smell the coffee.

You can’t expect kazillions of pounds in investment without some notional rules of control. You can’t sign up to a single currency, and expect everyone else to follow your lead.

Do the Irish really imagine that the Celtic Tiger economy has been built on Irish sweat and Irish money?

The Celtic Tiger is a fragile, imaginary beast, more of a chameleon really, fed by American investment, protected by the camouflage of European subsidy.

Until the Irish see that their success is very far from homegrown, they will have to mature quickly and answer to those who make their good lives possible.

 

©Charlie Adley

21.04.2026