Recently it occurred to me that many colyoomistas have never seen any DVs published before 2007, when we went online, so over the next few weeks I'll be posting excerpts from different years. Here comes 1993.
January 1993.
Taking a breather.
Back in London for a few days, I can see that my first 6 months in Ireland have so far been very good to me. To someone born in London, Galway is like taking a breather.
Well, as far as stress and strain are concerned. However, the craic is far from gentle. The Galway weekend runs from Wednesday to Tuesday, if you let it.
February 1993.
To ash or not to ash.
Classic entertainment from RTE last Sunday. A discussion on the midday radio show concerned itself with the important and weighty matter as to why it was that Albert Reynolds and Bertie Ahern attended the Budget debate with ash on their foreheads on Ash Wednesday.
One of the panellists declared that she thought that they had done it solely to detract from the poor Budget they were presenting. She thought that their actions had trivialised a solemn day.
The phone rang in the studio, and on the line was none other than himself, Bertie’s big brother, who testified on air that Bertie had always worn the ash on his forehead.
“He’s always done it, for as long as I’ve known him.”
“And how long have you known him?” asked the DJ.
I paused for thought.
How long has your big brother known you?
February 1993.
The state of the Church in the State.
There is a massive ignorance in England of all things Irish. Before I came here I didn’t even know that Ireland is the only country in the world, aside from Vatican City, to have the Catholic Church written into its constitution.
So on Sunday I tried and miserably failed to answer the questions asked by my friend Joanna, visiting from England.
We were strolling past Salthill Church just as the congregation was leaving Sunday Mass.
Two teenage girls walked out from the church in front of us, their hands covering irrepressible giggles.
“So what was he like? Did you shift him? Will you see him again?”
Behind them followed two women in their 70s, engaged in fierce debate with each other.
“So he says to me it’s a feckin’ cert, so I put 10 on a reverse forecast and the other bloody one comes in. His is probably still feckin’ runnin’.”
I suggest we go to the pub in order to relax the raised quizzical eyebrows of my guest.
“The pubs are open? On a Sunday? But I thought this was a religious country?”
“Oh it is, but not in those ways. There are more fundamental ways in which the Church influences people here. Like there’s no divorce, and -”
Joanna is choking on her Coca-Cola. Her eyes plead at mine, as if awaiting a punchline, but there isn’t one.
“So do you just have to stay with your husband or wife, even if it’s a nightmare?”
“No no, there’s a lot separated wives and single mothers.”
“But if they’re not divorced they can’t remarry, so if they meet somebody they’re forced to live as adulterers, in sin?”
Confusion bounced around my vacant brainbox. I thought of telling her something of the recent furore about the open selling of condoms; about how chainstores didn’t even want to stock them for fear of alienating their customers.
But I didn’t, because I didn’t want her to think of Ireland as some kind of medieval anachronism. I do know that I love this country, even if I don’t yet understand it, and anyway, she was ready with more questions I couldn’t answer.
“So this Bishop, the one that everyone in Galway keeps saying is such a good Bishop, he wouldn’t be the one with the son in America, would he? Not the one who tried to persuade the woman to get rid of the baby? Not the one who stole Church funds to pay off his mistake?”
“Well yes, that’s him, but apart from that, he’s been a good Bishop!”
July 1993.
Festival of Life, or life of festivals?
I’m standing next to a family of American tourists on Wolfe Tone bridge, when all of a sudden a vast crowd passes by. Actors, musicians, drunks and kids rush past, chased by restaurateurs, shopkeepers, publicans and hoteliers.
Everyone is singing, shouting, laughing and having a seriously good time. Merrymaking swamps us for a moment, and then it’s all gone.
“Wow! What was that?” asks the tourist father.
“That? That was a festival, mate.” I explain.
“Awww, I didn’t want to miss the festival.”
“Don’t worry,” I comfort him, “there’ll be another one along in a minute!”
July 1993.
Local boys slap city on the back!
“Anyone want to know the truth about Eamonn Casey?” asks the Saw Doctor to an ecstatic Arts Festival crowd.
Is the Pope a Catholic?
We’ve just witnessed a flood of Macnas dancers twirling umbrellas up on stage, alongside dragons and drummers.
It’s party time, with the Local Boys Done Good Band playing at home.
Not only that, but Home is Galway, and Galway is giving itself a massive and well-earned slap on the back.
For a city that has no municipal theatre, Galway manages to put on a fair amount of theatre. At one stage during this year’s Arts Festival, we had a choice of thirteen live performances, with people and players moving from tents to warehouses; just about anywhere but the municipal theatre, because we don’t yet have one.
There were pictures in pubs, carvings in cake shops and sculptures on the street, some of them human.
Around midnight the atmosphere at the gig is peaking, and the feel of it is so local that, whilst I don’t in any way feel excluded, I do feel slightly detached. Mind you, there are many who've been saying that about your colyoomist for some time.
The Shams are singing about Presentation Boarders, a lyric that has to be explained to me later. My mind wanders to Race Week, and something clunks in my brain.
Race Week?
Again?
For the first time there is something on the calendar that I remember.
This time last year I was walking off a ferry from Roscoff to Cork, setting foot on Irish soil for the first time. Hiding from the rain in Cork City, I sat in my B&B and watched the Galway Races on tele.
And now I live here, and love it.
It was a great Arts Festival and doubtless an excellent Race Week to come. Never mind the weather, the punters want to spend, and who are we to stop them?
Galway even manages to market itself through the rain.
“Splish-splash splish-splash!” sing the Saw Doctors.
July 1993.
Fuck your politics, it’s your accent we hate!
Last week I was hitching down to Limerick. Three Republican lads driving from Belfast to Lisdoonvarna in a Range Rover were in raptures of delight to have captured me, and the wind-ups came fast and furious.
I quickly became frustrated, and asked them why they presumed my politics. How could they possibly know how I felt about the Troubles, or a united Ireland?
The reply came quick and emphatic.
“We don’t give a fuck about your politics. It’s your accent we hate.”
October 1993.
By the way, what does the ‘D’ stand for?
Michael D. Higgins floats a spoonful of whipped cream on top of his coffee.
The Piano Bar of Murray’s Salthill Hotel provides an other-worldly atmosphere of times gone by, and the present Minster for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht offers the same.
At a time when politicians are rarely anything more than pendulums, swung this way and that by public opinion, Michael D. offers a flashback to the days when people had principles and opinions, which they were not shy of airing in fiery manner.
At first glance he appears more elfin than ministerial, but as he sits, he rubs his hands over his face, pushing them hard down over his head, and the person that emerges is ready for action.
It is the movement of a tired man, which he repeats several times over the course of the evening. I resist the urge to send him off home to bed.
Michael D. speaks with fluidity and conviction.
He may be small of stature but he is not someone who can hide in a corner. Throughout the interview many who pass feel at liberty to say ‘Hello!’, and he responds to them all by name.
For someone doing what is essentially an inhuman job, he retains an accessibility that many others have lost, or never had.
December 1993.
Ireland has not yet ‘Gone with the rain.’
Last Friday I was as mad as a hundred hatters.
The full moon hung massive over the river, unleashing a torrent of light into the black velvet sky. Galway City on a wet windy December night.
Lovely. Bloody lovely.
Coming down from Mill Street towards Monroe’s, the south-westerly storm force wind tore blinding sheets of land-bound ocean into me.
Diving into a sheltered nook by a shop’s front door, I suddenly found myself in exceptionally close quarters with a wild-eyed white-bearded older gent, who seemed to be having far too much of a good time on such a night as this.
Turning to smile and appear peaceful in my intentions, I offered the simplest and what I thought the safest of openings:
“What about that rain, eh? Terrible isn’t it!”
We turned to look at the solid sheets of sideways rain flying up the street, as if God was emptying his bathtub by turning the world the wrong way up.
“Fannnn-tashtic!” cried he, “Fantastic! ‘Tis God’s gift to Ireland, the rain!”
With that he looked over at me smiling, searching into my eyes, and without a discernible trace of irony continued
“If we had no rain we’d have no Ireland. There would be hotels on every clifftop and towns on every beach. Everything you love about Ireland will be gone! Gone with the rain!”
‘Gone with the rain’?
The man was clearly a genius, but thirst was rapidly overcoming my desire to stop and chat with this gifted old geezer.
We looked at each other with suppressed grins and he suggested that after such a Winter, the Summer should be moity.
I agreed wholeheartedly, and we parted company, knowing full well what nonsense that was.
©Charlie Adley
01.04.2026
