“The boats are gone.”
“Boats? What boats?”
“You know, the
boats, the race, the world yacht racy round the planet boats. The reason why
this place was packed like sperm inside a celibate last week. The reason we
were crushed, mulched, drenched, squeezed dry and soaked again with all the
drinking, and now they’re gone. The boats. The boats. They’re gone.”
“Oh right. Yeh, I
noticed it was a bit mad round here last week, but sure enough d’yaknow, it’s
just Galway. That’s what I said to myself. I said to myself I said ‘Sure, it’s
all gone mental, everyone’s drunk and partying like there’s no tomorrow, but
that’s Galway!’ "
If cities were
fictional characters, Galway would be Frank Gallagher, the patriarch from Paul
Abbott’s groundbreaking TV dramedy Shameless. Like Frank, Galway doesn’t care
why or how it parties, it just concentrates on enjoying itself to the full, and
then a little bit more.
The week before
the yacht race hit town, I watched a Volvo bigwig on TV explaining how
impressed all the Volvo people had been to see 10,000 Galwegians cheering and
screaming in the docks when the boats arrived in the middle of the night for
the 2009 stopover.
For some reason I
found it more sad than amusing, because the man hadn’t a clue what was really
going on that night. He said they’d decided to award Galway City the Grand
Finale because of the enthusiasm the city clearly had for the race.
Enthusiasm ... for
the race? Hmmm.
What he clearly
didn’t know was that somewhere in that crowd of 10,000 there was a 26 year old
from Athenry shifting a nurse from UCH.
“Slow down big
boy! Let’s wait ‘til after the boats come in!”
“What boats?”
“Duh! The racing
boats. The Vulva. There's a big race going on -”
“ - sure you’re
right there girl, there’s a race on tonight, alright! A race for you and me to
get naked!”
“No, choosh,
y’know, the racing round the world boats are coming in now. That’s why
everyone’s here!”
“Sure it’s half
one in the morning on a Saturday night in Galway City - where else would we
be?”
Sorry to dampen
your nautical squib Mr. Racing Volvo Yacht person, but Galway’s ‘enthusiasm’
was not for the yachts, stunning and mighty though they are. In Galway City
people enthuse about drinking. Come to Galway any Saturday night and there’ll
be 10,000 drunks looking for a party, and your yachts coming in just happened
to be the venue du jour, as they say in Oranmore.
That’s not to say
the whole damn shebang was unimpressive. Just because Galway’s enthusiasm stops
at the end of an empty glass, don’t think us shallow. We really were into your
race: the winner, losers and craft, just in the same way you’re into the
birthday girl at a birthday party. You happen to be the excuse for us to party
today, right now, so that makes you special, and who knows what, who or why
next week.
Except we do know.
The boats are gone and Film with a capital ‘F’ is now ruling our roost for a
few days. Then it’ll be the Arts Festival, followed by Race Week, followed by
blood transfusions and then into the Oyster Festival, the Grand Soft Day
Festival, and if my good friend The Body gets his way, the Moaning Festival,
which I happen to think would be a blast.
Here in Galway we
have festivals for literature; quilts; fishing; kites; food; bicycles; theatre;
children; children's theatre; being GLBT and St. Patrick. We host Groove
Weekenders and Cuban Fiestas and we somehow managed to create a festival for a
Latin Quarter in the centre of a medieval Celtic city. We let rip with whiskey
because it’s Tuesday and console ourselves with hot ports on Wednesday. We’ve
got festivals and fleadhs coming out of our arse, and if anyone knows the
second line of that catchy little ditty please send it in!
Galway is a pure
party town. Our enthusiasm knows no bounds. So yes, boats, that was great. We
went mad for the boats. They were brilliant, really inspirational.
Film this week.
We are Shameless.
We’ll celebrate anything, everything, a void of things or a glut of things.
Must be all the sea air that’s hurled at us by the wind. Whatever it is, I love
it, and even though I don’t participate in the craic anything like I used to, I
love the knowledge that it’s out there; that if I want to I can go into the
city and know for sure that pubs will be filled with happy revellers any and
every night.
Shameless’ Frank
Gallagher would love Galway, but Frank is fictional and from Manchester, so
with apologies to those who’ve never seen Shameless (particularly series 1-3!)
I’ve adapted his famous opening monologue.
Were the world an
honest place, this would have been the original pitch Let’s Do It Galway made
to the Volvo Ocean Race committee:
“Now, nobody's
sayin’ that Galway City is the Garden of Eden, but it's been a good home to us,
to me and me mates, who I’m proud of, ‘cos every single one of them reminds me
a little... of Galway.
“We can think for
ourselves, drink for days and if the booze doesn't get us the Atlantic will
blow us away.
“Come and watch
students make a mess of the lives, doing Aftershock shots as they scratch up
their hives. See post-traumatic drinkers with 1,000 yard stares and tourists
convinced our city is theirs.
“What sounds on
earth could ever replace locked Galwegians watching a horse race? ‘Cos this,
people reckon is why pubs and clubs were kindly invented, to calm us all down
and stop us going mental! These are Galway City’s basic essentials! But all of
them, to a man a woman whoever we are, we know first and foremost the most
vital necessity in this life is ...
We know how to
throw a PARTY! HA HA ... SHCATTER!”
