Maybe it’s because being the capital of the western seaboard, Galway is arguably the best city in the country to throw a party even in the rain,
writes Brian Byrne.
Which is also probably why they’ve now bitten twice at the Volvo Ocean Race cherry and shown the seaside capitals of the world how it’s done. Doing it so well as the penultimate host last time that they won the race close for this one.
This weekend is the grand finale to an exeptional week of global interest in the city of the pirate queen Grainne Ni Mhaille. Taking the ’is feidir linn’ attitude of Barak Obama to the next level of ’let’s do it global’, the organisers, if a pun can be excused because it’s the best description there is, pushed out the boat in truly magnificent measure.
So even if you had no interest in sailing boats or the sea at all, getting to Galway this last week for even a day was something that has only previously the kind of ’must do’ for this writer’s generation when Doolin in County Clare was a musical and cultural Mecca.
It seemed like everybody in the nation wanted to be Galway people this week. And getting in through the traffic on Friday afternoon was an experience that suggested every one of those people were also trying to get in there. At the same time.
That the rain followed those of us coming from the east didn’t dampen the buzz hardly at all. There were round-the-world sail racing ships to see, music to hear, food to eat, drink to imbibe.
But most of all, Galway this week was about walking. Divided into two 'villages' of entertainment, enterprise and activity, everything was linked by a myriad of fringe presentations, serious and playful workshops in business, tourism and the arts. The best, and indeed the only way to see it all was on foot. Its walkability is one of Galway's charms as a city, and this made it easy to build this week o0f festivities into it.
It is also too all about Volvo, a brand that encompasses much more than the cars and trucks with which we are most familiar. For the six sailing teams that set off last October in Alicante and arrived in Galway this week after taking the long way around the globe, it's about a place in the sea. As it is for local pleasure sailors who are a big part of the buzz this week.
For those who thronged the Volvo Pavilion it was an eye-opener to the range of technologies which Volvo companies are involved in. From the City Safe car safety systems which drivers could try out for themselves, through engines and components for the aerospace industries, to, of course, the trucks which are such a vital part of supplying the stores and factories of the world. And little boys could experience in simulators the driving of those trucks, a clever imprinting of the brand on young minds.
The attractions also brought other stops on the race route to Galway itself. The Abu Dhabi tourist people had falcons and Formula 1 racing to show, the entertainments included a hakka display from New Zealand, and there were many elements of Portugal and France from the stops closer to home.
But here it was really most about Ireland. At a time when our tourism, food, and knowledge-based industries are key parts of the grand plan to get us out of our current misfortune, there was much to be shown to the international media here for the Ocean Race Finale.
The Innovation Hub hosted yesterday a presentation on raising capital, chaired by Dragon's Den Bobby Kerr. The Food Pavilion had a multiplicity of Ireland's best artisan food and drink, and the culinary skills of Chef Neven Maguire. And Irish fashion was high on the catwalk show of the International Design Collective introduced by Victoria Smurfit.
The official entertainments were more than matched by the hubbub on the city's main thoroughfares last night. Shop Street was thronged with people out for a bit of fun and chat, entertained by a range of busking acts. The languages and visible ethnicities showed that, for this wekend anyhow, Galway has become an international tourism destination second to none.
It finishes today with the final in-port competition of the six World Race teams. And while the events and attractions are unbuilt next week, no doubt the organisers of the Galway finale will be wondering where to go from here. They have 'gone global' and brought the rest of Ireland's best with them.
Now it's up to us, I guess, to keep up the momentum of recovery.
As did Annie Doherty to her brother Packie in 1908. Her thoughts are commemorated on the Head. "We watched you until you were gone out of sight at Tower," she wrote her brother later. "I need not tell you how we felt."
