Tag: Galway

Categories
Politics

So How Should I Vote, Mr. Internet?

Posters are going up. Then blowing down. Then going up again. A lot of them are for independent candidates, which I think is great. Ideally we’d throw out every member of every party and start over with a Dáil full of people who are allowed to think. Though be careful – there are some out there who may appear to be independent but are just printing the words “Fianna Fáil” very, very small.

Poster CartoonThe one I see around here most is Noel Grealish¹. Well technically he’s independent, but being the guy left behind when the party’s over is not what that word usually brings to mind. There are plenty more independent independents out there, and I may vote for them all. Though one did annoy me today by thinking that a good place for a poster was a dangerous bend in the road.² Sure, people do slow down there. But we really shouldn’t be reading.

A couple of years back, shortly after the collapse, a Fianna Fáil woman was picking a fight with me in a wine bar late one night. “But who else is there?” was her refrain. Of course she wanted me to name some other party so she could argue that they were just as bad.³ I wasn’t having that. My answer was “Anyone. Anyone would be better than Fianna Fáil. You. Me. Some stranger off the street. Citizens selected by lottery. Anyone.”

I believed that passionately then, and even more now. Fianna Fáil’s central problem is that they have been in power too much. It leads not only to corruption, but to a different way of thinking. They come to inhabit a different culture – a ruling culture. We see it now in their inability to really grasp how betrayed the country feels.

But who do you actually vote for? The alternatives are, frankly, not terribly inspiring. Well we are blessed in this country with one of the best voting systems in the world. Yes it does have its disadvantages and probably could use some reform – though I certainly wouldn’t blame it for all the failings in our political culture – but while we still have it, we ought to make the best of it.

(For overseas readers: In brief, we vote by numbering the candidates in order of preference. I hope to explain the system better in the next day or so.)

You know who you’re against, but not who you’re for? I can sympathize – but it really doesn’t matter. One thing that makes the system great is that you can effectively vote against a party. If you just put the candidates in random order, leaving out the Fianna Fáil ones, you’ve made it that bit harder for FF to reach a quota.

It is better to have a real order of preference of course. That can become quite a game of skill, but there’s one good move that everyone should know: If you give your “Number One” to a candidate you expect to be elected, you’re virtually throwing it away. Electing someone is the last thing your vote should do. Well, perhaps the second or third last.

There is almost no such thing as a “wasted vote” in the Irish system. Your vote can always end up with an elected candidate if you wish. But once it does, it’s more or less finished. Yes, if a candidate gets more votes than the quota the surplus is distributed, but the actual ballots passed on are chosen randomly so the chances of yours being among them are poor. If your first candidate is eliminated however, your vote always passes on to your next choice. Line them up carefully and it can boost the chances of a whole series of protest or independent candidates before winding up with an elected one.

So you should never, ever not vote for a candidate because you think they have no chance. You lose nothing by trying it, and you might be pleasantly surprised.

  1. The last of the Progressive Democrats, a ‘New Right’ conservative party who are very much over.
  2. That last bad corner between Headford and Corrandulla, if you’re thinking of moving it.
  3. Well I suppose at the time she would have argued that they were actually worse, but “just as bad” is as high as a FF supporter dare shoot for these days.
Categories
Humour

When The Road Hits Back

Wheels CartoonYou remember just after Christmas I was complaining about the potholes in Corrandulla village? Perhaps I should have given credit to the County Council for getting them all patched just a week or so later.

Bloody glad I didn’t though, because the fucking things are back already. What did they use to fill them, loose gravel and spit? Once again, a drive to the shops is more like an amphibious assault up a defended beach.

It’s damaged our car. One of the headlights has failed. At least, I thought it had. I was just going to remove the bulb today to find a replacement, but wisely I gave it one final test first. (OK, I’d forgotten which one had blown.) Weirdly, it worked this time.

A little investigating, and I notice the right bulb connector is hot. Much too hot – melted and blackened. It must have come loose and been shorting. I pushed it back on tightly and it seems to be working all right since, but it will need to be replaced. And soon, because the NCT¹ is coming up and they probably don’t take kindly to a burning smell coming from the engine compartment.

I can’t prove it was the potholes that shook it loose of course. It might have been, say, trained enemy marmosets.

What worries me more is the other roads they repaired, particularly the one between here and Headford. This is my favourite local drive. It’s excellent exercise for the learner, full of blind bends, blind hills, a hidden entrance or two, turns with lousy camber. Sometimes all these at once. Challenging. OK, dangerous. Certainly, plenty dangerous enough without the extra hazard of holes big enough to bite a wheel off.

They still haven’t finished repairing it. If it’s being done to the same quality as Corrandulla, then logically they are never going to finish.

  1. National Car Test. That was an easy one, wasn’t it?
Categories
Politics

The Storm Before The Other Storm

Wind is howling across Ireland today. The City Museum here in Galway had to close to the public because bits of it were blowing away. Excellent food in the museum by the way, including an orange cake that tastes like oranges wish they could. Get there when it’s safe again.

I saw a bird in a shop, sheltering from the storm. It was a starling, speckled and black-eyed. It hopped and flew around quite content for the duration with the indoor life. And the thing is, it was a wholefoods store. Made a good advert for the place really. “Fuck me the stuff is fresh here. It’s got birds in it.”

Speaking of tortured links vaguely to do with flying, glance please at the picture to the right. Is this not one of the most egregious examples of proofreading you’ve ever seen on a professional magazine? The story is kind of strained too, considering that flying in Ireland is not something RAF Harriers ever really did, but it must be admitted that they were amazing planes.

Maybe I’ll have time to say more about them tomorrow. It would be a change from all the politics. That is, if Egypt doesn’t explode. Which I’m very afraid it’s about to do.

Categories
Technology

Sketch From The Journey Homeward

The MidlandsTravelling through the darkness of the midlands. There could be anything outside those windows. Anything but people. Might as well be in a submarine.

It’s a bus though. I am in favour of trains but you don’t get the low fares at weekends, and since they built motorway all the way to Galway it’s as fast as the train and almost as comfortable. Certainly quieter – this Volvo purrs like a contented fridge. Aside from legroom, the main reason to prefer the train is that it has power outlets. I am actually fine for power – two spare batteries after this one – but in this portable age charging equals comfort, discharging discomfort. Courtesy power outlets should really be everywhere. First pub I went to in Dublin had locks on their sockets. And they charged €4.50 for a coffee, which begins to border on crime. Opposite that National Leprechaun Museum, they were clearly tourist trappers.

What the bus does supply for free on the other hand is Wi-Fi, so I might as well use that instead of my own 3G. Good opportunity to download the new OpenOffice suite… And yet, I still resent the log-in procedure. They want to know my name, my e-mail address, and my impressions of the the service – before I can use it! I was bluntly honest about the last there, but apparently my address is now whynot@lsoaskmydicksi.ze.

Seems to work as well as any other.

It’s a shame because it makes what is a genuinely useful service suddenly feel like a trap. Will they give my details to marketeers? Perhaps it’s all in the terms and conditions, but dammit I’m on a bus, I don’t want to have to read a long document and consult a lawyer. Couldn’t the free Wi-Fi just be, you know, free? It’s not like non-customers are going to be stealing it after all. Not unless they run alongside.

Categories
Cosmography

Project ’06 Revisited

Fish on Parade
Typical Day in Galway's Pretend Fish Market

If you’re like me you probably thought last summer’s Project ’06 was a triumph. The energy and sense of community that the Festival had in its heyday was back in force. This was surely the way forward.

And like me, you would be wrong. Project ’06 was a complete failure.

The point of the Project was not to show that great things can be achieved when people work for free, or even that there is a huge amount of good stuff going on that the Festival doesn’t include. We already knew that. The point was to change the Arts Festival, to make it again the vital force it once was.

What the Festival originally achieved is pretty much taken for granted now, but it changed Galway. Culture really can make a vast difference to a location. You have to remember that in 1978, Galway was on no part of anyone’s cultural map. The John Hinde postcards called us “Gateway to Connemara”, and that faint praise was painfully true. The only reason most visitors even passed through here was because we had the only bridges south of Cong.

That changed, and it was changed by artists. People mostly in third level education, at NUI,G and GMIT (then UCG and the RTC), who decided they could put on the show right here.

Druid pioneered it, proving you could be from Galway and still be famous around the world. But the Arts Festival made Galway famous in itself, changing its image from a dowdy, decaying place forgotten by everyone except Americans searching for the graves of their ancestors into somewhere people wanted to be and to live. Even when conventional industries were folding, Galway had new ideas and opportunities that kept the economy growing.

In recent years though, the Festival’s role has changed fundamentally. It still does an excellent job of bringing global quality performances to Galway, but that was only a part of the original point. It was also expected to help the cultural life of Galway develop. Not only is the more tourism-orientated Festival of today not so good at promoting Galway-based arts, it has reached the point where it’s actually becoming harmful to them. At the one time of year when local performers and artists might be able to make some decent money, venues and equipment are unavailable to them. Of the little money there is available from sponsorship and government funding, a huge wedge goes to international acts that are already better funded in their countries of origin than we dream of.

The main request of Project ’06 was that a small proportion of funding and facilities be ring-fenced for the arts in Galway. The Festival however seems unreceptive to the idea, apparently unwilling to become directly involved. They would prefer if something like Project ’06 continued as a “fringe” festival. But that would do nothing about the current competition for resources, and it ignores the fact that a huge voluntary efforts like ’06 are not possible every year.

Besides, Galway’s artists should not be the fringe event in their own city. That would be to miss the whole point. A Festival that’s all about bringing in great acts to watch is just more television, another thing to be passively consumed. The reason the Arts Festival was once great is that it wasn’t something just happening here. It was something Galway did.

Categories
Cosmography

Project ’06 – Galway Rennaissance

Giant Boy
Image by Barnacles Hostels via Flickr

It was a hell of an achievement. I’d been saying for years that the Arts Festival had lost its magic, yet in a trice it was restored. And when I say a trice, I mean a huge amount of work by the volunteers and organisers of Project ’06. In that lay the secret ingredient the official festival had been running out of: Community involvement. I had come to think that Galway had got too big, rich and cynical for that to work anymore, but apparently the goodwill is still there to be found.

So how did the official festival lose it? Not because it was actually bad. On the contrary, it’s admirably professional and quite famous. But I think that as it grew successful it came to more clearly benefit the tourism industry, less clearly the arts themselves. Galway stubbornly remained a place where very few could actually make a living from art. People who had contributed for art’s sake began to feel that their effort had gone to profit someone running a hotel or a bar, who might be quietly laughing.

The Festival grew to have very little to do with the city, to the point of becoming a stop on some international circuit, the kind where the singer has to glance at something taped to the mike stand before saying “Hello Galway”. Less like something we do in other words, more something done to us. And all because the crappy had been forgotten.

Yeah, the crappy. The un-glossy. The not thoroughly polished. The slightly shambolic. I’m not singing in praise of unprofessionalism, but there needs to be a place for people to try, to learn, to take the risks. Only there can the real magic happen. The thing that turns out to be important is almost never the one that comes pre-approved and ready-reviewed. That might be entertainment, but it’s unlikely to be art.

Project ’06 was that sort of place, but it’s a one-off. How can that spirit be kept alive? Paul Fahy suggests that Galway is big enough for a fringe festival now. Paul did his time as a volunteer and he knows what he’s talking about in community arts, but I’m not so sure about this idea; it seems to put the onus on the powerless. There is an enormous gulf between the influence that the Arts Festival has and what grassroots volunteers can muster. The opportunity to bridge it lies almost entirely in the hands of the Festival. And it is what the Festival needs to do if it is to remain a dynamic part of the cultural life of Galway, and not become just some uppity version of Race Week.

The official Festival needs to get back to its roots again, and become… less glossy. More about encouraging and facilitating local potential. And if that means spending less on international greats and more on stuff that’s not quite ready for primetime, then so be it. An atmosphere of goodwill and fun on the streets is worth any number of globally famous acts.

Categories
Cosmography

No Alternative to the Arts Festival

This is a Galway Hooker
This is a Galway Hooker. Get over it.

Back in March I told you about a competition to name a new Galway-brewed beer. I didn’t enter myself, there seemed no point. I predicted on the spot that no name except “Galway Hooker” could possibly win.¹

You can now get Galway Hooker beer in a few pubs around town. It’s good. As an ale, it’s a (very distant) relative of Smithwicks. There are some key differences however, chiefly the same as those between a chemical factory and an actual brewery. Hooker has a smoky, hoppy flavour that balances the bitter and the sweet. My Japanese friend Kiyoko thinks it has a slight bouquet of berries, but she’s a girl. I think it makes you drunk. Having tested it extensively though, both by itself and in combination with other drinks, I can attest that it is easy on the head the next morning. Both Neachtain’s and Roisin’s got though their supplies ahead of schedule, so it seems to be going down okay.

Any problems? Well, that name guys… Gag names compel people to make the obvious jokes, and that gets tedious fast. I just hope that doesn’t put too many people off.

Speaking of homebrewed solutions, Project 06 is looking good. We are carefully assured that this is not an alternative, rival, or fringe to the Arts Festival. Nobody wants to tread on toes. But it needs to be said – Project 06 is what the Arts Festival was meant to be.

The official Festival is spectacular and highly professional, but at some point it got out of scale. Once, most of the emphasis was on bringing locally created art to the people of Galway. Now it seems to be more about attracting people from overseas to come and see art that is also from overseas… Part of the tourism industry, in other words. Once too it acted as a bridge between Galway and the world stage, telling people “Yes, we can do it here, you can aim that high”. Now you need to be pretty famous already just to step onto that bridge. Arguably it actually competes with local arts.

Project 06 goes back to the original idea, attempts to create a festival with a more local, community feeling. To this end they have found an amazing number of small but useful venues all over town, in places you’d never expect art to occur. A huge amount of effort and material has been volunteered. Yeah, like the old days. I think this speaks volumes about the level of respect and admiration Galway has for people like Ollie Jennings and Padraic Breathnach.² It may all be a bit dreamy and idealistic, sure. But it was dreamy and idealistic the first time.

  1. It’s the name of a traditional Galway boat design. (See pic.)
  2. Founders, respectively, of the Galway Arts Festival and Macnas street theatre company.
Categories
Humour

Name Your Poison

Taken in an Irish Pub located in Madrid, Spain...
This beer is completely unknown in Ireland

Wondrous news! Galway is about to get its first “craft beer”. For those unfamiliar with the concept, it’s pretty easily explained. Most of the beer we get in this country is made by giant brewers like Diageo and Heineken. There’s this thing about giant brewers. Basically it’s hard to tell their products from defrosted mammoth urine.

Some countries really make beer. The Czech Republic I have raved about before; even their mass-produced brews are among the best in the world. Staropramen, Budvar, Gambrinus and Pilsner Urquell are widely available, cheap, and delicious. The sad exception is Krusovice, a good beer that travels so badly it is best drunk from the vat with a short straw.

Perhaps because their French neighbours make such an unwarranted fuss over their wines, the Belgians outdo the world in the variety, audacity and of course sheer freaking alcohol content of their beers. If you want to drink a stout that’s double the strength of Guinness, try a Gaulois. Their legendary Bush beer is, at 12 per cent, stronger than many wines. It should be approached with caution and terminated with extreme prejudice. They also produce a wide variety of fruit-flavoured grain beverages, considered by many to be on the very leading edge of hangover technology.

Germany of course is famous for the purity of its beers. And whatever you think of the idea of hand-pumps and pre-refrigerator temperatures, it must be said that England provides an enormous variety of ales and bitters, many of them with remarkably silly names.

But Ireland? As far as the rest of the world is concerned, we make a beer. Other native or semi-native products like Harp have rightfully achieved a state of almost total global obscurity. “Irish Reds” have had some success abroad, no doubt based at least in part on the mistaken assumption that we actually drink the crap here. For the most part our choice is between locally-brewed editions of the world’s biggest brand-name lagers. Or, to give them their technically correct name, swill.

It’s no mystery why local brewing has never taken off in this country. (The term “effective duopoly” may be libellous, so I didn’t say it. OK?) The only surprise is that a handful do exist. I’ve not been alone in speculating why we didn’t have one here. Lord knows Galway beer consumption could support a brewery or six. But – sit down, this may come as a shock – some guys stopped talking about it and have actually done it.

You don’t see that every day.

They’re calling it an “Irish pale ale”, but the actual name of the brew will be up to you, its future imbibers. They’re holding a competition. The prize, naturally, will be beer. Check out “nameyourbeer.net”. They have a fun attitude.

There’s just one thing I hope. Not that this beer will be good – I know it will be good, compared to the liquid evils available now – but simply that they’re not going to charge a premium for it. Bad beer is already keeping me impoverished. Better could be fatal.

Categories
Humour

Some Sort of an Introduction

So what is this thing called ‘Microcosmopolitan’? I’ll explain. Some years back I was challenged to describe Galway in one word. I cheated. I made the word up. It’s a hybrid of cosmopolitan and microcosm, because Galway is pretty damned interesting (Yes, this is your feel-good column), but at the same time small and self-contained. Almost a city-state, or as the Ancient Greeks called it, a polis. And at about fifty thousand in population it has now grown to the size which, if I remember correctly, Plato thought ideal: big enough for strength and diversity but still small enough to govern itself effectively.

UNIFORMS

Therefore the place would run like clockwork – if we had real self-government. The Greek idea was to do it by a sort of jury service, for the population to actually make decisions for themselves. The only decision we get to make is choosing councillors from the people political parties choose for us to choose from. Fix, or what? Not that the council has that much power anyway – I think they get to decide the colour of the parking wardens’ uniforms. Most decisions are made by the City Manager, appointed by Dublin.

Only one solution. Yep, our own flag and navy, why not? And some of those cruise missile things.

BIZARRE PRACTICES

So before I get carried away, this is the idea: Just as some papers will have a reporter in Zaïre, say, who sends back idiosyncratic personal sketches meant to inform you about what’s going on there, we have a correspondent right here at home. Saves a fortune on phone bills. And even if it never tells you anything new about Galway, it’ll make you realise how little you really know about Zaïre.

And we want to get this old-fashioned Graham Greene overseas reporter feel just right; therefore, your correspondent has gone native, got himself mixed up in bizarre local rituals and practices, and appears from his dispatches to be rapidly losing his grip on civilised reality. No need to thank me, it’s all part of the service.

PSYCHEDELIC DRUGS

Okay, now back to getting carried away. Yeah, cruise missiles are great. Any weapon inspired by a Chuck Jones cartoon is okay by me. It’s true, don’t you remember? In Daffy Duck; those Acme rockets that screech to a halt behind the victim, tap him on the shoulder and wait for him to turn around before blowing him to hell? Some US general saw that one night while ‘studying the military applications of psychedelic drugs’ and went “Yeah! Let’s have some of those babies!”.

But weapons that hit what they’re supposed to have to be an advance on ones that annihilate a whole general area. When it’s improved to the point where war becomes a matter of picking off the other side’s Marshalls and Presidents personally, that should be about the end of it.

INTERFLORA

Of course, they sometimes go and put nuclear warheads on cruise missiles anyway, which makes about as much sense as sending a nuclear letter bomb. In fact when you consider that they cost a million dollars apiece, it’s more like sending one by Interflora, with a nice note. I think Galway can get by without a nuclear deterrent, though France has been kind enough to offer us theirs¹. No thanks, we’re trying to give them up.

Which reminds me, there’s one thing I’ve always wondered about the need to test new nuclear weapons: What was wrong with the old ones, did they not work? If anybody out there is thinking of invading France, now might be a good time.

  1. A French nuclear-armed warship had recently visited, and been met with protest.
%d bloggers like this: