Our Changing Irish Times

Cormac MacConnell - The West's Awake

Our Changing Irish Times

May 29, 2008

By Cormac MacConnell

THE times they are a-changin’ . . . I parked my car in the carpark beside Galway City Cathedral last Saturday afternoon. It cost *4 to park for the day. You could not pay a lesser fee.

When I came to Galway in the seventies you could feed a big family for the evening for *4 and have change left over. And the parking lot at the cathedral was free. I sighed and paid up before beginning to walk towards the City Market five minutes away.

It was a beautiful afternoon. The sun was shining brightly. The streets around the Salmon Weir Bridge were teeming with tourists.

The largest of the groups taking photographs of the cathedral were Italian. No language sounds so lyrically beautiful in sunlight than Italian.

I took the riverside path to the market. I was keeping my eyes open for sight of any of the wily salmon poachers, most from the Claddagh, who used to haunt this area, all wearing Polaroid sunglasses so they could spot the fish below the dappled surface.

I thought of old Claddagh kings like Martin Oliver and Ladneen Curran who knew all about that illicit trade. When the Claddagh poachers were in action they usually had a fast-legged boy with them to evade the water keepers.

Once a fish was “stroke-hauled,” if the bailiffs were close, the fish was passed to the boy who sped away the short distance to the cathedral to avail of the ancient rule of sanctuary. The fish would be left in a confessional box until the coast was clear!

I saw a few fishermen along the stretch. None were from the Claddagh, though most were wearing the telltale Polaroids.

They were bulky, middle aged men and, from their speech patterns, they were East Europeans, maybe Polish or Latvian or Lithuanian. Our new East European population includes many keen fishermen. One also sees from Galway court reports that one or two of them don’t know yet that swans are a protected species here. One man was recently found bringing a swan home for the pot. He did not know he was not entitled to do that.

The times they are a-changin’ . . .

On my way to the market along the streets leading there I passed a taxi rank. There were seven cabs awaiting business.

I used know nearly all the drivers only about 15 years ago. Not any more.

Four of the drivers were handsome-looking Africans. Of three buses that passed me by on the walk, two were bring driven by their peers.

Galway was always a contentedly cosmopolitan city, and I reflected to myself that it is pleasant and healthy to see its social mix being even more flamboyant nowadays.

The old City of the Tribes has many more tribes now. It wears the mutation gently and well. And the Celtic past is still as strong as ever.

A young mother and daughter briskly pass me out as I reach the market. They are talking good, rich Connemara Irish. It’s nearly as musical as Italian but, in fairness, not quite.

The times they are a-changin’ . . .

The market has changed out of all knowing. It used be a small earthy enough Saturday morning gathering beneath the long lean spire of the Protestant Cathedral, whose gates were closed against it.

Most of what was offered by the country traders was vegetable. There were tons of spuds, great bunches of carrots with good soil still adhering, cabbages, lettuce, scallions. Basic produce all around, fresh as the morning.

It has changed utterly, expanding in every direction. It is now an exciting experience, crammed with browsers and shoppers, both local and from the new tribes. Food stalls selling a wide range of foods for consumption on the hoof are doing a roaring trade adding exotic aromas.

There is now about everything on sale that one would find in a Turkish bazaar. Lovely wood products, leather bags of every shape and size, bangles and brooches, glittering mirrors and lamps, summer clothes, cheeses, olives, chili, every kind and shape of freshly baked bread. You name it and it is here.

The cathedral gates are now open. There are no stalls inside, but scores of people are making use of the impromptu seating provided by the curb stones.

Many are entering the cathedral itself. Most are family groups. Small children are devouring huge ice cream cones and running along the gravel.

Beside me an American man with a child in the buggy is talking animatedly with a French couple, also with an infant sleeping in their buggy.

Both men are musicians who have played together in the past. They talk about gigs and musical friends and great nights. The American says he has taken a factory job recently to supplement the cash from the music.

He smiles and says the assembly work is “killing me softly,” but it has to be done. All around me the same kind of conversations.

I am startled five minutes later. Out of the throng appear two young men on their early twenties, one with peroxided hair, the other dark.

And as they amble easily through the throng I notice that they are holding hands. And then one gives the other a quick affectionate kiss on the cheek. Nobody pays the slightest attention to them. That public display would not have occurred even 10 years ago I think.

As I head back to my car in the cathedral car park I think grinningly of the ferocious Bishop Michael Browne who built the cathedral in the sixties and was nicknamed Cross Michael. He once raised the national roof after a woman’s nightie was humorously mentioned on the popular Late Late Show on national television.

What would he think of men kissing each other and holding hands in the midst of the Saturday market?

On the edge of the market, as I leave, an Irish busker with a banjo is plying his trade at the corner. He is singing a rousing version of “Galway Bay” and he’s singing it the old way. I gave him as much as I’d paid for my parking slot.

Yes, the times they are a-changin’ . . .

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