A whistlestop tour of my childhood/Galway

It was an absolutely beautiful morning this morning. One of those days when you just want to get right out of the city. I wanted to see the Atlantic. To be honest, I wanted to be at the Pointe du Raz in west Brittany but for a day trip, absent a private plane, that really isn’t an option. So I started thinking about how you could get to the Atlantic Ocean quickest from Dublin City – look, I spent last weekend in Dun Laoghaire, yesterday in Howth and it’s methadone to the heroin that is the Atlantic Ocean and the last time I saw it was sometime ages ago.

In a secondary ideal world, absent the trip to the Pointe du Raz, parts of Cork and Kerry would be top of the list. They are rather a long way away for a day trip so in the end, it occurred to me that the motorway had opened to Galway and Galway, apparently, is now 2 hours from Dublin. This beat off the competition from Sligo. I drove to Galway instead.

I started off in Annaghdown, which is a small village outside Galway off the Castlebar road. When I was a child, my dad used to go fishing with his cousin from the pier there, so I spent a lot of time as a kid around there. I can’t remember the last time I was there, but I’m thinking it’s at least 20 years and possibly closer to 25. We used to camp down there.

I don’t remember that castle keep; although my mother has some slight recollection of it.

Annaghdown has a pier and since I was last there, the pier has been built up a bit, with a wall to protect people from falling in. There are still a lot of boats there, however.

In the 19th century, there was a huge boating tragedy on the lake; I don’t know the details, but there is still a memorial to the people who lost their lives in the accident.

Nearby, there is an abbey, and I had to go there. You see, I have very clear recollection of playing in that abbey with my younger brother and our cousins. I expected to remember it being “bigger” the way things in your childhood usualy seemed.

I was wrong. It was bigger than I remember. It’s not easy to photograph, where it’s located on the side of the road. The photographs of it are dedicated to the memory of my brother who died some years ago.

I loved the colours. So on the way back to Galway city itself, I stopped by the side of the road to play with the contrast between seemingly dead trees and the yellow stuff around them.

From there I moved to Salthill.

It was starting to get hazy and it was quite busy. I have to say that in terms of how a sea amenity is organised, Salthill is better than pretty much everywhere else I’ve been in the country. Kudos to Galway City or County Council, not quite sure who is responsible for Salthill.

This is the diving platform in Salthill.

John Smyth has taken some lovely photographs of it too I think.

Anyway, the plan after I grabbed something to eat was to head further west to catch a sunset. Things didn’t quite work out like that.

When I got to An Spidéal, it started to rain.

and that was it. You can see some evidence of the rain on both the filters and the front of the lens.

I didn’t have time to explore the city. Next time I will do that, hopefully on a day it’s not raining.