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Here’s a question for all you musically inclined regulars, of which I’m sure there are many: what do Ronan Keating, “The Edge” and Nicky Byrne from Westlife all have in common, besides contributing to the more nauseating side of modern Irish culture? Why, they all live (or have lived) in Malahide – the upmarket seaside town located 20 minutes to the north of downtown Dublin!
The New Year arrived and so did the perfect weather. Sunshine now soaked every corner of the frost-bitten land and it felt very much the way a new decade should – chilly but radiant. So to mark the rare environmental bliss, we jumped in a bus – together with a mob of fellow shivering tourists – and bounced for 25 miles out of Galway to reach the area known as ‘The Burren’.
Never underestimate dry socks – one of the many lessons learnt during our maroonment on Aran. How to adapt to chaos and wrecked plans – another. The tiny isle of Inishmore may have been a charming temporary host, but we were more than happy to set foot back in Galway. It was now the last day of 2009, and the ‘City of the Tribes’ was still very much waiting to be explored.
The Aran Islands are synonymous with people’s image of oldest Ireland. Musicians have composed songs. Writers have versed love poems. Even the entertainment world have filmed it when they want to capture the semblance of time-worn Irishness. And it’s no coincidence. The sporadic furore really is understandable. Something inspiring, intangible and vital does still exist here.
Edging out from our rest stop somewhere near the outer environs of Enniskillen, it was hard to tell whether our demise would come from the stealthy black ice or deceivingly playful grey slush. The pavements were now buried in a messy slop of melted, trodden snow, yet lurking cleverly beneath lay the kind of invisible danger that every pedestrian dreads.
