One -way or another

From Norway to Galway, and the chance to take up the Irish ways and winds for a happy second time this year.  The annual John Donne Society conference was fortuitously scheduled to coincide with my being in north/west Europe, so a short trip on a tiny plane brought me back once more to the country of my youth.  This time my pleasure in being in this beloved city is amplified by the fact of my being here with beloved friends.  

[The transept windows in the Galway Cathedral are in the shape of a gentiana verna, which grows in the Burren and which I have tattooed on my left wrist]

Conferencing for several days makes for a photo album that is a) pretty static (folks standing at podiums), and b) filled with people whose faces I'm not going to plaster online, so I don't have much to offer in the way of scenery.  

But I will take this opportunity to celebrate the nightly music sessions.  If it's after 9pm in Galway, you're going to find me in the pub.  Of the several options for trad music in Galway, I like the Crane and the Bierhaus, but the champion of them all is Tig Coili.  Longtime haunt of absolute legends, this pub offers at least two sessions per day.  When I'm here in the winter, it's cozy.  In summer?  Insanity.

Actually, I realize that I haven't been in Ireland *in the summer* for 31 years.  I am here to tell you that I do not prefer it.  

First of all: where the hell have all these people come from?  Why are these narrow lanes ringing with American accents?  Who are all these people and why are they all here?  Why are they drinking so much and yelling into the night?  Give me a quiet February evening with a piercing, wet wind and an early sundown; you'll find me holding down a stool in Tig Coili, nursing my club soda all night long.  In July, I just scowl my way through the downtown scrum and try to find room to breathe on the Salthill Prom.

[I've become obsessed with the uillean piper in this photo.  He's so freaking good, across multiple instruments.  It's like he levitates as he plays, and when he levitates, I start to levitate as well.  I've heard him 4 nights in a row, at different pubs.  I hope he doesn't file a restraining order against me.  I swear I'm not after the piper; I'm just after the whole-body response I have to his playing.]

Second of all:  climate crisis--> European heat waves becoming more and more common and kicking continental butt.  Traditionally, Ireland has been spared such outrages.  But increasingly, even here in the usually cool northern waters of the Atlantic, heat waves happen--though they are less extreme than in continental Europe.  Still, believe me when I say that 80 degrees in humid Galway is too freaking hot.  Besides, such hot weather here feels like a broken contract:  I was promised cold and rainy!  If this trend keeps up I'm going to have to fall back to Norway.