Pub lore and nostalgia
There are two pubs - one in Galway City still standing and the other outside the city, which survived not the voracious grappling of the 'Celtic Tiger' - that I'd like to eulogise here. Both are examples of the vintage Irish pub - vintage like an old vintage car or the best of wines - and what makes County Galway so special!
The first one - Naughton's - Tigh Neachtain - I first encountered in 2002, and in 2004 I returned to show it to a Hungarian visitor. The pub is famous for Live Irish music - is an Irish music pub extraordinaire - which is saying something in the oasis, that is Galway City - has a very unique decor, photos, pub architecture, but most of all, has the typical feature of an Irish Pub - a Snug - on both sides. The Snug being the place where the shy type, the private taciturn individual, can 'hide in' and wear the garland of anonymity to one's heart's content. These Snugs are authentic to boot, and conjure up images of a novelist, a struggling poet, a murder mystery writer, snuggling up into them during the day and writing their tomes and canons. I wonder did Liam O' Flaherty ever haunt or hang out here?
But this particular visit was special for a specific reason: as I sat down in a Snug with the Hungarian visitor, I spotted in the Snug behind, a man who I recognised as the Chieftain Browne from the Browne Clan of Galway, about whom I had just read in a magazine (touch of serendipity here, I think!) with a very aristocratic foreign gentleman. I headed off to the toilet, and on the way back, I approached them (breaking the code and etiquette of privacy in the process) and said "Your name is Browne? "Yes, how did you know that?" he replied, so I explained I'd read an article about him recently. He duly invited us to join them!! We were introduced to his friend, who it just happened was Hugo O'Neill, the descendent of 'Red' Hugh O'Neill who claimed the title of the Chieftain of the O'Neills, and a rightful heir to the titles of the Earl himself. I recited him a poem and then he asked me would I do some Yeats? I did "The Lake Isle of Innisfree", then "The Stolen Child" and hand on my heart, a tear descended down his cheek, as if some army rapidly advancing across the field of peace. He thanked me; we talked some more and then parted (little did I think we'd meet again but again serendipity, as I call it, works in strange ways; three years later, I met him in Rathmullan, County Donegal, at the seminar for the '400th anniversary of "The Flight of the Earls"').
At night, the pub is brimming with Irish music and has the craic, the magic of the west and Galway, to such an extent, that one would think it had an infinite patent on such things........ and as an aside, has been known to unfurl French flags for Bastille Day! www.tighneachtain.com
The Connemara Coast Hotel This hotel has great Irish music sessions on a Thursday night, in which local musicians come to perform, doing their thing, in a laid back relaxing way! But it's the establishment's previous incarnation, when it was the music venue Teach Furbo that bids me to reminisce and go down memory lane. Going back to the 80's, the memories flood - like an inundation whose water is as pure and moist as ever - of gigs I attended there whilst on holiday in Galway. And this is riven with the presence of my father RIP (who'd such connections with the west, and especially Galway). For it was there, we went to see the legendary Wolfe Tones perform! We also saw Stockton's Wing there, if my memory serves me right! And these gigs still stand the test of time from the decade when the Irish ballad scene seemed to be at its zenith and reached its halcyon heights. Teach Furbo had a special kind of atmosphere, and the fact that it straddled the Atlantic, and was nestled at the cusp of Connemara, seemed to be part of its cocktail of magic and chemistry; it was in a great setting.
So Teach Furbo at Maam Cross - now reincarnated as the Connemara Coast Hotel - had the true 'craic' and substance of Irish pubs, music venues, ballads etc and was once again an example of everything that makes Galway special and the diadem in the crown of the west. This reminiscence is a real blast from the past for me but perhaps on Thursday nights, something of this halcyon time survives in the Coast Hotel!
There's no better place in Ireland for pubs, 'craic', musical odysseys, than both Galway city and county. To quote the great WB Yeats, they carry the spirit of "The indomitable Irishry!"
