Dear Folks,
Well I last posted on Thursday after travelling up to Northern Mayo and the Museum of Country Life. I also visited the Michael Davitt museum that day (very interesting, and well worth the trip if you're into Irish history) and the county town, Castlebar.
Friday I did a little hiking along the Western Way trail on the south bank of Lough Corrib, nice day and some beautiful scenery. Saturday was Sabbath, so no sightseeing, but I did drive over to Dunmore to have a cup of tea with Della and her son Peter and then over to Irishtown to have another cup of tea with mom's aunt Joan and cousins Mary and Angela and neighbor Maureen.
Irishtown, Co. Mayo, is a very small crossroads village on the road from Ballandine to Dunmore. It's where mom and her sisters grew up, as well as the Cullina cousins. And it's about three miles down the other road to Milltown in Galway, where the McGarry cousins are from. It's also where my father's grandfather and great-grandfather lived. It's one point of historical importance is that it was where the first large tenant farmer's meeting was held in April 1879. That meeting provided the impetus for the founding of the Land League. I'll probably write more about that in some future post.
Behind me is the 'corner house' where my mother and aunts where born, as well as my mother's father and her aunts and uncle. It's been renovated by the new owners and looks a lot different than it did when my grandparents Paddy and Aileen lived there. The section of the first floor where you see the window used to be their shop.
Back in the day there were a couple of shops in Irishtown. Joan and Michael Cullina had one at the front of their house, pictured above.
After having dinner with Kay at her house in Galway, I walked over to Sea Road, closer to the Galway city center. It's still light out, but it's about 9:30 pm when this picture was taken. The Crane Bar is one of the best places to hear traditional music in Galway. They have free music upstairs every night.
Featured musicians that night were Michael Chang on the fiddle and Bill Wright on the Bouzouki. That's right, you heard me, Michael Chang. He's an American from Seattle, and a classically trained violinist who moved to Ireland in the '90's. Since then he's worked as an Irish session musician mainly in Galway. A lot of his friends showed up to sit in. Besides Chang and Wright there were 14-16 other musicians playing flutes, fiddles, banjos, accordian and bodhran drum.
Next day was the day of the big Galway-Mayo match. Mike Cullina got me a ticket and I went with him and his two boys, Mike and Feargal. Mike's a Maigh Eo man and his wife and kids are all Gaillimh people. The football rivalry between the two neighboring counties is fierce.
Pearse Stadium in Salthill (west of the city center) is only about a twentyfive minute walk from Kay's house in Knocknacarra. I got there well before the match. The capacity of the stadium is supposed to be 34,000, that includes SRO on the terrace. There were 20,000 there yesterday for the match. There's no parking lot and the stadium is right in the middle of a residential area. People park their cars as near as they can and then everyone walks through the neighborhood to get to the gates.
There were a lot of Mayo fans at the game yesterday. If they win the Connacht championship this year it will be their fifth year in a row. Sadly, Mayo is one of those teams that's always a top contender for the All Ireland Final (the Sam Maguire cup) but hasn't won it since 1951. Mom was at that match in Croke Park. I think she went up with a bus load of kids from Claremorris. The team is supposed to be under a curse, like the Rangers or the Red Sox. The story is that on the return trip passing through Foxford they were disrespectful to a funeral in progress and the local priest cursed them and said that Mayo wouldn't win another All Ireland while any members of the '51 team were still alive. Of course I don't believe in curses and the Sox have won the World Series three times since 2004, the Rangers only once since '94, but when the Cullinas told me the story they did mention that two of the '51 team are still alive.
The two teams being led in a parade around the pitch before the start of the game.
Our man, number 7, Colm Boyle, plays for the Ballandine (IRISHTOWN!) Davitts. Gaelic Athletic Association sports are strictly amateur. None of these guys get paid to play, they do it all for county pride and love of the game, and they all have outside jobs. Colm is a Garda, a police officer, in Galway.
And the start of the game. I won't pretend I understood all of the nuances of play. I hope to get to a few more matches while I'm here. It's a fun sport to watch, very different from soccer. Most of the time the ball is carried by the players as they move down field. There's not a lot of fancy footwork. There is a lot of tackling. Most of the time I still can't tell the difference between a legal tackle and a foul (I'm not sure the ref's can either). The clock rarely gets stopped, minutes are added at the end of game if play is interrupted. You can either score a goal, worth three points, by getting the ball in the net or a point by getting the ball between the posts over the crossbar. Players are allowed to carry the ball three steps and then they must either hand pass it (they kind of punch it with the side of their fists), or bounce it like dribbling a basketball, or solo it where they bounce it off their foot, or they have to kick it away.
It was a good game. The score was tied at the half. Mayo pulled away at the start of the second half with a goal (kind of got lucky) and a couple of points. Galway came back to within two points but in the end Mayo won 1-15 vs 2-8 Galway. Some rough play, a fight broke out on the field even before the game started and there was one bench clearer. But even though the rivalry between the teams is intense the crowd was very cool with Mayo and Galway fans mixing together all around the stadium.
So my team won, I'm happy, talk soon,
Luke
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