Saturday Market

Before leaving home for Ireland I was told to try the fresh doughnuts from Saturday Market in Galway. It was truly wonderful advice. Dan-the-doughnut-man makes the doughnuts right there in front of you when you order them. One is only 70cents, but honestly who has the self control to buy only one single doughnut when you can buy 6 for 3.50?

Shop Street and a Bloody Window

We deciphered most of the Bible
stories in the stain-glass-windows. 

AJ found a book written by
his alter-ego WJ McCormack

 We spent the day in Galway with breakfast at Revive Cafe, then Shop Street for T. Dillon's: the official-and-original-makers-of-the-Claddagh-Ring, Charlie Bryne: the best book store ever, St. Nick's: the really old church, and the Cathedral: the really big church, and the Spanish Arch and other sights around Galway. The cathedral has a stain-glass-window with the world's bloodiest ever scene of Cain and Able, it was quite intense-- so much red!!! Turns out the little Galway Museum is closed on Mondays, but everything else was open until 6 or 7 when everything here starts closing. (A little early in my huble opintion) We got dinner at the King's Head -- a pub in the old stone house built by the executioner of King Charles II. And the crazy impressive sheets of rain didn't start until we were safely back inside for the night, wonderful timing on the part of the clouds.

St. Paddy's Day

Since St Patrick's fell on a Saturday, Star, Monique, and I started the day out by getting fresh doughnuts from the wonderful doughnut man at the St. Nick's market. After a quick stop at the 2 Euro store for some green goodness we went up to watch the parade.  

Adorable Irish boy watching parade

There were all sorts of super-cute-dimpled-Irish-children both watching and marching in the parade.  It was fun to see all the little ruby teams and youngsters with their tiny hurlers for hurling.


It was interesting to see how diverse Galway actually is with everything from the Russian Cultural Society to the Ghana Community participating in the parade, since Galway generally appears rather vanilla compared to DC and all.

Adorable Irish boy in parade 

There were also a couple of political leaning parade participants the best being the bank-zombies. Because clearly all parades should involve some walking-dead.

And the Garda / police chief with a bright-green-and-already-impressive-mustache put my green streaks to shame.

There was all sorts of green all over in honor of St Paddy's Day. I was informed that St Patrick can be shortened to Paddy, but St. Patty's Day is not acceptable. Patty's = not a thing. Paddy = proper Irish nickname.



After the parade we headed over to  our Irish friends' flat and started celebrating with them.  They even fed us a full Irish breakfast. And I not only tried, but actually enjoyed the black pudding. You should be impressed by my adventurous-traveler-ness which is willing to eat things like black pudding even after I'm fully aware of what goes into making them. They turn out pretty yummy though so it's grand. Sure.

This year there happened to be a rugby match between Ireland and England on St. Patrick's Day so we all watched it.  Then Ireland lost terribly (as in a 29 to 9 level of terribly) so there was a lot of angry Irishmen by the end.  But my favorite part was definitely the beginning, because everyone sang along with the Irish national anthem and then when God Save the Queen started they sang the Irish national anthem again much louder and in Irish to drowned out the English anthem. There was lots of drinking and a good bit of music for the rest of the day and then everyone got Monday off as a bank holiday to boot. 

The flat's pet robot Rad was decked out for Paddy's Day with a pot of
gold, Guinness, a hurling ball, and some green and orange too.

Carthage College Choir and George's Mom

     Last night Star, and her roommates and I went to hear choral music at St Nicolas (the really old Anglican/ Church of Ireland church, really old= hundreds and hundreds of years).  The singing was wonderful and the old stone church was built with amazing acoustics.  First a choir from Carthage College in Wisconsin performed and then the local choir from Galway sang as well. The spirituals were the highlight, although Star and I were ridiculously excited when

George's monument 

the American choir sang Oh Shenandoah as their final song. (It was our theme song at camp in 2006 and so we got really excited when we saw it in the program, like excited-to-the-point-we-kinda-scared-star’s-poor-roommate-excited.)

St Nicolas’s is full of incredibly old tombs along the walls (and in the floors as well, which makes me feel slightly odd to walk across them). My favorite of the tombs is this one on the wall memorializing young George Fredrick De Carteret who was my age, 22, when he died in 1843.

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It's still a little hard to read, but this is the close up of what it says

I’m a history and literature major because I love stories. A lot. (I love people, they’ve all got stories!) The plaque has so many stories packed onto one carved stone scroll. His mother seems like the type that would be organizing MADD if she lived a century and a half later. And the verse she chose is not one of hope, or comfort, it’s just descriptive because it relates to young George’s mother as well. It also captures such a particular moment in the childless mother’s grief when the loss is overwhelming and “irreperarable”. Plus how many sentences warrant the use of a word as awesome as tempestuous?

Today I went to a coffee shop and enjoyed some tea, a chocolate muffin, and their free wifi. As well as worked on the job seeking and all. Shop street was fun since it was bustling with people and street musicians (who have an impressive balance, I’ll get a picture next time I pass them, really I will).