Jennifer Carroll is a 21 year old actor and writer. She first began writing for the Uxbridge Cosmos in 2007 when she had the opportunity to share her experiences as a Canadian ambassador for an international conference for women in Dubai. At the beginning of 2008, she moved to Ireland to pursue a career in theatre and film. Far From Home is her monthly account on living and working in Dublin.
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Iwish I was a Galaway Girl...
There seems to be something about the west coast, wherever you go. There's a distinct difference between that coast with the setting sun and its eastern sister. The easy-going west, relaxed and casual, seems to look to the east and see the sun rising, bringing the brassy, tense attitude of those edgy easterners. It's a phenomenon that seems to bridge the coasts of every country: California and New York, Vancouver and Halifax, Galway and Dublin.
There's a palpable difference in the air as you step out of the car, just two short hours out of dirty, grey, stifling Dublin. 120 swift minutes on the M4 motorway gets you straight across the country to the Wesht (see, even the way they pronounce the place is more relaxed). There's more space on the west coast. It's almost as if the air particles are further away from each other, giving you space between breaths, between thoughts. There's room to exist, to live in the space between things.
I've spent the past two Paddy's Days in Dublin. The buzz in the city is exciting, but terribly messy and just a little bit desperate, with everyone in the city determined to be a part of the drunken mess. With a proposed escape to Galway, I was on the road the evening before Paddy's Day, that M4 stretching ahead of me, Willie McBride on the speakers. Calm just radiated from the west, and the further we got from the big eastern smoke, the more I could feel my mind relax and a smile of anticipation tug at my lips.
It's really just an oversized small town, Galway is. The degrees of separation between you and any given stranger never stretch past two or three wee jumps. It breeds a sense of comfortability, of belonging. It's just too irresistibly wonderful to stand in front of the pub with the music pumping out the door, clutching a glass of Guinness and having the craic with locals passing by. Because that's how Galway works. It runs on familiar faces and friends-of-friends. I am forever meeting someone who did their masters with someone I know, someone who knows someone else's sister, someone we met in the pub the night before… it's a perpetual cycle of figuring out how many mutual friends you have with any given stranger.
It's a refreshing change. Don't get me wrong, I do love the stir in Dublin city centre, the pace and the charm, but Galway is irresistible, it really is. A small part of me wishes I were a Galway Girl, because the allure only magnifies while you walk down the pier and across the beach, leaning into the wind to see Clare down the bay and imagining the Cliffs of Moher just around the corner. The expanse of cloud, the slapping grey waves and the dark rocky shore breaking them up. Dogs running across the park opposite us, a man in a kilt sitting, his gaze reaching far beyond its own reach. The Atlantic Ocean, the salt, the life in the smell of it all.
Yes, there's something about the West. The tension that somehow gathers in the east never ceases to dissipate as you drive with your back to the stress and your eyes looking into a sunset. And, once you get where you're going, a well poured pint of the black stuff in your hand.
So that's how I spent my Paddy's Day this year, with ease and a wee bit of craic. I tell you, it's not a bad way to do it. Once I was on my way back to the east, I could feel my back muscles tensing and my mind starting to race again. I could feel the ease shedding off my shoulders. That ease stays glued to the west coast, stubborn, steadfast. And as I get further away, I find myself wishing a little bit harder that I were a Galway Girl, at least for a little while longer.
