11 January 2010

Tall sails and tall tales on a weekend in Galway

There is a cultural vibe in Galway ... a concert in Saint Nicholas Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

My previous visits to Galway have been busy and business-like, including General Synod a few years ago, or lectures in the NUI Galway. But it was a long time since I had time to stroll through its streets or to head off through Salthill and out into Connemara. And so it was nice to spend a few relaxing days in Galway, and I was fortunate to enjoy the delights and surprises of the western capital before so much of the country was hit so badly by the recent downpours and floods.

Initially I had planned a quick visit, just to take photographs of two Comerford houses – one beside Spanish Arch, the other on the edges of Kinvara. But I ended up staying a few days, and saw and read more than I had expected to.

With its large student population, its creative buskers, its street markets and its multilingual atmosphere, Galway is still alive and bright late at night, with people strolling and walking in an open and safe atmosphere, cafés and restaurants full to the doors.

There is a continental air to street life in Galway (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

With its own “Latin Quarter in the oldest part of the city, around High Street, Church Lane and Quay Street, the mediaeval capital of the west has a relaxed continental ambience. On the other hand, with the country’s largest Gaeltacht region as its natural hinterland, it is no surprise to hear Irish spoken naturally and without pretence on the streets and in the shops, or to see shop signs and pub fascias with their names in Irish.

And so it was a surprise to learn that in Irish even the name of Galway itself means that this has long been the City of the Foreigners – the city not of the Gaels, but of the Galls or foreigners, as in Gaillimh.

The vibrant market in the streets around Saint Nicholas Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mediaeval Galway

Above and below ... A pair of mediaeval doors in Galway shopfronts (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Indeed, Galway owes its origins to the Anglo-Normans who settled here in the 13th and 14th centuries after capturing a dún or fort from the local Gaelic rulers, the O’Flaherty Clan.

Richard fitzWilliam de Burgh is said to have captured the O’Flaherty dún in 1232, and the history of the city is traced from that year. For centuries, the Great West Bridge of Galway, spanning the River Corrib, was inscribed with the words: “From the Ferocious O’Flahertys Deliver Us O Lord.”

Richard’s grandson, Richard fitzWalter de Burgh (1259-1326), the Red Earl of Ulster, was among the last of his family to hold Galway as his personal property and excavations in the courtyard of the Customs House ten years ago unearthed the remains of his great hall. After his death, the Burke family was torn apart by internal disputes, and the vacuum created by this family conflict was filled by the merchant families of the burgeoning city, who took control of civic affairs in Galway.

The Tribes of Galway

Richard II’s royal charter to the city in 1396 effectively transferred political and economic power in Galway to the 14 leading merchant families. These families became known as the Tribes of Galway: the Athy, Blake, Bodkin, Browne, D’Arcy, Deane, ffont, ffrench, Joyce, Kirwan, Lynch, Martyn, Morris and Skerrit families.

The majority of these merchant families were of English or Anglo-Norman origin, some of them settling in Galway as early as the 13th or 14th century, and many of those names are still to be found in the shop signs, street names and the mediaeval symbols that symbols and remains that survive throughout the city.

The Browne Doorway in Eyre Square (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In Eyre Square, which has received a welcome makeover in recent years, one of the much-photographed sites is the Browne Doorway, which comes from the mansion built in Abbeygate Street in 1626 by Martin Browne fitzOliver. Lynch’s Castle, on the corner of Shop Street and Abbeygate Street, and Blake’s Castle on Quay Street and are examples of how the names of these tribes have survived to this day.

The Lynch family has been in Galway since at least 1274, when Thomas de Linch was Provost of Galway. The Lynches were instrumental in taking the town from the Burke lordship and moving it towards civic autonomy. When Richard III granted the city a new charter in 1484, Pierce Lynch fitzJohn became the first mayor, and in all 34 members of the Lynch family have been mayors of Galway.

Lynch’s Castle, with the Lynch arms and the Lion of Saint Mark of Venice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Lynch’s Castle is four storeys high the only complete mediaeval building that has been left intact and that is still in use in Galway. It is decorated with high mediaeval heraldic devices, including coats-of-arms of Henry VII and the Lynch and FitzGerald families and the Lion of Saint Mark of Venice. Since 1930, the castle has been the premises of a bank.

The Blakes are descended from Richard Caddell “Blake” or “black” who came to Galway from Wales at the beginning of the 14th century. Later members of the family were mayors, sheriffs and bailiffs of Galway, although Captain James “Spanish” Blake is better known for plundering the shipwrecks of the Spanish Armada and taking prisoners from the survivors, and for his role in the suspicious death of Red Hugh O’Donnell in exile.

Blake’s Castle in Quay Street, near the Spanish Arch, served as Galway’s over-crowded city jail until the early 19th century. Today it is a much happier place as home to KC Blake’s, one of Galway’s many fine restaurants.

Tigh Neachtain is one of Galway’s best-known pubs, richly decorated with murals (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Galway’s best-known pub is probably Tigh Neachtain on the corner of Cross Street and Quay Street, which has been run by the Neachtain family since 1894 and has delightful murals on its street walls. Busker Browne’s in Cross Street, which backs onto Kirwan Lane, was once a Dominican convent, dating back to the late 17th century.

Kirwan Lane was also home in the 18th century to a theatre founded in 1779 by “Humanity Dick” Martin – actors who performed on the stage included a young Theobald Wolfe Tone, who later took a leading part in the 1798 Rising.

The west’s oldest parish church

Saint Nicholas ... said to be the oldest parish churches in the west of Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Church of Ireland parish church in Galway, the Collegiate Church of Saint Nicholas, was the largest and most important building in mediaeval Galway. The Warden of Galway was independent of all diocesan structures, and in their collaboration successive wardens and mayors made Galway one of the most independent city states in mediaeval Europe.

As the patron saint of sailors and seafarers, Saint Nicholas of Myra was an obvious choice as patron saint of this mediaeval church, which claims to be the oldest parish church still in use in the west of Ireland. The church building was completed in 1324, but there is evidence of an older church on the site, and the oldest surviving tombstone inside the church, that of Adam Bure, dates from about 1280 and is known as the Crusader’s Tomb.

The original church was a simple, narrow, rectangular building, but it was added to and rebuilt over the following three centuries, when it was endowed by all the Tribes of Galway.

Many of the fine mediaeval tombs were destroyed or vandalised during the Cromwellian period in the 1650s. But many of the Lynch tombs in the Lynch Aisle or south aisle of the church survive, including a flamboyant one that has no inscription but has a flame-like canopy with elaborate tracery.

It is recorded that opposing factions in the Confederate cause drew swords with each other inside the church, and at least one of the combatants was killed.

A royal executioner

The King’s Head tells a tale of royal death and low blackmail (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

After the siege of Galway ended in April 1652, many of the fine mediaeval merchant houses and buildings were sequestered by Cromwellian officers and soldiers. These officers included Colonel Peter Stubbers, who received the surrender of the city and then took possession of a three-storey house in High Street that once belonged to the Deane family.

Although Deane resented the confiscation of his house, the merchant and the colonel are said to have met and regularly for drinks, and eventually Deane and Stubbers struck up a business deal, importing and selling tobacco from Virginia.

One night, however, Stubbers had a drink too many. Gesturing with his arm, he boasted to Deane: “This hand knew the strength of Charles Stuart’s neck.” The word spread that Stubbers was in fact the unknown executioner of King Charles I in 1649.

When the Stuart monarchy was restored in 1660, the story continues, Deane blackmailed Stubbers, and with the money bought an estate at Balroebuck near Tuam, while Stubbers fled Galway in search of his safety.

Like most legends, it is difficult to sift fact from fiction and fancy. Although the Deane family did own land in Balroebuck, the house at 15 High Street appears to have been owned in the mid-17th century by Thomas Lynch fitzAmbrose, who became Mayor of Galway in 1654. Stubbers seized Lynch’s house, and replaced him as Mayor of Galway.

And despite the story of flight, the Stubbers family continued to own the house until at least 1912. Today, the romantic story is kept alive, for the house is now a public house known as “The King’s Head,” with images of the monarch’s head decorating the façade, and a claim on the fascia board that the pub itself dates back to 1649, the year Charles I was executed. He was executed on 31 January, and was commemorated in some parts of the Anglican Communion as a martyr.

Romantic interludes

Galway City Museum, Comerford House and the Spanish Arch by the banks of the River Corrib (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

These and many other Galway stories are told delightfully in the new Galway City Museum, behind Spanish Arch, which opened in April 2007. Until then, the City Museum had been housed in Comerford House, one of the two houses I had come to Galway to photograph. The best-known tenant of the Comerfords in this house was the sculptor Clare Sherridan, a cousin of both Sir Winston Churchill and Sir Shane Leslie. She is said to have had romantic interludes with Trotsky, Mussolini, Ataturk and even Charlie Chaplin, and after her conversion to Roman Catholicism she used one large room in the house as her private chapel.

Civic relics in Galway City Museum (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today, the house is suffering sadly from neglect, beginning to crumble and decay, and in need of restoration. Behind it and alongside it are the extensions to old city walls, built in 1584. For many years, the Spanish Arch was known as the Blind Arch, and its present name is only a recent innovation, perhaps an attempt to enhance Galway’s romantic, Latin reputation.

Galway claims to have inspired the voyages of discovery by Christopher Columbus (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Across the open space in front of the Spanish Arch and Comerford House stands a small monument dedicated to Christopher Columbus. Local lore claims Columbus visited Galway ands that looking out to the Atlantic from this spot he was inspired to set out on the voyage that led to his discovery of America.

Tall tales and tall sails had coalesced to make this an interesting weekend.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Director of Spiritual Formation, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, Dublin. This essay was first published in the January 2010 editions of the Church Review (Dublin and Glendalough) and the Diocesan Magazine (Cashel and Ossory).

Watching the wildlife in the waters of Florida

On the shores of Lake Eola in downtown Orlando (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Patrick Comerford

Florida is supposed to be the “Sunshine State” – but for the past week I was waking up to freezing conditions each morning. Until Saturday, there were blue skies each day, but the temperature never climbed much above freezing. The wind chill factor added to the feeling of being frozen, and although some Irish tourists could be seen walking around in T-shirts, bare arms and sunglasses, their appearances failed to deceive me.

I had little intention of going to Disney World, and second thoughts about visiting Epcot came to nothing over the past week. On the other hand, the Universal Studios and the neighbouring Islands of Adventure and City Walk were fun if somewhat overpowering.

As Florida is the “Sunshine State” I had hoped to spend some time on the beach. After all, Florida has a reputation for some of the world’s most amazing beaches – including Daytona and Cocoa Beach – and over the past year or so I have found my weekly beach walks in north Co Dublin have been a particular help in coping with the symptoms of sarcoidosis and my attitudes towards living with this condition.

And so, one morning last week, I headed off to the East Coast of Florida, on the understanding that everyone else had a priority if seeing the Kennedy Space Center. I remember how I sat up all night in 1969 to see the first moon walk when I was only 17. But throughout all my working career as a journalist, I was never particularly interested in the Apollo and Challenger missions. I still think of Apollo and Saturn first in terms of the classics and mythology, and I was happy that other colleagues took a more active interest in this aspect of international news.

Heading off to the Kennedy Space Centre, I still hoped I might get a chance to walk along the East Florida Coast. But these were hopes that were never realised.

I could be boring about the Kennedy Space Center, but I would probably bore myself before I bored others. I am aware of the achievements, I appreciate the vision and the advances in science and technology – I even managed to find myself in the presence of a real-life astronaut, and was moved by the dignity and the poignancy of the Astronaut Hall of Fame.

But as we were brought around on sight-seeing shuttle and climbed the LC39 Observation Gantry, I couldn’t help myself wondering how many wonderful beach walks had been destroyed just for the sake of one small step for man.

The fencing at the Kennedy Space Center seemed to block access to too many good beach walks (hotograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

As we left the Astronaut Hall of Fame, we crossed the NASA causeway over the Intercoastal Waterway – known here as Indian River – to Merritt Island and were told how important this island is as national nature reserve. But apart from some wonderful bird life and two sightings of alligators, we were kept away from the wildlife, and fences ensured there was no going to be strolling on the island’s beaches.

And so the highlight of the day – perhaps even the highlight of the week – was in the wetlands that are part of Saint Johns River, the longest river in the State of Florida.

This river was the subject of William Bartram’s journals, Marjories Kinnan Rawling’s books, and the letters home from Harriet Beecher Stowe. There are about 3,500 lakes lie along the river, all of them shallow, and most with a depth of no more than three to 10 freet.

The view from an airoboat on the wetlands close to Lake Poinsett along the Saint John River in central Florida (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Lake Poinsett is named after Joel Roberts Poinsett (1779-1852), the botanist, politician and diplomat who brought the poinsettia to the US – a flower that is popular in the flowerbeds and gardens outside hotels throughout Orlando at this time of the year. Close to the lake, at Lone Cabbage Fish Farm off SR 520, we joined a tour of the wetlands on an airboat.

The alligators failed to show their faces or their teeth, but we saw a variety of birdlife, cranes, storks, hawks, kites, falcons – and even a few eagles. In the shallow waters, the airboats twist and turn, and the while the storks and cranes keep their distance, but fail to take fright. It was a curious sight to be joined by some roaming cattle and horses, anxious to see what we were doing out in the wetlands in such a cold climate.

The Peabody ducks in Orlando ... a living legend that has been turned into a part of local tradition (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Back in Orlando on Saturday morning [9 January 2010], the last day of the holiday, I witnessed one last ritual associated with Florida wildlife at the most bizarre level, but in a charming and captivating way.

The Peabody Hotel on International Drive opened in November 1986, and since then the Peabody Orlando has continued in unbroken tradition the “March of the Peabody Ducks,” which began at the Peabody Memphis many, many years ago.

Every morning, at 11 a.m., the hotel’s main lobby is the setting for this remarkable ritual. The five mallard ducks – four hens and one drake – are brought down in a special elevator from their penthouse Royal Duck Palace. When the elevator doors open, the Peabody Ducks, accompanied by their crimson-and-gold- braid-jacketed Duck Master, waddle along the rolled out red carpet to the sound of Sousa’s King Cotton March, in formation to the central fountain, climb red-carpeted steps and splash into the water to applause from guests, staff and spectators. At 5 p.m., the procession is reversed as the Peabody Ducks return to their apartment for dinner.

The tradition began in the Peabody Memphis in the 1930s, when the hotel manager Frank Schutt and his friend Chip Barwick returned from a weekend hunting trip in Arkansas. They thought it would be funny to place some of their live duck decoys into the hotel fountain of the Peabody hotel, and the reaction was enthusiastic. And so a tradition was born.

Florida’s pink flamingos are also more legend than fact. Most of Florida’s pink flamingos today are semi-wild, non-native fugitives. No flamingos breed in Florida any longer, and the flamingos to be seen here are either from the Gulf of Mexico, or from as far south as Chile. Even the company that first invented and marketed the original plastic pink flamingo went broke four years ago, a year before the 50th birthday of the kitschy logo. Wildlife takes some peculiar forms in Florida.

By Saturday afternoon I was miles away from the Kennedy Space Center, in JFK Airport in New York. How I would have liked to get out for a walk on Long Beach, but I had to walk through the snow and the slush from Terminal 5 to Terminal 4. I was back in the snow in Dublin on Sunday morning [10 January].