Homecoming Galway Seniors
Well, well, what I week, that’s all I can say! Unless you have been living under a rock( or maybe you live outside of Ireland and are not familiar with hurling), the all- Ireland Senior hurling championships took place last Sunday between Waterford and Galway and the Galway team won!!
It’s been 29 years since Galway won the Liam MacCarthy cup , so there was plenty of reason for celebrations in and around Galway. A homecoming for the Galway Seniors was organized, starting at Pearse Stadium in Galway City, then onto Clarinbridge, Loughrea and a final stop at St-Thomas’s pitch. St-Thomas’s GAA club is the home club of David Burke ( the captain), so it really was a homecoming.
As St-Thomas is so near to where I live, I went over to go and take a look. As you can see, I wasn’t alone! There was an amazing atmosphere, lot’s of people cheering and singing! When David Burke did his speech, you could hear a needle drop – to hear his speech go to 23 minutes into the video.
It was one of the first times I experimented with a Facebook live event on my page workinglivingtravellinginireland, and 150 tuned into the video. Very quickly the video had a reach of 2000 people. At this point in time it has been viewed by well over 7000 people and has had a reach of 16000. It really is amazing what you can do with a mobile phone!
The Great Western Motorway cycle on the M17/M18
Today was also the Great Western Motorway cycle, offering cyclists a one-off opportunity to cycle the soon-to-be-opened M17/M18 Motorway that will connect Gort to Tuam. I was here in 2010 when the Gort to Crusheen bypass opened. At the time I was working in Shannon, which took about an hour on a very windy road and dangerous bends( I am sure some of you will remember the very dangerous bend at Crusheen). After the opening, this journey became significantly easier and shorter, getting me to Shannon in less than 45 minutes. By 2015, Directroute started works on the long awaited Gort to Tuam Motorway with an expected finish date of early 2018. The new motorway is just over 50 kilometers long, and will offer much needed traffic congestion relief for travellers, bypassing the main bottleneck of Clarinbridge in South Galway and Claregalway in North Galway to get to Galway city and also connecting with the M6 to Dublin. Here is map of the new motorway.
It’s been very exciting to see the works progress, new bridges being built and watching some YouTube video made me realize that this was not an easy job, with the vast amounts of limestone that needed to get blasted. Here is just one of the videos I found on Youtube:
The Motorway is due to open ahead of schedule on the 27th of September! We went over to the Gort side of the cycle and spoke with some cyclists and the ladies of the Gort Lions club.
It was very windy ( and relatively dry), I can’t say the same of the weather later in the day. 17 more days to go, and the Motorway will officially open!
Blustery greetings from Galway,
Katleen
