Oyster Festival

Galway is famous for its oysters.  We tried several times to partake but without any luck.  I now believe they were hoarding them for the oyster festival.  The 57th Oyster Festival began on Friday and every pub advertised oysters.  We went to The Quays for lunch and shared a dozen but before that, I wanted to explore the beach at Salthill (see photo) that we'd seen on the bus from the Aran Islands.

So we retraced the steps I had taken on Monday and walked through Claddagh to Salthill passing the causeway to the Mutton Island Lighthouse.  The lighthouse was built in 1817 on the site of a former castle and extinguished in 1977.  It was the last light of their homeland that many Irish, fleeing the famine in 1847-50, saw as they left Galway for foreign lands.

We walked through a park dedicated to those who left Ireland during the famine, then came upon the National Aquarium of Ireland.  We decided it would be fun to explore this so approached the ticket wicket.  We had learned to refer to ourselves as seniors but bonus, on this day, it was free for everyone.  The girl at the counter had a small Canadian pin and told us she was originally from Toronto.  She was the second Canadian we met working in Ireland, the first being a Korean-Canadian girl who taught us how to pour Guinness (the world is a strange place).

We had a great time in the Aquarium sharing it with a group of Alzheimer patients, a class of teens, and four classes of school kids (kindergarten and perhaps Grade 3).  Obviously, it was a fun place to be and to hear Gaelic spoken among the young was amazing.

We got back to Galway in time for lunch then walked over to the Cathedral so Glen could explore it.  On our way back, we stopped at a plaque in Eyre Square honouring John F. Kennedy.  Turns out the square had been re-named Kennedy Square in 1965 to commemorate President Kennedy's visit in 1963 just before his assassination.  Problem is no one refers to the square by Kennedy name and only one map I had made reference to it.

As we relaxed in our hotel room catching up on emails, we watched a steady stream of traffic enter the city.  It continued for an hour.  After our experience on Arthur's Day, we decided against trying to fight the Oyster Festival crowds and so ate supper in the hotel.