Galway - The Graveyard of Ambition?

galvianlord

As the title says.....a philosophical discussion....

It just struck me that if we take this board as a microcosm of Galway in general, there are a huge amount of posts and threads that wouldnt necessarily be described as being of a positive viewpoint! I met a girl in Paris recently who had spent time here and while she loved all the things people love about Galway, vibrancy craic blahdy blah, but she found it hard to make friends, describing people here as cliquey and her word, 'critical'....

People in Galway (myself amongst them) do have a great pride in the town, to the detriment of all other cities in Ireland but we do seem to have a moany/wronged/begrdudging attitude to anything that challenges the status quo... Or is Galway particularly different when it comes to the rest of the country....a uniquely Irish laissez fair or begrudgery etc

Afterall we pride ourselves on being a cosmopolotian inclusive kind of place, but is it all surface? From elected councils, to civil servants, to multinationals and local businesses to the man & woman on the street is Galway a graveyard of ambition, not just for ourselves but for the city itself....i ramble a bit....but the question stands....

Would such a view be fair or am i wrong?

snubbleste

Does Galway exist or is it just a random collection of buildings?

Bass Cadet

It's certainly a fair enough point that we are likely to be a begrudging bunch but I don't think that's limited to Galway, far from it. As regards moaning, etc. We certainly moan alot but don't do alot about it. In fact, I have to say Galwegians are probably the most affable people in Ireland. We won't protest or take action but we'll moan and bitch about things in a pub but won't actually take the action require to do something, I'm guilty of that myself.

As regards non-Galwegians making friends, I don't think Galway is any more or less difficult to make friends in. I have a Californian lodger in my house who has had no problems blending in with the city and certainly doesn't find it hard to make friends. Its like anything, you have to put in the effort

Is Galway a graveyard of ambition? Only if you allow it to be

Amazotheamazing

Everywhere in Ireland is cliquey, Galway is no exception to it, but it'd be wrong to say it is any better for it either.

To be fair, it's a small regional city on the outskirts of Europe, do you really think it's going to attract the most ambitious people in any particular field? Hence the Graveyard of Ambition title. (Cue the aforementioned critics)

leninbenjamin

what you're talking about there is the Irish condition.

manonthestreet

It all depends on how involved you get in the communities. There are so many outsiders in Galway that there is no longer a blow-in factor. Ive been working here for four years now and it's no different to Limerick. In both places I got involved with sports clubs and created a new circle of friends. I suppose everyone is responsible for their degree of being accepted.:)

tristanc

I heard Galway referred to as the "Graveyard of Ambition" when I first got here, more in the sense of people just wanting to party/get stoned/have the craic what not most of the time. Probably true of any town that's mainly tourists, uni students, and service industry.

If someone from france is complaining about a place being cliquey, you know you are in trouble In most cities meeting people can be both hard and difficult - people who have lived there for a while and have established social structures can often find themselves essentially booked solid socially and club wise, and don't necessarily make time to work in new people (potential dates excepted, of course). On the other hand, most bigger cities, Galway included, have a fairly high turn-over, so you get a lot of new-comers who are also eager to meet people.

MattKid

I have to say I'm fairly socially inept but when ever I've made the effort with people and being more open and friendly than normal, I've always been rewarded.

As for The Graveyard of Ambition, i don't think people move here to have a high flying career, I know I came here to earn enough money to live on and play music and enjoy the place.

padraig71

It depends if your ambition is to enjoy a decent quality of life in an old medieval city beside the sea, within easy distance of stunning countryside, and with a fairly young and diverse population, that is not too big or fast-paced or infested with scumbags.

Of course, the cosmopolitan aspect can be exaggerated, but much of the impression you receive depends on your choice of pubs etc. I think meeting people here is comparatively easy because there are so many blow-ins; making long-term friends may be more difficult because so many people come here for a while and then leave.

As for the moaning etc, that's a national trait and Galway is no exception to it. Ditto for malgovernance, rip-offs, gombeen men and other Irish traditions.

Bass Cadet

Amazotheamazing wrote: »

To be fair, it's a small regional city on the outskirts of Europe, do you really think it's going to attract the most ambitious people in any particular field? Hence the Graveyard of Ambition title. (Cue the aforementioned critics)

and taking your cue....to be fair, I have my criticisms of Galway but the city and county attracts its fair share of skilled and ambitious labour. Massive medical devices industry and one of the biggest Marine Research Institutes/industries in western Europe, along with 2 large 3rd level intitutions. Anyone who is sucked into this 'graveyard of ambition' certainly can't blame lack of opportunities in Galway

galvianlord

alot of what people say is very valid. however i grew up in the city centre - proper auld shtock - and so have seen the city change and evolve over the last twenty years. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worst. Love the place to bits, but sometimes even i feel a bit of an outsider.

Guess this comes down to something i alluded to in another thread sometime ago, i think there is an inverted snobbery among the more bohemian of the population. You must act a certain way, dress a certain way, drink in certain bars, go to certain clubs (or shun them entirely, as the case may be) in order to conform to what their view of Galway seems to be. Now, i may be overly sensitive, but a case in point is last saturday.....ended up meeting a few pals for a couple of pints in Neachtains, a great pub and one i love. Went along and of course it was more packed than usual what with the rain, struggled down the back and met up with them. Now there were a few 'heads' blow-ins if you will, who kept starin over and were quite obviously makin comments about our little group. anyhoo, headed off to the bar and was q-ing at the bar, when one of them kind of turned toward me but said to his mate, "dont you just hate the crowd the f&*kin rugby brings out, wish they'd **** off out of here..." :eek: now i was surprised to say the least, i dont particularly like rugby and i certainly didnt watch the match, so i am not sure why the comment was directed toward me. maybe it was my jeans and geansai and shirt combo that was a bit too preppy for the more dishevelled patrons, maybe it was my lack of facial hair, but still at a loss as to the venom in which it was said....maybe i should have dragged my guitar with me....:mad:

anyway i guess my point is that for a bohemian bunch people in galway seem less accepting of the more mainstream in the town, less accepting of any change to the slightly dishevelled bodhran banging reputation of the city....

bit of a rant, but i hope it contributes slightly to the tenor of the thread.

Cole

galvianlord wrote: »

Guess this comes down to something i alluded to in another thread sometime ago, i think there is an inverted snobbery among the more bohemian of the population. You must act a certain way, dress a certain way, drink in certain bars, go to certain clubs (or shun them entirely, as the case may be) in order to conform to what their view of Galway seems to be.

You hit the nail on the head there.

Being 'unconventional' does not mean you should have no ambition or should become, like a lot of the above mentioned people have, a waste of space.

As a native of Galway said to me...a lot of 'flakes' come here.

DouglasWinthrow

That really is as simple as.


There is a certain population ,and a certain galway city "pub" in particular where its cool to dress "differently", have very little to no education and to be somewhat poor.

a life of mediocrity and underperformance is rewarded and embarced

im sorry , but anyhere that ENCOURAGES that is deviant and inherently wrong

im not saying we should all be money hungry , highly driven arrogant stock brokers , but galway does have a very strong

"its cool to be a totally directionless failure" type of attitude

Sherifu

Which pub? I've been drinking in the wrong places :pac:

dafunk

I always thought that Galway was described as the Graveyard of Ambition due to all the musicians trying to make it here. I think that moaning is a national past-time, certainly I do it a lot myself, specifically I winge about the rain, the crappy public transport, the government, tv licenses and microsoft windows most of which fupp me off enormously on an almost daily basis. Galwegians, I have noticed, like complaining about traffic, house/rent prices and the general cost of living, three "problems" that I would consider to have eliminated from my life since moving from Dublin. People in Galway are friendlier than any other place I have lived, it's fantastic, I don't think it's a difficult city to meet people in or make friends in, even without joining clubs etc. Pubs can change, crowds change, there's no shortage of places to drink in this city so if you're not happy in your regular haunt then find a new one!

galwayrush

Sherifu wrote: »

Which pub? I've been drinking in the wrong places :pac:

Yes, we need to know.:D

gufcfan

galvianlord wrote: »

I met a girl in Paris recently who had spent time here and while she loved all the things people love about Galway, vibrancy craic blahdy blah, but she found it hard to make friends, describing people here as cliquey and her word, 'critical'....

French people, in my experience, are much more open and for want of a better phrase, more sociable.

I think your views about Galway could be applied to the nation as a whole.

Just my view in any case.

EDIT

Here is an example, I was in France recently.

You can go into the pubs and any number of people can just start talking to you randomly.

I was with some friends and on a couple of occasions I found myself at the bar waiting for the others to come back from the jacks or smoke.

On each occasion, random people started talkin to me about anything and everything.

Now, i'm not saying people don't strike up conversations in the pub in Galway, but what your French friend said about it being hard to make friends, in comparision to France, it would definately be a valid point IMO.

If a random person started having a full blown conversation with me in the pub in Galway on a Saturday night, I would likely slowly back away from it... if I did not know the person. You might think the above comment is a product of me being anti-social... but consider this... There are certain boundaries that Irish people seem to have imposed upon themselves as regards social etiquette. Most of said boundaries would be seen as being introverted in nature by people on the continent.

It's not really seen as the norm to strike up conversations with random people in the pub unless you are intoxicated.

Sure, some people are more outgoing than others, but as a nation I would second the view that we are very cliquey.

Mrs OBumble

gufcfan wrote: »

Now, i'm not saying people don't strike up conversations in the pub in Galway, but what your French friend said about it being hard to make friends, in comparision to France, it would definately be a valid point IMO.

... There are certain boundaries that Irish people seem to have imposed upon themselves as regards social etiquette. Most of said boundaries would be seen as being introverted in nature by people on the continent.

It's not really seen as the norm to strike up conversations with random people in the pub unless you are intoxicated.

Well I'm from the South Pacific, not continental Europe.

I arrived in Ireland as a tourist in July, got to Galway and started job-hunting in mid-Sept, and have been working here since October.

In that time, I visited lots of relatives, one friend and one summer music school. But I also spent a fair bit of time travelling or hanging out alone (Dublin, Belfast, Tubbercurry, Mallow, Cork, Slane, Ennis, Sligo, Inis Mor, Doolin, Lisdoonvarna) , and in this country, it's perfectly ok to go and hang out in the pub for the evening in this situation, and chat to whoever you meet there. Unlike at home, where going to the pub by yourself would be seen as seriously weird.

Before I got to Galway, I can honestly say that I had to start every conversation that I had with randoms in a pub: I think that most Irish people are actually quite shy, until they know you, and this stops them starting a conversation no matter how nosey they are about you (the nosey bit certainly is true in small towns). The (Irish) cousins who I checked this theory out with agreed, and also said that most guys would be too scared to start a conversation with me 'cos they'd assume that someone my age had a partner somewhere around.

It's less true here .. but then more likely that the randoms you meet in the pub won't be Irish, and so will be easier to start conversations with!

IMHO, 'tis all part of the charm of the country: I'm not from here, so if I want to hang out here, I need to fit into whatever social norms apply here. Tedious though it might be sometimes.

tristanc

gufcfan wrote: »

French people, in my experience, are much more open and for want of a better phrase, more sociable.

...

Here is an example, I was in France recently.

You can go into the pubs and any number of people can just start talking to you randomly.

Odd, I've never been to France, but the two French friends I've had conversations with here totally gave me opposite impression - that people here were more friendly in the pubs and people there were more clique-ish. Two obviously does not a rule make - I think they were both from smaller towns so maybe they only started talking to strangers in pubs when they left the country

Though one commented that 'the friendliness stays in the pub' here - which seems to be true. I've found people quite willing to have long conversations in a pub, but it doesn't lead to 'lets be BFFs and hang out!'. Which is likely how i it works everywhere, of course - in the States, you'd generally drunkenly exchange mobile #s (or 'are you on Facebook!' etc.) and then never follow up (sexual interest excepted of course). Then 6 months later you go through your mobile phone trying to figure out who all these people are.

ciotog

I think people are more inclined to come out of themselves when they don't fell as constrained by how they'll appear in front of compatriots i.e. they don't feel like they have to be a certain way.

5times

"gombeen men and other Irish traditions" Brilliant!

As for all that has been said before, I am from Galway , but I have lived in Oz for the last 8 years, and it's the same everywhere you go. People whinge everywhere you go (maybe about different things, but they still whinge), people have cliques everywhere you go, you have to make an effort to make friends everywhere you go - my point being it is not the "Galway condition" or the "Irish condition" - it is the human condition.

OP, would it be fair to say you started this thread merely because you were hurt by the comments of some dickhead, lowlife that thinks he's better than someone because of the way he dresses or looks? If so, get over it, because if you worry about things like that, you will worry all your life.



FWIW I think you should have decked the c*ck-smoker!