THE GALWAY GIRL

‘I took a stroll on the old long walk of a day eye aye eye aye

I met a little girl and we stopped to talk on a fine soft day eye aye.’

So begins lauded US singer/songwriter Steve Earle’s rollicking song “The Galway Girl,” a charming tale of sun, rain, love (or lust) and loss in Galway, the jewell of Ireland’s beautiful west country.

The “old long walk” is a pedestrian meander through the narrow streets and lanes of old Galway town and I strolled down that same walk on another fine soft day in 2005. Earle’s song was on a continuos loop in my head as I navigated through the myriad shops, cafes and of  pubs that lie around every corner. Romantically named establishments like Sally Long’s, MT Pockets and The Roisin Dubh lured my custom, but that morning my mission was to follow the walk all the way to Salthill, a beachside village just outside the town famous for its historic promenade.

Earle’s song recalls a romantic encounter with one of Galway’s abundance of beautiful women, many of whom have sparkling blue eyes and jet black hair. These traits are said to be a throwback to shipwrecked sailors from the Spanish Armada who found their way ashore on this wild coast and saw no good reason to ever leave.  

‘And I ask you friends, what’s a feller to do,‘cause her hair was black and her eyes were blue.

And I knew right then, I’d be takin’ a twirl, on the Salthill prom with the Galway girl.’

Curiously both Earle’s plans and mine were dramatically effected by the weather. For me, no sooner had I posed for a photo sitting decorously on the knee of a life-size bronze Oscar Wilde, than the inevitable rain bucketed down. I sought shelter in an old time music store, but in Earle’s case it was somewhat different.

‘We were halfway there when the rain came down on a day eye aye eye aye

She asked me up to her flat downtown on a fine soft day eye aye.’

The store was warm and dry, crammed from floor to ceiling with traditional instruments; fiddles, guitars, mandolins, whistles, bodhrans large and small, racks of sheet music and a small selection of CDs. Imagine my surprise when improbable as it may seem, behind the counter, there she was, an authentic latter day version of Earle’s 'Galway Girl.' Let’s call her Molly, and naturally she had a dazzling smile, hair of black and eyes of blue.

Molly 

Of course a good proportion of Galway natives are familiar with the song, and as I picked out a souvenir tin whistle and approached the counter I had to ask her if she knew about Steve Earle. “Of course,” she replied, going on to tell me in that delightful lilting brogue that he had visited the store several times while on tour and that she had once sold him a guitar. She added that he had been very generous in the tipping department. At the risk of sounding  impertinent, I couldn’t resist raising the possibility that she just might be the actual Galway Girl.

“Ohhhh noooo, that wasn't me,” she said with an infectious laugh, handing me my change. “But it just mighta bin me Ma!”

A while later I sat beneath portraits of William Butler Yeats and Peter O'Toole, a pint of Kilkenny in hand and wondered whose Galway experience they would think the better. Steve Earle left ‘with a broken heart and a ticket home.’ I left with a tin whistle and a priceless story.  

                Steve Earle Nurses His Broken Heart On Salthill Beach *                                                                                                                                   

Michael D Hansen      

The Galway Girl - Steve Earle & The Sharon Shannon Band

* Earle disputes that this is in fact a photograph of himself.