roisin whyte

What follows are some mixed up musings on choice and confidence. Memory and “home”, too.

I have been thinking about being settled and content, and about having some pride in the artistic/aesthetic choices we make. It is about confidence. In writing this, although it is for context, I may well undermine the thought/feeling behind it…

Let me explain, or at least, pick the jittery thoughts of my internal world apart a bit.

As of this week, the framed print pictured below hangs in my hallway. It is not a thing of beauty by all of the aesthetic markers that mean anything to me. And although no two people have the exact same views on what is beautiful, I suspect most people would reject the notion of this piece as something pleasurable to encounter on a daily basis.

But it has meaning for me. And I came to have it in a pleasingly unexpected and serendipitous manner.(More on serendipity in my last blog).

I live in East Belfast. I have done for just over 14 years now. It’s great. As well as the inevitable big businesses, there are independent cafés, restaurants, local fruit & veg, books and craft shops, all a stones throw away. And there are some great thrift/charity shops. Thrift-shop-rummages are amongst my favourite pastimes. Nabbing what would normally be a shamelessly overpriced wee designer number for a few quid, knowing that the money is supporting a higher cause than capitalism is very satisfying. I imagine the lives of former owners through shopping lists or random notes found in donated books. And whilst I’ve made some God awful choices at times, the things I pick up generally make me very happy.

And I’ve gotten to know John. I suspect anyone that knows East Belfast will know John and the shop he manages. He opens his shop earlier than everyone else, so a cheeky hoke around just after dropping my daughter to school is sometimes possible. He is a music super-fan, and chats to me a lot about that, as he knows the nature of my work. All manner of music comes blaring from his stock-room as he enthusiastically shares his newest/oldest favourite music finds with me. I called in one day as I saw a case in the window that I thought would be great for music workshops. I have all manner of shaky percussion instruments, scarves, puppets, etc. I get some very strange looks on the bus when my bag randomly squawks. (I own a pirate parrot puppet called Danny).

Anyway. I purchased said case, and as I was leaving the shop, I noticed a gilded frame that I liked the look of. I barely looked at the print within but somehow my brain had already registered distaste/disinterest. I love mixing old with new; modern painting/prints in old style frames. Nice pieces of old furniture in modern settings. When done well, it looks class. I noted the frame and thought I might come back for that, I have some artwork that would look good in there…. I was almost out the door when I noticed the print inside was a scene of a horse-fair. I saw the church on the hill and thought, funny, that’s just like St.John’s church on the hill in my home town. I noticed that the building to the left was like our Town Hall, and the funfair in the print was reminiscent of “Toffs”, the family travelling funfair that came to our town every year.

I looked closer, and there it was. On the floor of a charity shop in East Belfast, a framed image of “The Great Ballinasloe October Fair & Festival”, to give it its full and proper title. My home town. A place the vast majority of people in East Belfast I have never heard of, I’d wager. How unlikely was it that somewhere from here had acquired this, someone else had donated it to charity, and I, possibly the only person in maybe the whole city that would have a meaningful connection to it, was the one to come across it.

I bought the frame. It has sat on the floor in my house for the guts of two years.

Not anymore though.

Let me tell you about Ballinasloe.

It is the most easterly town in County Galway. So easterly, in fact, that it’s one of those towns that borders 2 counties. Everything west of the river is officially in Co. Galway and east of it, is Co. Roscommon. (But everyone from Ballinasloe regards themselves as Galwegian). I am official as it goes – being as I was, born and raised west of the river. It is not a popular place. It was recently voted as the worst town in Co. Galway; by people from Co. Galway – (a random social media poll by a comedian, but indicative of how the place is viewed)…

East Galway is always the bridesmaid to the vivid and romantic image everyone holds of the wild west of Ireland. And west Galway is pretty extraordinary. The landscape is awesome – Beautiful, expansive, desolate in places, and remote enough to really mess with your head. It is true what they say about the light. The landscape around you can transform before your eyes, in seconds. Except on the days when it rains solidly. And it rains solidly, a lot. Galway city of course, has long been lauded as our cultural capital. Historically there is evidence for that, but I can say with confidence that Belfast gives Galway a right good run for its money in this regard. Connemara is home to our only Irish language Television station, TG4. (The programming on this station has some of the best output on any of our national stations. We have Miggledy* to thank for it, and so much more)… The long laboured point I’m making, is that when people think of Galway, they think of Galway city and everything west of it.

But back to Ballinasloe.

Ballinasloe is a place you pass through. The 2 most common references I get from people when I say that’s where I from are Hayden’s Hotel and the horse fair. People used to stop in Hayden’s hotel for lunch/dinner on their way to Galway. Haydens has been closed down for 10 or 15 years now, so it’s rarely even mentioned anymore. And the horse fair, once the largest in Europe, has become so poorly attended and has brought such trouble to the town in recent years, that businesses CLOSE DOWN for the fair. So the one time that people actually visit the town, they struggle to find somewhere to get their lunch.

I do not want to talk my town down. I have family and friends there still and the place is important to me. I am not going to wang on about what it currently lacks. I want to talk about what is unique to the town and the surrounding area. Blogs don’t change the world, particularly blogs like this, read by a handful of people. But until I can do more/better, I am putting my thoughts out to the world and see what, if anything, happens.

So, list…..

• Ballinasloe is an anglicised word, the far more beautiful Irish name, is Béal Átha na Slua (Bail-awha-na slua). It means “mouth of the ford of the crowds” and was so named because of the horse trading that took place along the rivers edge for centuries.
• The river that runs through our town is called The Suck! It came up on a Blindboy podcast recently. He went to research the origin of the name and found this: the root word is wrapped in a web of uncertainty and lost in the mists of time. I love that. There is mystery in the flatlands. There are stories and knowledge to be celebrated and preserved.
• The town is in Co Galway, but the area/region is called Midlands/West. This is because Ballinasloe is almost the dead centre of the island of Ireland. The “Croi lar (Cree-lor) – literally, heart centre. It is almost equi-distant from Ballinasloe to the very west of Co. Galway (Roundstone), as it is from Ballinasloe to Dublin in the East. It is surrounded by boglands, many of which have been used on an industrial scale for peat production. This has caused untold damage to native habitats over generations. But now, boglands and wetlands just outside Ballinasloe; like Killure and Carrownagappul bogs, are under conservation management and over the last 10 years, there has been really positive regeneration in habitats, flora and fauna. (See here!) https://www.raisedbogs.ie/)
• There is a Ballinasloe Walks and Trails group now, that tours the unique landscape. We are realising that we don’t have to go to Connemara National Park to experience unique natural beauty. It is on our doorstep – and the onus is on us to protect it.
• Ballinasloe was formerly the “Most Westerly Terminal of a Canal in Europe”. The Grand canal used to terminate in Ballinasloe, at the back of the house I grew up in, as it goes. I never saw it. It was closed off in 1961. Guinness had used it as their main means of transportation before the railways came, and there are still old Guinness buildings in the town. Too much was sold off to the highest bidder when we lost the run of ourselves in boom years, but some old buildings remain, and could be restored.
• East Galway has the highest concentration of members of the travelling community anywhere in Ireland. Historically this has been one of the many things used to slag the town off. I think it is true that travellers are a minority group who continue to be openly discriminated against, and that discrimination is often tolerated and/or expected/accepted. There were always travellers in my classes at primary school. Some would come for a while and go again and perhaps appear back in another year. It depended on whether they were moving or not. Their language and culture left its mark though. There are still words and phrases from traveller language that we adopted into our vernacular, that I have never heard outside of East Galway.

There is much to celebrate, not least of which is a huge community spirit and drive to show the best of the town and surrounding area.

I was quick to leave. I loved my home town, mostly for the people I loved in it, but found it uninspiring. It has considerable social problems that need long-term funding, resources and the will to fix. But I was wrong about it in a number of ways. There is inspiration and story and beauty to be found, even in places where those things are not immediately obvious. Probably especially in places where it is not immediately obvious.

The print on my wall shows the fair green in Ballinasloe, full as it always was during fair week, of horses and horse traders. I loved horses and I walked through that fair green with my best mate WHEN WE WERE 10 JUST YEARS OLD, and for many years there after. I started smoking at St. John’s church on the hill there. I wish I hadn’t, but it still holds very potent memories for 12 year old me. The Town Hall on the left is one of the rare lovely buildings in the town, and the first place I ever performed on a public stage.

This framed print looks out of place in my house. My beloved and long-suffering husband hates it. Still, he hung it for me at the weekend cause he knows it means something to me.

I will try not to justify it to friends and strangers that stop by, most of whom will not have read this.

I’ll know why it is there.

That’s the why.

*Miggledy: Miggledy is an affectionate term used for the President of Ireland, our much loved Michael D Higgins. As Minister for Arts, Culture & the Gaeltacht in the nineties, he was instrumental in founding Ireland’s only Irish language station, TG4.

Sidenote: St John’s is the protestant church. The town was owned by English Lord Clancarty and he built his church to look down on the little people. When the Catholics asked for land to build their church, he granted them some swampy scrub near the river, far below St John’s Church. They had the last laugh though, as the steeple built on St. Michael’s church was so high it exceed the height of the protestant St.John’s on the hill. You can see an almost ghostly outline of St. Michael’s church in the centre distance here.