I snapped a few shots out and about around Galway over the last week or so, while we actually had snow again for the second winter running. (we’re not well used to that kind of thing. Wind and rain? Sure. Snow for a few days in a row? That’s rare.)
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And one more, just because. The children’s carousel at the Galway Continental Christmas Market. The bright lights make me happy.
I’m not a fluent Irish speaker. I didn’t learn Irish very well in school either. Any Irish I do have came from the fact that I was friends with Irish speakers, and joined a youth theatre group at An Taibhdhearc, the National Irish Language Theatre of Ireland, based here in Galway. Thus I will apologise if the lyrics of this little song are examples of terrible Irish. :)
It is one of two songs that I have written that have Irish language lyrics – the other one just has one section of the song in Irish, and the rest of it is in English. Interestingly, I never set out to “write a song in Irish”, it just seemed to happen both times.
This one was written when I was working as a barman in Club Áras na nGael (the Irish language bar here in Galway) and obviously being surrounded by Irish on a daily basis had some kind of an impact. It is one of the things I love most about Galway – it’s the only city I’ve been in in Ireland where I’ve heard people casually using Irish in day-to-day situations, e.g. queuing for the banklink, or sitting at a table in a café, or talking to their kids walking down the street. As much as the language can appear to be integrated in a tokenistic manner in some parts of the country, here it doesn’t feel like that at all. It really does feel like it is a part of the city – a small part, sure, but a definite one.
It’s only a wee little song, and I never finished off the lyrics or really figured out in my head where it’s going, but I demo’d it again there in the last few weeks to get it on record so I could sit with it and really hear what I want to do to the song. So, I guess it’s a work in progress at the moment and we’ll see what happens with it.
In terms of writing it – the melody came first, and the words kinda slotted into place at one point when I was playing it at the piano. The song was written at the same time as Maria, and both started life as piano instrumentals. I may yet record instrumental versions of both songs, as I’ve half a notion to release a little record of just piano instrumentals.
I just recently switched to an Android phone – the wonderful HTC Desire, and have been playing around with the camera on it, and two different camera apps so far. I was interested in seeing how it would compare to my old iPhone 3GS which gave me some great shots, and the Hipstamatic App was good for some interesting filters and the like.
But, I’ve been mostly pleased with the Desire’s camera, though the colours aren’t quite as vibrant as the iPhone’s camera were it seems. But the RetroCamera and fx camera apps have been really fun and versatile too, and add a lot of fun to the camera.
Here’s some shots of a beautiful sunset in Salthill, Galway this weekend:
It definitely gives good lens flare (which I happen to like. I also like taking photos into the sun as I have a soft spot for silhouettes.) I’m no photographer or anything, but it’s nice to have a portable tool that can record things I see with a decent quality for me.
From September 16th, Thursdays and Saturdays in the top floor of Dignity West will be taken over by my club night: IQ [IndieQueer], a club night aimed at playing music that you don’t get to hear in the usual gay clubs here in Galway.
Keep up to date on the facebook page, or twitter.
Facebook: IQgalway [IndieQueer]
Twitter: IQgalway [IndieQueer]
Rock – Indie – Jazz
Electro – Metal – Funk – Soul
Retro Classics – Punk – Alternative Pop