Grace Huntley: Real Life of a Galway Girl

At times, I forget that I’m not in the US. Galway is a different case than some study abroad locations. It’s a mostly Caucasian city, populated by a student-dominated demographic. Most every one speaks English, albeit in varying accents, and it’s possible to find a McDonald’s within a ten minute walking distance from almost wherever you are. Scrubs and Friends plays constantly on the TV and American pop music is blared in every pub that isn’t hosting a traditional music session. It’s easy to forget that between me and home lies an ocean, a five hour plane ride, and a few hundred bucks.

Certain things are the same everywhere, and I take comfort in that fact. Similar things make me happy whether I am here or at home, such as looking up at a clear night sky and finding Orion’s belt or that perfect moment when tea becomes just cool enough to sip without burning your mouth. While in the bathroom outside of the cafeteria I took solace in the fact that vandalism of public property also seems to be a cultural constant. However, upon a closer reading I was once more snapped back into foreigner status.

Abortion is illegal in Ireland. When I first found this out I was sitting in my friends apartment in Corrib Village, freshmen student housing which is an enviable ten minute walk from campus. We were sitting tea and discussing politics and education. The Irish girls were mortified to discover that in the US we spend as much as 40,000 a year to attend college and were quizzing us about the idea of a Greek fraternity system. Somehow the issue of sexual education came up and I mentioned how in the US the only federally funded sexual education is abstinence based. The topics of teen pregnancy rates were raised and this lead us to a discussion on abortion.

Ireland is a country with a national religion. The vast majority of the country practices Catholicism. The religion is wound up in many childrens morals and values from birth, instilled in childhood through Sunday mass and forever constant in daily life through a reminder of rosary beads. In Ireland, abortion is simply something that’s not very accepted. It’s not trendy to be pro-choice. After that day, I was aware of the fact that in Ireland, abortion was a hot topic. I accepted it as another cultural quirk, like RAG (Raise and Give) week where they raise money for charity through a week of drunken debauchery…However, I never expected to come face to face with the debate while inside of a bathroom stall.

Someone had posted three stickers on the inside door of the stall. Someone else, had subsequently peeled most of each of the three stickers off. From the vestiges of each sticker, it was clear that they stated a possible abortion method, through oral means. There had been a website to get information on the sticker. This had obviously been unacceptable to another individual who, while using the bathroom, decided to peel off the offensive information. However, information had prevailed. Someone, probably the original sticker-placer, had written the website next to the sticker remains, and underneath had included a message. “It’s just information. Don’t deny your fellow women the right to choose.”

Unfortunately by the time I got back to the bathroom to take a picture of the ethical battle the evidence had been removed by the maintenance crew (good to know they clean the bathrooms I guess). Still I managed to get a picture of a poster of the organization and website, one more reminder that I wasn’t home anymore.

In the US, we include phrases like, “Dancing Through Life,” as fanciful metaphors within our bestselling Broadway plays featuring green women with conformity issues. In Ireland, dancing through life refers quite literally to the activities one participates in from venues as varied as a coffee shop on Shop Street to the College Bar or to the clubs next to my favorite coffee shop, Java’s, and from events ranging from birthday parties to Ceili (Kay-Lee) Irish dance sessions to traditional music nights. This livelier form of physical expression is present in almost every modicum of everyday existence. It affects the way you meet people, the exchange in which you interact, and the mentality of each encounter. For some reason, smiling across a crowded room becomes a lot easier when the person is currently breaking out a Lord of the Dance move or doing “The Shopping Cart” (If you’ve never done this dance move please stop reading right now and try it out.)

In the last week, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to experience each one of these venues, surrounded by a comforting buffer zone of my group of friends, which makes the experience of flailing about in public much more manageable to the point where sometimes, it actually seems like a good idea. My first dance experience in Ireland was an informal session. After scouting high and low, my friends and I have finally located a cafe down the street from the local biker bar that we have decided to claim as “our place.” It’s reassuring to have a coffee shop that recognizes your face when you walk in. It’s a lot like the bar from Cheers. One day we even aspire to becoming so regular that when we walk in they ask, “the usual?” The upstairs of this quirky cafe is resplendent in reds of differing shades, lopsided couches positioned on the scuffed wooden floor and a baby grand piano nestled in the corner. It was there, at three in the morning, that I had my first dance in Ireland, whirling myself about like a solitary waltzer while my friend played a song by the Frames (the Irish band that did the music for Once.)

The next dancing experience was a little more typical. After a solid month of avoiding the dance clubs, last Saturday we set aside our pride and our flats, and, armed with with three inch heels and packets of travel tissues (all of us were amidst the most fun part of a cold), set out for Cuba. In the streets, hired guys and girls mark passersby with UV stamps which allow you free access on weekdays and half price on weekends. The club itself was a study in demographics. It was composed of two floors, the first of which was where the traditional clubbing kids got down to business. Here you could find the popped collars, the fancy dresses, the 90’s American Pop music. The second floor was where we mostly spent the night and it was full of mohawks and piercings (I made sure to get a special glow in the dark eyebrow ring for the occasion). This type of dancing, as opposed to clubs in the US was less about grinding and more about wildly flailing about. There was a lot of jumping up and down, and for one of my friends even some being carried through the air. I still maintain that that should be implemented as the new mode of transportation.

The final night of dancing was a step into the traditional. In Ceili/Social dances, people dance in groups of 2-8 people. In some cases, Ceili dances can take place with an unlimited number of participants who either stand in lines or in a giant circle. This was the case for the College Bar. The bar borders one side of the room. A giant TV screen takes up the far wall and the left hand wall is covered with a veneer of a forest. Black leather couches and high seated wooden tables occupy the floor. That night they had all be pushed to the side to make room for a giant dance floor in front of the stage. Traditional Irish music was played live that night by violinists, flutists, and accordian players. So you’ve got an idea of the room? Now imagine it packed with up to two hundred people, at least fifty of them crowded onto the dance floor, all spinning and jumping and switching partners. There’s something compelling about a national identity that prevails here in Ireland that baseball and hamburgers just don’t quite make up for back in the States. It’s like stepping into a giant family reunion, only with less drama and more drinking.

Ceili Dance<– Click to see a video of the students dancing!

No matter what your personal taste, there’s a type of dance for every type of person here in Galway. More than the dancing itself, it provides foreigners with a chance to learn the steps in a new culture, a new culture that with practice and repetition, is starting to feel more and more like home.