Galway, Ireland

When we first arrived, I wasn’t so impressed, but Galway made me love it before we left!

Nearby is the village of Spiddle, a government-subsidized group of houses that Irish artists can work and sell out of. It was so neat! We met Ciaran Hogan, a second-generation basket weaver, who took very kindly to all of our stupid questions! Also nearby is the Glen Keen sheep farm, which after a fun but rainy demonstration of how the shepherds work with their sheep dogs treated us to a delightful tea with a homemade scone.

Y’all, I love scones. Not the hard, sugary triangles we get in the states, but this classic: Lightly sweet, almost like a biscuit in texture, usually with dried fruit inside and served with clotted cream. It was delightful (and Mom’s first real scone!).

Our Galway workshop was from well-known Irish knitter Ann Ó’Maille, who’s well into her 80s. Her mom ran a sweater shop with dedicated hand knitters (most from the famed Aran Islands), and Ann was still doing the same today (but she said a lot of knitters stopped during the pandemic, and almost no new ones are stepping up, so it may be all mass-produced sweaters in a few years, which is sad). She also had no time for nonsense. There were some very tense moments in the class (one of our new friends joked that she feared going to the bathroom without asking permission first), but when it came to the knitting she was happy to help students figure out the traditional, complicated cable patterns.

I was able to make all four (I’m very proud of that!): the basic cable, the blackberry stitch, the lobster claw, and the tree of life. I enjoyed them so much, when we were later at Ann’s shop on Shop Street in Galway proper, I bought enough classic, off-white Aran yarn to make my own sweater with the stitch patterns. Ann gave me a vote of confidence on the project, which my ego may never recover from.

Shop Street in general is just wonderful: a pedestrian walkway full of shops, restaurants, and lively pubs! I would highly recommend it on a visit to Galway, as well as a trek over to see Trad on the Prom perform. It was a little touristy (a new friend on Inis Oirr pointed out that you can hear traditional Irish music for free in pubs across the country), but the musicians and dancers were so talented. I thought it was well worth the price of admission!