May 1st
Galway has finally realized that the present season is spring, and May 1 is the most beautiful day I have seen since touching down in Ireland. This day rivals summer days I've spent in Seattle parks, or not-too-humid summer afternoons in the Atlantic off the Florida coast. Hopefully, things will stay this way.

Today is also a public holiday, Mayday, so Eyre Square is filled with people, just relaxing, chatting, enjoying the sunshine on their day off. This is what I intend to do, especially as, on Wednesday, I start work: part-time sales assistant in a jewelry store. A job, at last, and I must admit that I am actually pretty excited to get back to work. (Besides, I really need the money - gotta start paying off that Visa bill sooner or later, you know.)

Before I start work on Wednesday, however, I'm spending my May Day in the communist spirit, and attending a demonstration against capitalism. What I had intended to be a day of lounging and relaxing changed when a guy handed me a flier: People & Planet, Human Need Before Corporate Greed. Eyre Square - I was already on my way there; at 2pm - about 10 minutes away.

It wasn't so much a demonstration as a public talk (and was the complete opposite of the fracas going on in London, where anti-capitalist protestors were raising hell), with speakers from groups such as the Anti-Nazi League, the Green Party, Galway for Safe Environment, the Labour Party, Galway Fair Trade Group, and the Socialist Workers Party.

The talk - and I'm going to try to avoid political commentary here - was a good reminder that not all is well in Celtic Tiger Ireland. Housing problems in Galway and Connemara, according to some groups, were causing a shortage of affordable housing for low-income families, single mothers, etc., but more expensive, suburban housing was in the works for both areas. And, despite the availability of jobs due to the Celtic Tiger economy, groups such as the Socialist Workers Party pointed out that for some the Tiger was doing nothing but sinking in its claws.

Recent revelations of political corruption in Dublin also were highlighted, especially as it is contended that many of Ireland's more urgent political problems, such as the corruption, are being shadowed over by a focus on increasing Irish intolerance for refugees and asylum-seekers (in addition to revelations of Irish PMs accepting some rather questionable money in relation to some real estate, all over Ireland there have been attacks against foreigners, refuges, and asylum-seekers).

Just a reminder, then: like any other place, Ireland has its troubles - and they're not just in the North.