The Galway Races Tent
"Never glad confident morning again!"
'The Lost Leader' by Robert Browning
Shed a crocodile tear for the days of the
Fianna Fail Tent at the
Galway Races when
Bertie Ahern was in his pomp and the Celtic Tiger was rampant.
Galway Races. New records year after year. Attendances up. Drink sales up. Betting turnover up. Traffic tailbacks. Car parks full. 'No Vacancies' in hotels or B&Bs. Full capacity grandstands. Helicopter rides for the hoi polloi. The 24/7 party in full strutting, stereophonic swing.
And inside the iconic Galway Races Tent, ruddy-faced builders with 46 inch waists crammed into 34 inch belts. Button-popping paunches in Desperate Dan trousers. Stratospheric bank loans. Concrete brains and feet of clay.
Money-brandishing crowds milling around the champagne and oyster bars. Johnny-come-lately racehorse syndicates thronging the parade ring, back-slapping 'their' trainers and pulling faces at the television cameras.
Paper millionaires, with mobile phones welded to their ears, cavorting like chimpanzees while old-money race-goers tutted their disapproval from afar.
"Why does one never see Aidan O'Brien, John Oxx or Kevin Prendergast at the Galway Races?" asks a tweed-jacketed bystander.
But what of Galway Races 2009?
The Fianna Fail Tent is gone. Cast into the abyss of history by Bertie's successor, Taoiseach Brian Cowen.
Unemployment is at unprecedented levels (326,000 and rising). Hundreds of companies in the private sector are closing down; thousands more are struggling to survive.
120,000 public sector workers protesting against pension levies. Emigration rocketing. Car sales plummeting. Property prices in freefall.
Thousands of shoppers speeding 'unpatriotically' to Newry to take advantage of 'real world' prices.
Racehorse trainers receiving cancellation calls from cash-strapped builders who had instructed them to purchase four-legged status symbols with swishing tails.
"Do you wanna buy a horse?"
The Galway Races Tent?
Yes, I remember it well.
Ladies Day at Galway Races
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