https://www.theghotel.ie/ Archives - Jim Murty’s TravelTravelTravel

What’s a fella to do to get a whirl round Salthill Prom with a Galway Girl?

Before The Scary One puts the tracker on me over my whistlestop trip to Ireland I’m just reminiscing about the Galway Races.

Because our friends at the G Hotel have only reminded us that it’s that time of year at Ballybrit, Monday 25th July-31, again.

Made even better this year for the festival having been in cold storage since 2019.

Cussing cousins

For my latest trick: The Races

The Galway Races was a mainstay for me of childhood summers in the West of Ireland with my cousins.

And bumper cars, trips to the Marian site of Knock, swims off Spital beach and roller discos.

And an innocent dalliance at our mobile home park with a couple of girls from Drogheda in Co. Meath.

Only as was always the way of it when I was 14 the other guy got the girl.

I lost my nerve and ended up hanging out with a fella called Edser while cousin was rockin’ the room with Lorna.

Luck be a Lady

I had no better luck with the Lady at the races either.

The Find the Lady card trick is where the stallholder mixes the cards and asks you to pick the Queen.

And which through sleight of hand you always choose wrongly.

The Galway Races, of course has become synonymous with great racing, The Big Tent where political deals are done and Ladies Day.

But what has changed is that I’ve moved in from mobile home parks, great as they are, to swanky 5-star hotels.

G whizz

Such as the 5-star g Hotel which has a two-night B&B offer during race week available from €668.00pps.

And because you’re race people you’ll want to do it with bubbly.

Try g races Afternoon Tea in association with Taittinger(€65pp).

Where you’ll be entered into the daily Best Hat of the Day.

And you can pre-book the g hotel’s courtesy car to bring you into the city to soak up the festival atmosphere!

This offer is available on Monday 25^th, Tuesday 26^th, Saturday 30^th and Sunday 31^st.

And maybe that’ll be enough to get you a whirl round Salthill Prom with a Galway Girl

Daddy’s Little Girl almost always knows the right thing to say to cheer her Old Man up and she did not disappoint when I went slithering down the board in Travel’s game of Snakes and Ladders.

Returning to my North Berwick home early yesterday morning having only managed to get halfway to Edinburgh Airport,

Before the car died on me I felt like I was in Hotel California.

Only without the California, although I’d often thought that it might not be the worst thing to be trapped in the Golden State. I digress.

St Paddy’s Day

DLG shot me one of her unique smiles,

And she said that I should join her when she goes over to our old Ireland stomping ground for St Patrick’s Day.

Of course, I wouldn’t dream of cramping her style.

Should that not be a green carpet: The g Hotel

But her generosity and the two doggies she borrowed to walk the beach lifted me from my doldrums, albeit temporarily.

St Paddy is often accompanied on the parades throughout Ireland and the world by carnival snakes.

As he famously rid Hibernia of the serpents.

Those scary Indians

Indian snake trick: Behind our snakes and ladders derivative

Travel these past two Covid years has seemed a bit like the ancient game of Snakes and Ladders.

And like the Indian original Moksha Patam rather than the British derivative the game it is deffo stacked against us humans.

With more snakes than ladders.

That news to you?

Thankfully the game was diluted from its base when Victorians took it back from the Indian Raj in 1892.

It had been based on the idea that a person can attain salvation Moksha.

Through doing good, whereas by doing evil one will be reborn as lower forms of life.

How we changed the game

Snake all right: With ‘The Donald’ in New York

Not that the Victorians ditched the morality, they were all about that.

But there was no suggestion that little Herbert or Hannah would be turned into snakes.

Our cousins across the Atlantic sanitised it even further turning the snakes into chutes and the board into a playground.

All of which childish nonsense is indulged in other forms on Paddy’s Day.

And despite the Americans’ showpiece events.

In the likes of New York, Boston and Chicago, the latter where they turn their river green, the best Paddy’s Days are in the homeland.

Give me a g in Galway

Among the offers that have landed in my inbox (always more reliable than a gearbox) was from Galway in the West of Ireland.

And not just because I feel a kindred connection from summer holidays there as a child.

And because Galwegians are much like Glaswegians and not just in the naming conventions.

Towering status: And Macnas put a stamp on it

Also because down, down, down the brief g Hotel & Spa says it will provide a courtesy car and comp parkin.

If you like your entertainment ghoulish and dramatic then you’ll lap up the Macnas parade.

While of course you’ll be tapping your feet too to the trad music.

Deal us in

The Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day 2022 Package at the g Hotel & Spa is available from the 13^th to the 20^th of March for two nights from €229 per person sharing.

Evening dinner on one night of your choice and freshly cooked breakfast included both days.

Booking is advised for the discounted use of the Thermal Suite.

Perhaps I’ll still win the game of Travel’s Snakes and Ladders.

Tag: https://www.theghotel.ie/

A Galway girl