It’s not unusual for Galway to sit at the top of a list of places. Galway fairs well in lists like ‘best places to visit in Ireland’, ‘top European cities’, and unfortunately, the ‘most overcrowded hospitals’.
Now the Financial Times are in on the act, with a special feature claiming that Galway is rivaling Dublin as one of the best places to live in Ireland.
Well duh, indeed. But Dublin remains more well-known around the world, despite Ed Sheeran’s best efforts. It is our capital after all.
The feature begins on a dodgy footing too. The opening paragraph contains the line “this west coast city is fast becoming a rival to the capital Dublin as one of Ireland’s top places to live”.
Hmm. Like it hasn’t been for decades?
Still, good publicity is always welcome, and although Galway is (arguably) better than Dublin in almost every way, we can’t argue with (most of) the five reasons that the FT believes the city of the tribes is ‘rivaling’ the capital.
Scenery and seaweed are the first reasons given. Who could argue with that? But the FT quickly moves onto the housing market, which is slightly less clear-cut.
“The west Ireland property market has finally woken up. Though the city’s post-crisis economic recovery initially lagged behind the rest of the country, Galway house prices rose 4.9 per cent in the first half of 2017, according to estate agents Sherry Fitzgerald, faster than any other Irish city outside Dublin,” it says.
No mention of the hosuing crisis? Fair enough, best not to put off the tourists, eh? And as bad as it is in Galway, it is undoubtedly worse in Dublin.
The list goes on. ‘City of festivals’: speaks for itself. ‘Days at the races’ – we can’t argue with that either. And ‘foraged fine dining?’
Well, they’ve done their research.
Kai Cafe + Restaurant and Ard Bia at Nimmos get a well-deserved shout out, as does Glenlo Abbey Hotel’s Pullman Restaurant.
No mention of McMahon’s Aniar, though.
Their list could go on and on and on, but they leave it at five.
And at the end of the day, maybe Galway isn’t really better than Dublin after all. Maybe.
