It doesn’t really matter where you start in this story, the cycle is the same, So I’ll start by wishing young Charlie Molloy all the best on his first day of school yesterday in Fintown.
Charlie is the son of Paddy and Jackie Molloy and a grandson of my friend the late John Mangan, What a smile from this young man on the first days of his journey through his school years.
Mollie knew something was different about Monday this week. There was too much moving of stuff to the front hall.
She missed her step as she tried to spring in beside the bags and boxes to go were ever everybody else was going. She is now 51 in human years. As a pup she stepped away from the comfort of her mother and her litter and walked across the garage floor in Labadish, Manorcunningham, where we got her and sat down at her new master’s feet and nervously scratched the back of her ear with her hind leg.
We went out that day to pick a new dog and Mollie picked us.
Mollie makes her way on board to see if she can also go to Galway with the luggage. Photo Brian McDaid
Her best friend for all of her life has now headed to college on Monday. The remains of a redundant battered up football lie in the back hall beside her bed as she waits on his return.
Taxi-mammy
His third level education journey is out of range of Taxi-Mammy or Taxi Daddy now. He will have to learn the movements of Bus Feda as he heads for Galway. He has far too much stuff with him as he headed to his new digs in Galway so Taxi Mammy or Daddy did a one special excursion journey down to the big smoke.
This was done after the routine check of oil and tyres and window washer but for the journey we not only need to dip the oil but that bank account will also need a good dipping to see if we can scrape together the rent for the term which has to be paid up front.
The journey seems long to him as he thinks he wants to stop for something to eat only to think that he better make tracks if he is to meet up with his friends that have traveled the road from Donegal before him.
As road signs change from the N56 to the N17 on the Mayo side of Sligo. He makes the odd nervous stretch and the odd scratch at the back of his ear, not on like his best friend that he left at home in Donegal as he went on his new journey for the first time.
On what should have been a normal quiet Monday in Galway turned out to be more like a rush hour on a Friday evening as the Donegal registered cars were bumper to bumper long before we got as far as Clare Galway. When we got to Galway some were lucky and got accommodation that day and some, near the end of their 4-year course were desperately still looking for somewhere to stay.
Meanwhile back at home the dog lifts her ears and takes a look out over the cattle grid to see if her friend is coming home again. There are benefits for her however, there seems to be far more milk in the fridge than we need and for us the broadband seems to be far faster than we ever thought we paid for!
Mollie never liked the swallows, that arrived to our shed every year. She would go into there one day and give out to them and would go in another day thinking she was a cat and tried to catch them. Now she must think the swallows took her friend with them as he flies south for the winter months to Galway. Like the swallows he migrates at low altitude, on board one of Feda O’Donnell’s white buses.
They will stock up with food before the journey as things could be hard for the winter months down south.
Checkpoint Charlie
Spare a thought for the swallows or students from Donegal who went to college in Galway years ago. They would have never went home from the start of their term to the end of it. And to complicate things The Galway Express in them days only came a far as Ballybofey so those living in the west and north of Ballybofey had to make a journey by car to collect college students.
In them days a lot of students thought nothing of thumbing from Galway to Letterkenny and considered themselves as good as home when they got as far as Ballyshannon.
On the bridge in Ballyshannon there was a Garda Checkpoint and students would have a good chance of getting a lift from the cars that slowed down at the checkpoint. Even the Garda on duty would ask the odd driver where they were going and would suggest that they might give the stranded students a lift home.
One thing that Donegal students seem to have in common in 2017 and 1977 was a great time at third level education. They somehow find a way to survive on very little and have a great time.
Meanwhile, like the swallows, flocks of students who traveled south from Donegal meet with flocks from all parts of the west of Ireland and form bigger colonies as they go in search of education food rest and drink but possibly not in that order!
A couple of swallows of a different kind that students might part take in while in Galway. Photo By Brian McDaid.
This year tight haircuts are in vogue so some of them look more like young soldiers than students but give them a year or two and they will let their hair down I bet as they accustom to the climate of the beautiful south.
Happy Motoring Folks.
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