A Different View with Dave O’Connell

It was the morning after the night before, and the streets looked like they were picking up the pieces after coping with the fall-out from a mass redundancy in the banking sector – or else Student Day at the Galway Races had gone on all night.

A steady – or, more precisely, not-so-steady – stream of young men in too-small suits could be seen wandering the city like those reanimated corpses or zombies from the Night of the Living Dead.

Some of them had been last seen, considerably livelier, at around closing time the previous evening, walking through the driving rain in their waistcoats like lost, soaked snooker players in a futile search for a welcoming pool hall.

But these were no snooker stars, punters or redundant bankers; they were the graduating class of 2025 from University of Galway, determined to make maximum use of their specially rented suits.

The day had started for many with a hearty breakfast in one of Galway’s plethora of hostelries which had specifically opened early to fulfil the purpose.

For some it was more of a Last Supper, because they weren’t to eat solids again for 24 hours or more.

But given that most were linking up with their proud parents for the early part of proceedings, a good breakfast it was – and then onto the college to collect their deserved reward for three or four years of endeavour.

Some might even have enjoyed a second meal of the day with the family before cutting loose like greyhounds from traps into the dark and dirty Galway night.

Where they went then is a question that even the Guards couldn’t answer but chances are there was a heavier and usual bottle bank around the student accommodation for the next collection.

In the way that young people don’t notice the wind or the rain or the cold, the females were more suitably clad for Torremolinos than Tirellan Heights – and the lads were collectively bursting out of those suits that always look like they shrunk two sizes after going on the wrong cycle in the wash.

It was a different story by morning, as the rest of the city made its way to work. The undergrads were collectively under the weather.