
Arriving in Clifden with a sleepy head at 11.30, the first thing I go in search of is a cup of coffee. Entering a bakery in Market Street to acquire same I am served by a pleasant young black woman and when she speaks she has as Galway an accent as anybody could ever hear. I don’t know why this surprises me, but it does, and is a sort of wow moment which makes me smile a bit.
“Where’s the loo?” I ask.
“You mean the toilet?” she replies, to which I nod. These days I feel I am increasingly speaking a different language to the youth of today.