Evening Sun, Salthill

I'm just back form Galway, where I spent a couple of days with an old friend J, his wife and their 6 month old baby girl. Their house is out beyond Spiddal, nestled under a shallow hill in a bog, with a crop of wind turbines nearby gently whumping the air (a comforting domestic sound, like a washing machine). One of the first things J did while the house was being built (over a decade ago) was to plant trees all round it (hardy Mountain Ash, pines, etc.) to enhance the privacy and shelter. I wrote about J's house in a mini-sequence (called 'Western Stills') in my last collection, The Sky Road.

Indreabhán, 5 a.m.

Steepling behind your
house on the hill,
the vertical, bone-white oar
of a windmill.

But this time the high point of my visit was a walk with J on Salthill prom. After my windy and rainy drive from Dublin, the weather had finally lifted, and we took a leisurly dander into the evening sun's burnished light. I like this part of Galway, which is rather like Bray: slightly seedy, with cafés, amusement arcades and hotels/guest houses which have seen better days, all of them transmuted by the sepia light filtering through a high layer of ash-grey cloud, like a jammed venetian blind.

I took a few shots of the bay, with one of the Aran islands rising like a dark, frozen wave. But what I wanted was silhouettes, walking onto the little pier to animate that stage set. There were plenty of people strolling into the sun, so very soon my wish was granted.