Virginia-born Steve Earle established himself in country music and rock generally, with his 1986 album Guitar Town. Ten years and a spell in rehab later, he was living in Barna, west of Galway, writing songs and stories and contemplating a life without booze and heroin. It was during this sojourn that he wrote the slow burner Galway Girl. Curiously, when the song was released as a single from Sharon Shannon’s 2000 album The Diamond Mountain Sessions nothing happened, while the follow-up single from the same album, Dessie O’Halloran’s Say You Love Me, was a huge hit on radio and at concerts. Steve Earle released the same version of Galway Girl on his 2000 album Transcendental Blues.
The Galway Girl – Steve Earle & Sharon Shannon
However, a live recording by Mundy and Sharon Shannon became the biggest download in Ireland in 2007 and won a Meteor award. This was followed by five weeks at the top of the IRMA Irish singles charts for a studio version of the song, again by Mundy and Sharon Shannon. Mundy also released a version sung in Irish. A compilation album by Sharon Shannon, which included Steve Earle among the guests, called The Galway Girl, went to the top of the Irish album charts at the end of May, 2008, for two weeks.
The song features in the 2007 film PS I Love You.
The Long Walk (pictured above) is a picturesque pier road in the historic part of Galway, overlooking the Corrib, across the river from the Claddagh and accessed through the Spanish Arch. The Promenade (Prom) in Salthill is about two miles away to the west, by the sea and overlooking Galway Bay, the Burren and Aran Islands.
The Galway Girl – Mundy & Sharon Shannon
Galway Girl
Well, I took a stroll on the old Long Walk
Of a day -I-ay-I-ay
I met a little girl and we stopped to talk
Of a fine soft day -I-ay-I-ay
And I ask you, friend, what’s a fella to do
‘Cause her hair was black and her eyes were blue
And I knew right then I’d be takin’ a whirl
‘Round the Salthill Prom with a Galway girl
We were halfway there when the rain came down
Of a day -I-ay-I-ay
And she asked me up to her flat downtown
Of a fine soft day -I-ay-I-ay
And I ask you, friend, what’s a fella to do
‘Cause her hair was black and her eyes were blue
So I took her hand and I gave her a twirl
And I lost my heart to a Galway girl
When I woke up I was all alone
With a broken heart and a ticket home
And I ask you now, tell me what would you do
If her hair was black and her eyes were blue
I’ve travelled around I’ve been all over this world
Boys I ain’t never seen nothin’ like a Galway girl
Copyright Steve Earle.
Dublin rocker Brush Shiels sings a parody which starts – “I took a stroll by the Long Mile Road”. It finishes with our man waking up all alone, with his mobile and credit card gone! There are other parodies of the song abroad.
