We lived in the center of Galway from May 2025 to March 2026. The Waterfront - just off Bridge Street, right in the Latin Quarter.
Without quite realizing it, I became part of the performance.
Every morning, if you were up early enough, you could see behind the curtain.
Trucks filled the streets that would soon belong to pedestrians. Kegs of Guinness rolled into pubs. Deliveries stacked outside restaurants. City crews moved through with quiet efficiency, clearing, cleaning, resetting.
It was a different Galway - functional, unsentimental, almost industrial.
Then, around eleven, it all changed.
The trucks disappeared. The bollards rose. The buskers tuned their guitars. And from Eyre Square, they came - streaming down William Street, Shop Street, High Street, Quay Street - drawn, almost magnetically, toward the Aran sweater shop at the end.
The show had begun.
By midday, the audience had spread out- into pubs, onto walking tours, into St. Nicholas’ Church, along Kirwan’s Lane, down toward the Spanish Arch. But what they were really looking for wasn’t any of those things.
They were looking to feel local.
Not tourists - never tourists. That word misses the point entirely. They wanted something more collaborative than that. They wanted a moment of belonging.
And that’s what Galway gives them.
A carefully curated experience that is, somehow, still completely genuine.
That’s the trick. That’s the magic.
The locals play their roles perfectly. So do the visitors.
And somewhere in between, something real emerges.
I played my part too. A small role, but a reliable one.
People missed their dogs back home - California, New Hampshire, places that suddenly felt very far away. They’d stop to pet mine, grateful for the contact. I’d joke that for ten euros they could walk them if they liked.
Sometimes I’d give an impromptu tour if someone looked lost. The canals, the streets, a bit of context. Nothing official - just enough to help them find their way inside the experience.
It was surprisingly satisfying - being a bit player in the show.
Later, in the evening, it would all soften. A pint in Tigh Neachtain. A conversation in the Bunch of Grapes. People from everywhere, talking like they’d known each other longer than an hour.
That’s why the performance works.
It works for the visitors. But it also works for the locals.
It’s not fake. It’s not cynical. It’s something else.
It’s a collaboration.
In a way, it’s exactly what we describe in the Agentic Foma - reality as something co-created, a shared agreement that becomes real through participation.
Galway doesn’t hide the performance. It invites you into it.
And once you’re inside, it feels completely authentic - because, in that moment, it is.
That kind of experience has disappeared from many places. Even in parts of Ireland. Visitors are kept separate. Locals grow tired, even resentful. The connection breaks.
The performance collapses.
The only other place I’ve felt it like this is the French Quarter in New Orleans.
A place where locals and visitors meet inside something temporary and alive - something that only exists in the moment, and only because everyone agrees to play along.
That’s the magic.
Not that it’s real.
But that everyone makes it real, together.