Galway

<h2>Rediscovering Ireland’s Quietest, and Most Important, Month.</h2>
<h3>November used to be the beginning.</h3>
In the old Irish calendar, the year didn’t open with fireworks or resolutions, it began now, at Samhain, in darkness and quiet. In Ireland, winter didn’t follow the year; it began the year.
As Eithne Massey writes in The Turning of the Year:
<blockquote>“The year begins with a death. The light is dying… Darkness has the upper hand.”</blockquote>
This wasn’t bleak; it was truthful. Everything in nature begins in the dark, seeds, stories, winter itself. But today, November is barely visible. Once Halloween ends, the world leaps straight into Christmas: lights up, sales on, pressure rising. Black Friday clocks count down like some global metronome of urgency. And in the rush, we miss one of the richest months in the Irish year.

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<h2>The Real Irish New Year</h2>
Samhain wasn’t just Halloween, it was the turning of the year, the opening of the dark season that runs until February. The Celts believed that summer’s work was done, sleep was needed, and new beginnings formed in darkness, not in daylight.
Seeds germinate better in darkness. Trees rest. People turn inward. Winter starts slowly and meaningfully.
Massey reminds us:&nbsp;
<blockquote>“Their great days of celebration began in the gestating night… their year begins in the fertile, sleeping darkness, not in the light.”&nbsp;</blockquote>
It’s a line that perfectly captures what we’ve forgotten.

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<h2>Old Stories for the Dark Months</h2>
November brought with it the sound of keening at wakes, the banshee’s cry in the distance, St Martin’s Day rituals, and the figure of the Cailleach, the ancient winter hag-goddess who shapes the landscape, commands the storms, and ushers in the darkest weeks of the year. She is not a villain, but a force: the embodiment of winter itself.
This was a time when the dead could cross into the living world, and the living stepped more gently, more attentively.
It was the original season of storytelling, houses warm, fires lit early, neighbours calling in through the wind, the year beginning in quiet conversation rather than noise.
<a href="https://www.rte.ie/culture/2025/0916/1533799-manchan-magan-on-living-with-cancer/" target="_blank">Manchán Magan</a>, who died on 2 October this year, spent his life listening to these rhythms. His book Listen to the Land Speak is an invitation to notice what lies beneath us, and he would have understood better than most that November is when the veil is thinnest.

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<h2>A Month of Extraordinary Beauty</h2>
For a month we treat like a blur, November has some of the most spectacular light of the year.
Golden afternoons that never rise too high. A sky that feels closer to the ground. Soft edges on the Corrib, long shadows across Connemara, the glaze of colour over Salthill Prom. The sound of wind along the canals and the crunch of the first frost underfoot.
It is a month that rewards anyone willing to slow down, walkers, photographers, daydreamers, and anyone who simply needs a breath. It is a month made for presence.

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<h2>Slowing Down Instead of Speeding Up</h2>
This is also the month when the pressure to consume sharpens: flash sales, countdown timers, a loud push to buy more, sooner, cheaper.
But November was never about accumulation. It was about preparation, care, community, rest. It was about making do, not stockpiling. It was about supporting the people around you.
There’s a quiet act of resistance in choosing the small and local at this time of year, picking up a book in a local book shop, buying a candle from a craft shop, or having a slow coffee with someone instead of scrolling for discounts.
Slowing down isn’t just cultural, it’s economic. When you choose local, you choose community. When we don’t feed the frenzy, we help restore the season to its original shape.

<h2>Books the Season Deserves</h2>
Two books deserve space on your shelf this winter:
• The Turning of the Year - Eithne Massey
&nbsp;A beautiful guide to Irish seasonal traditions, including Samhain as the true beginning.
• Listen to the Land Speak - Manchán Magan
&nbsp;A gentle, powerful reminder to move at the pace of the land.
Both can be found in Galway’s independent bookshops, <a href="https://xploreapp.io/galway/listings" target="_blank">all listed on our app</a>. They pair perfectly with a slow walk and a quiet November afternoon.

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<h2>Why this matters</h2>
Because November is not the gap between two seasons, it is the beginning of the Irish year.
Because darkness is not something to rush through; it’s a place where things form.
Because supporting local keeps our communities alive and resists the pull of consumer frenzy.
Because traditions only survive when we pay attention.
Because the year starts in darkness, and that is its wisdom.
And because the West of Ireland in November is too beautiful, and too meaningful, to ignore.
Let November be the beginning again.

November: The Month We Forgot

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