From bad to verse for culture capital

Irish organizers expecting a tourism boost from being named City of Culture for 2020 got a rude awakening when a poet slagged her hometown as a “sh*tty city.” In a poem commissioned by the Galway 2020 committee, Rita Ann Higgins delivered a “devastating critique” of the harbour city on Ireland’s west coast — not the expected paean to its many glories, The Irish Independent reported. In the poem, Our Killer City, Higgins rails against Galway’s hospitals, its courts, its university and even its car-parking charges. “This is pity city, sh*tty city,” she wrote. “Sewage in your nostrils city. This is Galway. City of expert panels. City of Slickers and slackers ...” The city’s mayor, Noel Larkin, said the announcement that Galway would share culture-hub honours with Rijeka, Croatia, was a “wonderful day for our region.” Galway beat Limerick and the “Three Sisters” region of Kilkenny, Waterford and Wexford to claim the title.