Language exchange at the Salt House: where beer and culture mix

There’s a place along the Corrib river where the beer and conversations flow, where the sound of music swings in multiple languages : The Salt House. 

The little pub hosts a weekly language exchange on Tuesdays, welcoming people from all over the world.

This initiatives has been taken by Steven Moles, a teacher of English at the University of Galway. He wanted to create a safe place for people to talk and learn new language in the ‘City of Tribes’. 

“People want a chance to meet each other, talk to new people and just not be lonely, which is a bit of a problem by living in a city sometimes,” said the polyglot teacher who speaks French, Russian, English, Spanish, German and Italian. 

Loneliness

In fact, Stephen has experienced loneliness because he has traveled a lot, leaving his native home country of Switzerland quite often.

Last Spring, he went to Barcelona in order to meet people from other countries and learn Russian. This is where he discovered the concept of a language exchange and brought it to Galway.

Since he is also a part-time bluegrass musician at the Salt House, it was easy for him to organise the event every Tuesday at 5:30pm. 

“The Salt House is a perfect place for that. I love it because it is just one big room so people don’t get lost like in some other pubs that are real mazes,” added Stephen. “People just have to enter and they are directly in the event.”

A cosmopolitan pub

The Salt House has also always been a very cosmopolitan place and Stephen knew that. The walls of the establishment are covered with signs, flags and beer brands from all around the globe and the staff speak many languages. 

Connor McDonough-Flynn, the pub manager who speaks Spanish, Irish and English, wanted to create an exchange like that for a while.

When Steven started coming to play the banjo in his pub, the Swiss musician brought the idea up. Together, they agreed to try it out in October 2023. 

“Salt House has always been welcoming people from all over, so it’s important that we all get to know each other,” said Connor.

Students and professionals

Since October, a lot of different people have come to the Galway Language Exchange. Some of them are Stephen’s students but most have heard about the exchange on social media or in hostels. Other participants are young professionals or tourists. 

During the evening, they all share a beer together with tags on their chests that list the names of the languages they can speak. 

Carlos Mayor, a young professional from Spain, has been coming for weeks now. 

“Every time I don’t have anything plan on a Tuesday night, I just come down here,” said the young Spanish worker. 

The language exchange is the perfect place to meet new people, practise many languages from Irish to Arabic to Chinese, and to get out of one’s comfort zone.