Sometime in spring, if you take the coast road westward from Galway, you will see the changeable, dazzling light of the bay. If Atlantic rain passes through the sunlight it can be a place of rainbows: the green and indigo, yellow and violet enchanting innocent tourists with the prospect of gold. Yet, as the soft browns and blacks of the landscape tell you, historically this is a place of poverty, a place populated by a people who followed Cromwell's order, "to Hell or to Connaught". Here they eked out a living among the rocks and along the beaches. It is only in recent times that gold has been struck.
Drive into the south Connemara town of Spiddal today and the new-found wealth quickly becomes apparent. This is a community busy in the process of re-constructing itself. Townhouses costing £150,000 are piling up in this place which is barely a town; there are vast new pubs, new shops and restaurants.
This once-sleepy Gaeltacht village is now preoccupied by spiralling property prices and traffic congestion, earning it the dubious distinction of being dubbed "Connemara 4".
"It is a phrase that has come into common usage in the last number of years and it is easy to see why," says Padraig O hAolain, head of information services at Udaras na Gaeltachta. "There are suddenly all of the characteristics of, let's call it a strong middle class. Not only have you a very buoyant economy here, you have a strong business sector emerging. You also have a large number of people choosing to live in the area who work in the universities, the regional technical colleges, in building societies and in a range of other companies. There are some facilities in the area that are not available further west. I suppose that is the basis on which the `Connemara 4' name has come about."
Connemara 4 incarnate can be found in the person of Padraig O Ceidigh, known to some locally as the "Berlusconi of Connemara" for his entrepreneurial skills. A native of the Spiddal area, Padraig O Ceidigh can remember a less privileged childhood, his father often absent as a seasonal labourer in England. Determined to do well, Padraig he received a Jesuit education and went on to become a maths teacher. He then studied law, and eventually set up his own legal practice in Galway city. After a few years he had made enough to start a business empire which now includes his own airline, Aer Arann and his own national Irish-language newspaper, aointe Foinse. This is a classic rags to riches story. O Ceidigh is the local boy that has made more than good.
"Have I made a lot of money? I prefer to say that I have created a significant amount of wealth. Personally I live a pretty modest lifestyle, so I don't need a lot of money to sustain that. I've no difficulty reinvesting whatever money I've made back into the development of those companies, and from my three main companies I've created at least 50 full-time jobs. But as for the lifestyle that comes with the new wealthy Spiddal, well, I prefer to leave that to a younger crowd."
Local businessman Sean O'Foighil has done well in this newly prosperous Connemara. Owner of a local filling station and supermarket, he now runs a travel agency in Spiddal. Coleman Naughton, its managing director, says Taisteal na Cruinne (global travel) caters to the new cosmopolitan tastes of the local population. Destinations such as Cyprus, Greece and Turkey are becoming as popular as the more traditional destinations of England or the US, and many of the customers are young people working in the local audio-visual industry, with a disposable income and a taste for the exotic. With the proximity of TG4, Raidio na Gaeltachta and the production set of the Irish language soap, Ros na Run, it is not surprising that something of a local jet-set has emerged, albeit one on a modest income. That the local shop stocks champagne, anchovies and escargots is another dead give-away that tastes have changed.
These days, information and communications industries can spring up anywhere, and television has been the catalyst in bringing about the changes around Spiddal. The siting of TG4 has had a profound influence. High-flyer media types including the former producer of The Late Late Show, Cilian Fennell, have decided to leave the Dublin television scene behind them.
"I love the west coast," says Fennell, "I was born here. To be back on the western coast, on the Atlantic, is a daily buzz." That there are so many young people about makes the place vibrant, he says. A certain touch of glamour also adds to the impression that this is a happening place. As Fennell says, "you go around Spiddal now and you see soap stars, you see directors, you see producers; it's an amazing place, and these jobs are attainable here now".
But Deirdre Learmont, who plays the distinctively red-haired Sile in Ros na Run, is concerned that the Connemara 4 term not be allowed run riot in people's imaginations. "It's a myth that you make a lot of money in television," she says, "you just don't. You only work a certain number of weeks per year. Nobody is making the kind of money that would enable them to get a mortgage for a £150,000 house, for example. Not yet, anyway!"
Sean O'Tarpaigh, who plays the soap's gay character, Tom, agrees, while the soap's floor manager, Mick Og McGee, says that the idea of Connemara 4 is perfect, given the success that has come to Spiddal in recent years. "I suppose it's just one particular area of Connemara that's doing better than some others," he says. "In a way it's a compliment to the area. An awful lot of it is very positive, especially when you think about the alternative, when everyone was leaving and there was very little for anyone here."
Things certainly have changed when Udaras na Gaeltachta has to keep advertising jobs that local companies find impossible to fill, in traditional areas such as fish processing as well as in new industries. Software development and post-production dubbing and sub-titling are the kinds of jobs that are now on offer to local young people.
For the students of the local secondary school, Colaiste Chroi Mhuire, the changes have been wholly welcome. Leaving Certificate student, Ciaran O Tuathail, says that now he has the choice to stay in the area where he grew up. Christine Ni Dhonnachadha expresses the same view, while Neasa Ni Aolain points to the new confidence that Spiddal people have in their own culture. "I think that people in the Spiddal area, in the past few years, have broadened their minds more," she says. "With the Irish language, there isn't the ignorant view that people used to have of it. It's not un-cool any more. Attitudes have changed a lot."
The profile of Spiddal's population has changed. Not only has the new prosperity brought in people from Dublin and further afield to work in the audio-visual sector, but the range of services that have come with prosperity have made Spiddal an attractive commuter town for the affluent Galway middle class.
New housing estates, such as An Tulan Cleasach, offer luxury, four-bedroom semidetached houses in a scenic setting within half-an-hour's drive of Galway city. Attracted by the quality of life, the unspoilt beaches and boat-mooring facilities, young couples are choosing to live in the west of Ireland's equivalent of south County Dublin, bringing traffic congestion and high property prices with them. According to local Garda, Mairtin Seoighe, father of TV3 news presenter, Grainne Ni Seoighe, the new wealth of the town has made Spiddal an attractive place to live. There are fewer people drawing the dole and the place has remained relatively crime-free, he says.
In the wider context of the other Irish-speaking areas, the success of Spiddal and its environs have earned it the description "the spoilt brat of the Gaeltacht".