How to choose a sofa

Thu, Jan 08, 2009

While it is important to get a sofa in just the right colour, it is just as important to get one that will last. Inexpensive furniture can break, pop springs, and look out of shape after a year of constant use. Quality construction will offer years of enjoyment and has enough good “bones” to allow you to recover it periodically.

Design your home with La Maison Chic

Thu, Jan 08, 2009

La Maison Chic is now offering an intensive 12 weeks course for students eager to be able to design their own home efficiently. The course syllabus has been designed by expert designer and owner of La Maison Chic interior design Galway and Dublin, Laurent Billiet. The course content and skills taught are practical and fully up to date as well as developed by a working professional.

Dressing princesses at Anthony Ryan’s

Thu, Jan 08, 2009

Sinple, elegant styles are big news for girls’ Holy Communion wear this year, according to Anthony Ryan’s store which holds its annual fashion show devoted exclusively to Holy Communion wear at its Shop Street premises on Tuesday at 7.30pm.

Party on

Thu, Jan 08, 2009

If you refuse to be beaten by the recession and are determined to party your way through January the latest collection from ICHI will ease you into the New Year with style.

Fit for anything

Thu, Jan 08, 2009

Losing weight and getting in shape featured at the top of many people’s New Year resolution list.

Flutter those lashes

Thu, Jan 08, 2009

Long, lustrous lashes will give you instant eye appeal so if you want to ensure your peepers are one of your best assets check out Oscillation, Lancôme’s new power mascara.

Face facts

Thu, Jan 08, 2009

Foundation is one of the keys to creating flawless make-up. Choose the correct shade to suit your colouring and your face will boast a natural healthy glow.

Clarin’s new Instant Smooth Foundation promises to smooth, even and conceal. Described by the makers as a featherlight mousse which creates a “magical second skin” it is easy to apply and melts invisibly onto the skin for a flawless finish.

Create a stylish wet room look in your bathroom

Tue, Dec 30, 2008

Flair International has extended its range to introduce a stylish collection of wet room shower screens — the ultimate in accessible showering luxury for your bathroom which offers a wet room look at an affordable price. With a modern bold “square look” design, a Flair wet room shower screen will show off tiles and other bathroom design details beautifully, adding a striking designer touch to your bathroom.

Home Ground

Tue, Dec 30, 2008

Now the Christmas tree and decorations will soon be taken down and put away and the New Year’s celebrations are almost behind you, you are no doubt ready to start gardening again. Are you feeling motivated? I do hope so because there is much to be done.

An important job this season would be to cover your ornamental cherry trees with netting as you will find that birds tend to peck at the buds. The trees most prone to bird damage would be your fruit trees and, as I have already mentioned, your ornamental cherries. If covering your trees with netting proves to be too difficult, there are repellent sprays available and these can be used instead.

Local produce — local markets

Tue, Dec 30, 2008

As we have all painfully observed over recent weeks the consequences when large scale food production goes wrong can be disastrous. We cannot survive without these big companies, however it is well worth while supporting small local producers. During 2008 we saw the birth of some great farmers’ markets in Claregalway, Moycullen, and Oranmore. As a regular in the Oranmore Market, I have seen the build-up of regular customers and it is now part of many people’s weekly shopping.

Get cheesy

Tue, Dec 30, 2008

Put Irish farmhouse cheese on the menu next year with these great recipe ideas from Bord Bia.

‘GALWAY! THE DIRTIEST TOWN I EVER SAW!’

Tue, Dec 30, 2008

In 1833 the novelist and educationalist Maria Edgeworth and some friends set out on a horse and open carriage tour of Connemara in considerable style. Happily for us because she was an inveterate letter writer, we have today her amusing and sharply observed picture of her adventure, as travel 175 years ago was pretty rough and ready.

Poor Father Moloney and Greek purity

Tue, Dec 30, 2008

I was always of the opinion that WB Yeats was a rather serious, impractical, pedantic man, sometimes lost in the unreal world of the fairies. However, Roy Foster’s epic biography of the famous poet *shows that like many of his contemporaries, WB was a very witty conversationalist.

The Luther Christmas tree

Tue, Dec 30, 2008

I always thought that the Christmas tree, which gives a special pleasure in any home, was a Victorian thing, introduced by Prince Albert in the early 19th century. But reading Niall Mac Coitir’s fascinating book Irish Trees - Myths, Legends and Folklore* I learned that legend has it that the idea of the Christmas fir tree first came to Martin Luther. After walking one Christmas Eve under a clear winter sky lit by 1,000 stars, he set up for his children a tree with countless candles as an image of the starry heaven whence Christ came. However, the first known record of a modern Christmas tree comes from Strasbourg in 1605 when fir trees were set up and decorated.

Perhaps the Christmas tree was a more modern expression of an older link between the evergreen pine with its bright flaming wood and the birth of the new year and the new sun.

Saying the Rosary together...

Tue, Dec 30, 2008

Donall MacAmhlaigh was one of those tens of thousands who took the boat to Holyhead during the 1950s. Born in Knocknacarra, Galway, in 1926 into an Irish-speaking family, he worked in a series of jobs after leaving school aged 15, before joining the Army in 1948. Unable to find work after three years in the Army he emigrated to Britain where so many of his friends and neighbours had gone before him. His first job was a live-in stoker in a hospital in Northampton until low pay tempted him to swap security for the higher wages of life as a navvy.

Work as a labourer on the construction sites of post-war Britain was difficult and casual. Like other navvies, he had to follow the work, so he never put down roots in any one city, setting up temporary home in a succession of digs and camps. *

Patrick Kavanagh and his great expectations...

Tue, Dec 30, 2008

When the poet Patrick Kavanagh first came to Dublin in 1939 it was with great expectations. What better city could there be for a poet than one so rich in famous writers. AE (George Russell), always kind and encouraging towards new poetic talent, took him under his wing, and, as Kavanagh appeared to him to be the peasant-poet of Irish tradition, he was initially accepted by the establishment. That idyll did not last, and, for one reason or another, he spent most of his life as a loner.

A Christmas Song

Tue, Dec 30, 2008

Why is the baby crying
On this, his special day,

The mistress of the Fine Gael party?

Tue, Dec 30, 2008

In 1966, the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Rising, Eamon de Valera confidently put himself forward for re-election. Fine Gael decided to contest the election and put forward Tom O’Higgins. The idea of Fine Gael opposing ‘The Chief’ in the same year as the golden jubilee of the Easter Rising greatly irritated many within Fianna Fáil. Some members of the party blamed The Irish Times, which had insisted that the electorate be given a choice of candidates. In November 1965 it had declared that ‘the spirit of 1916 would be well borne out if next year were to see a Fine Gael President. For the other side of the old Sinn Féin house has still its part to play and that party is not lacking in men who could with dignity and vigour fill the office.’ It also welcomed O’Higgins’ candidacy by noting that the electoral contests were ‘the essence of a healthy democratic system’.

Galway Rovers soccer teams

Tue, Dec 30, 2008

I am not sure when the game of soccer was first played competitively in Galway or who were the first teams. It seems to have been a popular sport in the Claddagh. In the early 1930s a team called Claddagh Rangers were playing senior soccer which is the equivalent of League of Ireland today. Another team from the area around that time was Old Claddonians, but the club we are concerned with today is Galway Rovers. In their early days, they had no clubhouse, though the Old Malt pub and the Atlanta Hotel could be described as hangouts. One of their earliest teams won the Celtic Shield in 1933.

Detox your life

Tue, Dec 30, 2008

What are your priorities for the New Year? To move house, save money, take up a new sport, lose weight or to find more me-time?

E-paper

Read this weeks E-paper. Past editions also available from within this weeks digital copy.