Thai massage — a perfect Valentine’s gift

Thu, Feb 12, 2015

Thai massage is very relaxing and returns your body to a Zen-like state. At the end of a session, you will feel extremely calm and relaxed and ready to conquer the world.

Results made easier at The Coast Club

Thu, Feb 12, 2015

The Coast Club boasts an 18.5 metre swimming pool which incorporates natural daylight.

Great value for money at G Furniture and Carpets

Thu, Feb 12, 2015

G Furniture and Carpets in Northpoint on the Tuam road has some really exciting new products to brighten up your home this spring. The company guarantees the best value for money in Galway in carpets and furniture with its carpet and flooring sale now on.

New year's sale continues at An Siopa Troscan, Moycullen

Thu, Feb 12, 2015

See An Siopa Troscan’s full range of quality Irish manufactured suites, where all the suites can be made to order. The range of styles covers everything from contemporary to traditional. Pictured is the Róisin suite, now an amazing €1,699 (was €1,999).

Colourfence — a long lasting, low maintenance, fencing solution

Thu, Feb 12, 2015

For a permanent, no maintenance solution, to all your fencing problems, look no further than Colourfence. Products from Colourfence carry a guarantee that the purchase will sustain for 10 years without warping or corroding.

Evenings at McCambridge’s

Thu, Feb 12, 2015

McCambridge’s is one of my favourite shops. Not a week passes that I do not go in for something special. You can easily put together a wonderful lunch, maybe some grilled artichokes, artisanal cheese, or organic salmon on the freshest of brown bread. An evening meal is just as easily assembled with confit duck legs and something from the salad bar. There are the ever popular sandwiches from the counter to be eaten by the surging waters of the Corrib on a sunny day.

McCambridge’s wins Food Retailer Off Licence Award 2015

Thu, Feb 12, 2015

McCambridge’s was crowned Best Food Retailer Off Licence of the Year at the National Off Licence of the Year Awards 2015 at the Honourable Society of Kings Inns, Dublin, recently.

Memories of Shantalla Place

Thu, Feb 05, 2015

Shantalla Place was a little development of 23 houses which were built by a man named Birmingham, Nos 1 to 6 are on the Rahoon Road, and Nos 7 to 23 form a terrace just off that road. Originally, it was called Birmingham Terrace, later Sycamore Drive, before they finally settled on Shantalla Place. Mothers on this terrace used to warn their children not ‘to go down to the scheme’ when the rest of Shantalla was being built.

Try regional specialities of Italy at Trattoria

Thu, Feb 05, 2015

In many seaside towns both here and afar, there always seems to be one main street filled with souvenir shops, a smattering of dull bars, and some terrible tourist-trap restaurants. In Galway we buck this trend and are lucky enough to have Quay Street, the buzzing heart of Galway’s Latin Quarter. It has medieval architecture, and a pedestrian street for browsing the many quirky little shops full of wooden toys, vintage clothes, and pottery, alongside the quality woollens and Celtic jewellery. The atmosphere in the pubs is fun and friendly, with the sound of music from trad to rock spilling onto the street. You are guaranteed entertainment from buskers and performers, a festival or passing parade, and it is the best place in the city on a sunny evening, when the outdoor seating is packed with tourists and locals engaged in 'people watching' and enjoying all the sights and sounds on our streets.

Quay Street is also the hard working culinary backbone of our tourist trade with many distinctive restaurants to suit all tastes and budgets. Behind the colourful facades there are wine bars, coffee shops, and restaurants with many cuisines from which to choose. But dining out in the centre of Galway is certainly not just for tourists. In the leaner winter months especially they must rely on the local trade to keep afloat in an industry with such notoriously slim margins. While many of us walk past them every day, a lot of them just happen to be very good places to eat, with exceptional variety for visitors and residents. Whether you are looking for a fine dining establishment or a fish and chip joint, you are likely to find something that meets your needs.

Letter to Sylvia Plath from Ted Hughes (March 1956)

Thu, Feb 05, 2015

Sylvia, That night was nothing but getting to know how smooth your body is. The memory of it goes through me like brandy. If you do not come to London to me, I shall come to Cambridge to you. I shall be in London, here, until the 14th. Enjoy Paris...Ted. And bring back brandy. Two bottles.

William Street West c1978

Thu, Jan 29, 2015

William of Orange had a major impact on the history of this city, so I presume it was after him that three streets in Galway were named, Williamsgate Street, William Street, and the one in our photograph, William Street West.

Two new recruits for the Connaught Rangers

Thu, Jan 29, 2015

This very fine painting ‘Listed for the Connaught Rangers, recruiting in Ireland 1878’, was painted by Elizabeth S Thompson, but following her marriage to Lieutenant General Sir William Butler of Bansha Castle, Co Tipperary, is best known as Lady Butler. It is not only extremely unusual for a woman artist to have so successfully worked in the highly masculine field of military art, but Lady Butler was an exception in many ways. She was an innovator, particularly in her sensitive and humane depiction of the ordinary soldier. Detail was all important. She was a regular visitor to Chelsea Hospital, and other retirement homes for soldiers, to question survivors, sometimes getting them to re-enact a particular scene.

One hundred and thirty years of Connacht Rugby

Thu, Jan 22, 2015

The Connacht branch of the Irish Rugby Football Union was formed on December 8, 1885 in Corless’ Burlington Dining Rooms, Andrew Street, and Church Lane, Dublin. The meeting took place after the first time Connacht played as a province in a match against Leinster. The clubs represented at the meeting were Ballinasloe, Castlebar, Galway Grammar School, Galway Town, Queen’s College Galway, and Ranelagh School, Athlone.

Pomp and circumstance, and one unmarked grave

Thu, Jan 22, 2015

On June 12 1922 a very special ceremony took place at Windsor Castle, near London. Following the establishment of the Irish Free State the previous December, five Irish regiments, including the Connaught Rangers, the Royal Irish, the Leinsters, the Munsters, and the Dublin Fusiliers, which had served the British army with exceptional valour at times, were disbanded. It was a day of special significance for both the participants and onlookers.

The Patrician Brothers in Galway

Thu, Jan 15, 2015

On this day, January 15 in the year 1827, the Patrician Brothers arrived in Galway for the first time. Brothers Paul O’Connor and James Walsh took up residence in the Charity Free School in Lombard Street. Three hundred boys attended that day. This school for the poor was originally founded in 1790 in Back Street (now St Augustine Street). In 1824 it transferred to the Lombard Street barracks which had been built in 1749, and purchased from the government by Warden French in 1823. It had been a struggle to keep the school going so the Patricians were invited to take it over and manage it. The barracks formed three sides of a square, the Brothers lived in one wing and the school occupied another. It had one large room on the ground floor and one large room overhead.

‘ When I drop this handkerchief, fire and spare no man’

Thu, Jan 15, 2015

Perhaps fearing that the refusal by Irish soldiers to carry out army duties in Wellington Barracks at Jullundur, northeast India, on June 27 1920; and that the mutiny would spread to an already sympathetic native population, leading to a general protest such as at Amritsar the previous year, the army authorities quickly took decisive action. The commanding officer, Lt Col Leeds, strode into the crowd of excited and rebellious soldiers, demanding to speak to its two leaders John Flannery and Joe Hawes. He warned the men that they could be shot for this; that such behaviour only excited the natives to rebellion. Hawes, smoking a cigarette, replied that he would rather be killed by an Indian bullet than by a British one (His disrespectful attitude to his commanding officer was noted).

Calling all ‘Pres’ past pupils

Thu, Jan 08, 2015

Two hundred years ago (on October 27 1815) the first Presentation Sisters came to Galway and founded the first Catholic schools for girls in the city. They moved in to Kirwan’s Lane, then to Eyre Square for three years, before settling into a vacant house in the suburbs, which has been known as the Presentation Convent ever since.

Two boys from Loughrea

Thu, Jan 08, 2015

At the beginning of the last century, two boys grew up together in Loughrea. Socially they were far apart, but they were great friends. John Oliver was from a particularly poor background. His family lived in a tiny lean-to shack out on the Galway road on the edge of the town. His friend was Tom Wall, who lived in a comfortable house on Patrick Street. John enjoyed visiting their home.  His friend played with a band, The Saharas, and there was often music and fun in their house, shared by his brother Ray, and their attractive sister Cissie.

Exercise your motivation at The Coast Club

Tue, Dec 30, 2014

Whether you are an habitual exerciser or just starting out on the road to fitness, you will encounter a time when your motivation level will suffer. Sometimes it may even drop off a cliff.

New Year, new you — twenty four hour fitness for 2015 at Active Fitness

Tue, Dec 30, 2014

Get 2015 off to a healthy start at Active Fitness & Leisure, The Connacht Hotel, Dublin Road, Renmore.

E-paper

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