Galway In Days Gone By

Blaze of colour

In the opinion of visitors and residents, the merchants and traders of Galway have achieved a record in window decoration this Christmas. Bright and powerful lights illuminate the windows at night; and there is the keenest rivalry to secure the votes of readers of the “Connacht Tribune” for the best-dressed and most attractive window.

The Better Business campaign of the “Connacht Tribune” has succeeded beyond expectations, for it is due to the Ballot Prize Competition for the best-dressed shops that the new stimulus has been given to enterprise.

“The streets of Galway,” said a well-known citizen, “afford one real pleasure to walk through at night. The shop windows remind one of those in the heart of a great city. They never looked brighter or better, and it is a pity that the Urban Council would not cooperate with the traders by providing some powerful arc lamps along the main street. Street lighting does not detract in the lightest from the shop windows, although some people who are unfamiliar with the lighting schemes in the great cities are inclined to think that it does. Paris is, I suppose, the best-lighted city in the world; yet the almost daylight of the streets does not in the least detract from the brilliance of the shops and cafés at night.”

1950

New use for old shawls

Both the Shawl of Galway Grey and the Ould Plaid Shawl are on their way out. Demand for grey shawls, plaid shawls, black shawls, brown shawls – all kinds of shawls – was never so heavy in Galway shops as it has been of late weens, but their days seem to be numbered as far as street wear is concerned.

This article of wearing apparel that has inspired poets like Francis A. Fahy is now being converted to another use in these days when blankets, when procurable at all, appear at prices beyond the means of many.

When the price of blankets went rocketing, demand for rugs increased and when rugs became scarce as well as dear, many saw the shawl as a good substitute for the orthodox bed covering. Now quite a good many shawls are deputising as blankets.

There is a possibility that the patchwork quilt may come back into favour again. Good quality quilts sold in the shops are now fetching up to £13 13s. and that seems to be a very good reason for the return to the patchwork article which served many homes well in the past.

Pictured: Pupils from Scoil Chaitríona, Renmore, singing at a ceremony for the lighting of the Galway Regional Hospital Christmas tree at UCHG in December 2003.