“It has a brand name like no other,” Paul O’Brien says with a drop of hope about Galway and how the town will flourish again. These are radically different times and the deserted city streets illustrate how much everyday life has changed.
O’Brien’s newsagents on William Street remains open, but the prospect of brighter and better days is critical.
Dipping in and out of lockdowns has been a significant challenge for everybody in the country, but Galway’s charm and culture matters according to the shopkeeper. “It is hard to know what will happen, but I think we are just lucky that we are in Galway rather than anywhere else,” Mr O’Brien remarks.
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“When there is any sort of a lift there is an attraction to Galway that brings people from other places. If you are running a business in another town, they won't get the Irish tourists like we will and like we got last summer and will get this summer. That is only light at the end of the tunnel as far as I'm concerned.”
So a couple of months when the restrictions were eased in 2020 improved business. “It did, absolutely,” he replies. “Last summer, although it wasn't like any other summer in that we didn't have the foreign tourists, we had the Irish tourists.”
No toilet facilities in town
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Difficulties persist with the lack of facilities also a factor, ensuring the town remains eerily subdued.
“Right now people who come into the city there is no place to go to the toilet or very few places to go to the toilet as they'd generally go to bars and restaurants,” Paul O’Brien comments.
A couple of hundred yards away Brendan Holland can look out from the front door of his newsagents at a near empty Eyre Square. Early this week on a bright Monday afternoon, just a few people were sprinkled around.
“There is no reason to go into town, all of the shops are closed so that is not an attraction,” Mr Holland states. "The pubs are closed, there is nothing to bring you into town. I'm a city centre town man, the town has been hit badly.
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“What I find hard to understand is that this is not just Galway or Athenry or Clifden or Dublin. This is all over the world. That is the bit I find hard to understand. We are in common with everywhere all over the place, except maybe New Zealand where they have been exceptionally good.”
Planning for the future, though, is simply impossible. “The second day this started, my accountant rang me to say there is nothing you can do about your turnover, just keep your overheads down,” Mr Holland recalls.
Subsidies kept the door open
“That is what we have done. By the fact that our overheads are down with the subsidies which came into place. That has kept the door open really. We are open because we are a frontline service.
“The Government in fairness put their hand in their pocket and they gave us every subsidy. We got a rates waiver for most of our rates, stuff like that. They were paying the Covid payment, so in that respect it made it very good.
“Turnover was down by probably 30 or 35 per cent on the previous summer, even more on the previous summer. You had no foreigners around and I suspect it is going to be the same this summer.”
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Practically it is demanding too running a shop. Paul O’Brien remembers when he was allowed open his shop again after the initial shutdown.
“In the first lockdown from last March to May and June we were closed for a whole 84 days,” Mr O’Brien recalls.
“When we came back we had to throw out thousands of euros worth of stock because it went out of date and it is not covered by insurance. So that is one of the big reasons why a lot of shops like us are opening.
“Really, the same could be said for people in the clothes trade. Fashions can become out of date, you are not going to sell winter boots when shops open, whenever they re-open etc. Maybe they could try to sell them again next year, but when we have crisps, chocolates, drinks they go out of date.”
A basic solution has been found. “It is easy to order because we let stuff go very low before we reorder that is due to the footfall being so low.”
Quiet evenings
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Ultimately the fact that so few people are around means little happens in the evening. It is one of the main things the newsagent has noticed.
“We used to trade from 7am until 10pm at night, 362 days a year,” Brendan Holland says. “We are now open from 8.30am until 6pm. After 6pm there is nothing doing in the town. The whole town is dead because the pubs are closed. It is all interconnected the whole thing.
“There is an eco system there that is all about interconnection. One spins off the other. If anyone of those systems doesn't operate it affects everyone else too.”
The upcoming weeks and months will continue to be a challenge. Restrictions are unlikely to be eased for a considerable spell. “As far as I can see a lot of lessons were learned at Christmas,” he adds.
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“Though we all knew what was going to happen they had to go ahead with it. They certainly aren't going to open for St Patrick's Day and have a post Christmas situation all over again.
“Two weeks later is Easter, so they are going to go with Easter. We are looking at being like this until mid April as far as I can see, at the very earliest. After that I think it will be a very cagey opening, that is how I see it.
“If you were to tell me 12 months ago that we would be as quiet as this I would have told you to take your tablets, to kindly move on. It is unbelievable where it is. Of course it is quiet, everywhere is quiet, if anybody tells you differently they aren't in the same town," he concluded.
