A quick history lesson

This photograph of Margaret Fitzgerald's pub in Eyre Street was originally taken in the mid 1950s. It was later owned by her son, Dick, who lived there with his wife, Anne. Also living there were Dick's sister, Eileen, and her husband, Mick Guiheen, who originally came from the Blasket Islands. They had a daughter, Carmel, who is probably the young girl in our photograph.

The pub was bought 18 years ago by Stephen Fahy, who changed its name to 'The Hole in the Wall'. This was actually the name by which Galwegians traditionally knew it - because of a gap in the wall at the back which separated Fitzgerald's garden from the yard of the Garda Barracks in Eglinton Street. This obviously made life much easier for many of the pub's clientele.

The attractive facade is almost exactly the same today, including the Eucharistic Congress title over the door. There are still some sections of very old Galway wall at the back of the premises.

The building on the left was Jimmy O'Flynn's Select Bar - Dunne's Stores is there today. Some of the other businesses up the street to the left included O'Neill's Hotel; The Ivy Hotel; Desmond Rooney, solicitor; Forde's Sweetshop; Irwin's Undertakers; and Irwin's Field, which was really Croke Park to the young local footballers and hurlers.

To the right of this pub there were two large gates, then Fahy's Animal Feed Store, which originally opened in 1880. Here was sold grain, barley, flour, oatmeal, horsenuts and calf nuts, potatoes, etc. Next door was Fahy's private house, then Celia Wall's sweet shop; Rœc‡n Heaney's, where they sold groceries and sweets; and O'Flynn's grocery shop, which had a bar in the back (where McSwiggan's is today).

The car in the foreground is a Morris Cowley, registration no ZM 5210.. Eyre Street was two-way in those days.