Is Galway a City in Decline?

zell12

Galway retailers advertise that there is a better retail choice in Athlone and Limerick. 🙄

Lord Baron Lane 8

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121723540#Comment_121723540

Crescent Shopping Centre Limerick .

beeker1

As a Dub who loves his "dirty oul town" , those same negatives apply across the board , weather its Carrick on Shannon or On Suir ! Our Towns are changing, I'm amazed that you weren't castigated for calling out a true blight on our community from what a BBC PANORAMA documentary pointed out as organised crime ! I love Galway, , to retire there is probably an unachievable aspiration ! Great memories as a kid on holliers !

saabsaab

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121723540#Comment_121723540

Women have told me the same for a while now.

Mrs OBumble

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121723540#Comment_121723540

It's been like that for 15+ years.

Cafe owners who complain that their minimum-wage staff aren't "enthusiastic" don't get a lot of sympathy from me.

GBXI

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121720338#Comment_121720338

Galway could have this all the way out of the town centre along each side of the Corrib starting at the Dyke road and ending past Dangan and just before Glenlo, with a beautiful pedestrian/cycle bridge at that point connecting both sides. Then, on the Menlo side they could expand the city out that way with thousands of apartments and commercial/retail units. You basically fulfill the potential of the river Corrib with a beautiful riverside park, you provide thousands of people with homes right beside the university and the town centre. Galway is a great city, the best in Ireland in my opinion, but it has little ambition.

Mrs OBumble

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121739935#Comment_121739935

How are rising sea levels predicted to affect that area in the next 20-50 years?

what_traffic

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121740206#Comment_121740206

You mean the rising river levels from the Corrib Lake and river here?

Rising sea levels are going to affect lower area's of the City around the bay for sure. The Docks, Claddagh, Long Walk, Grattan Park, Salthill seafront.

saabsaab

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121740258#Comment_121740258

That's a prediction indeed. There was a report some time back that indicated that the financial value of defensive works would exceed the financial value of the propertied involved!

extra gravy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121731599#Comment_121731599

Have you experience of owning or running a business in the hospitality sector yourself?

Prominent_Dawg

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121723540#Comment_121723540

Theres reason business people like this can't get staff.

Arghus

I'm not sure if you could say it's a City in decline but, I dunno, I was walking through town earlier today and I was struck by how drab it all felt to me.

So many vacant shop fronts and then, on the other hand, a plethora of tacky shops in other areas: vape shops, sweet shops, mobile phone and general tech related tatt, tourist tatt.

If you walk through the Eye Square Centre, there's rakes of empty units. Likewise in the Galway Shopping Centre, so much of it is empty units - it's kinda crazy.

There's some quare hollowing out of the retail industry going on at the moment, now, I have my doubts about how specific that is to just Galway, but the centre of town just doesn't feel as vibrant to me - it actually feels a wee bit grim. And I say that as someone who loves Galway and would never think of living anywhere else.

And, not to moan too much, the place in general was just dirty - not filthy, but loads of litter just knocking about.

The place in general between the sense of emptiness and the general unkemptness, just kinda made me think Galway is looking a bit careworn this weather.

Fitz*

It looks like a town that doesn't care, with no efforts being made to either clean it up or attract new businesses to open.

Mrs OBumble

There's some quare hollowing out of the retail industry going on at the moment, now, I have my doubts about how specific that is to just Galway, but the centre of town just doesn't feel as vibrant to me - it actually feels a wee bit grim. And I say that as someone who loves Galway and would never think of living anywhere else.

Nothing quare about it. Logical conclusion of the amount we all buy on-line vs in-person.

January / February is always a bit grim, and this year February has five Fridays so five weeks between pay-day for some.

Lots of life came back at the weekend with the start of the Paddy's week tourists.

There are at least five now-closed premises being actively prepared for new businesses at the moment.

Arghus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121885425#Comment_121885425

I understand the causes: as you say the old in person retail model is suffering because of the ease and ubiquity of online - and rents and costs staying as high, if not higher than ever.

So, perhaps I should have been more precise in how I expressed - but I think I was speaking of that feeling of things being empty and the accompanying strangeness of that - even if, yes, in analysis it's explicable.

I accept as well that it's a dull time of the year as well, there is that of course.

And I do hope that what you say about places getting fitted out and ready to go is the sign of somethings beginning to bud again.

But, subjectively on that particular day, to me, Galway looked dull and lacking. And it wasn't my first time seeing Galway in the dog days of the early year - it was more like my thousandth - and I just thought the town looked grim.

zell12

Not just daytime, nightlife is slowly being destroyed by zero nightclubs and cost-of-living pressures on folk. If I were a tourist, Galway is just a pit-stop to attractions further west

Mrs OBumble

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121886800#Comment_121886800

Zero nightclubs?

DNA is still open.

So is Coyotes

Electric is apparently reopening soon.

zell12

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121887074#Comment_121887074

Really? Maybe I read too much tabloid. Is it just two nightclubs then?

https://www.galwaybeo.ie/news/galway-news/irishpubs-nightclub-closed-nightlife-death-6781066

munchkin_utd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121887128#Comment_121887128

the article says the one in the Skeff is the last "traditional" nightclub, whatever that may be.

Irish nightclubs have traditionally been shite in fairness and the only reason you paid the €20 or whatever is for the chance of a last pint, through half closed shutters, illegally served before the guards came. It was a pure scam with a few exceptions (GPO for instance back in the days had a great vibe, good music and not stupidly expensive admission charge)

Now theres late bars and maybe the young generation isnt quite as eager to spend a fortune on one last pint in a crappy club. They can go to bed early, sober, and get up at 6am for a 30km run before a sea swim and posting their exploits on instagram or snapchat to their friends and followers. If theres no market for crappy nightclubs then so be it.

Fitz*

Coyotes nightclub jesus christ. Imagine trying to use Coyotes as a selling point for a vibrant night life in the main city in the West of Ireland.

There used to multiple proper nightclubs, with a few of them having adventurous & energetic bookings of international acts weekly. They were not crappy sheds just serving pints through shutters. They were proper hubs of activity, especially around the years 2013-2018 ish with some very large events, names and draw for people to travel to Galway, in addition to their 'regular' normal nights the other 5 or 6 nights a week they were open. They gave up&coming acts the chance to showcase their talents too, as well as the bigger names giving young lads and ladies the platform to grow. They are currently closed. In fairness Monroes have tried to pick up all of the heavy lifting on their own with booking some acts once every few weeks but a traditional nightclub they are not. They're a live venue/pub that have a late licence.

Lord Baron Lane 8

Galway City

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121885496#Comment_121885496

Galway City may have lost it shine was talking to my American friend fist time in Galway City last year he felt it was like Disneyland not real Ireland .

ben.schlomo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121905221#Comment_121905221

Insightful stuff.

Mrs OBumble

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121905221#Comment_121905221

Did he say how would need to be different to feel like "real Ireland "?

My guess is smaller and less busy, if he's seeing the current version as Disney-ireland.

jackboy

The concept of a town/city centre is over. Retail now is only thriving in large shopping centres in outskirts with free parking. Eventually they will die also. The future is online shopping only. Without the retail the food and other entertainment in centres will also die. Galway is no different to anywhere else, its best days are over, permanently.

ben.schlomo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121905653#Comment_121905653

We'll all just sit at home on our phones is it? Have you next week's Euromillions numbers by any chance?

jackboy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121907280#Comment_121907280

Things are strongly gone that direction already. Have you been to the US . Most town city centres there are already destroyed.

ben.schlomo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121907855#Comment_121907855

We're in the West of Ireland, not downtown Detroit.

jackboy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121907904#Comment_121907904

Its not just the notorious Detroit, its the vast majority of urban centres in the US.

Many have noticed that Galway has being going downhill for years. Galway is not unusual, the same is happening to towns and cities throughout the country. My point is that this will continue and the concept of a centre is over and these will not exist in the long run.

ben.schlomo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121907907#Comment_121907907

Yes that's why I'm taking the p1ss out of your post. Youve just declared the end of the hospitality and retail industry. Not gonna happen. It will change, not cease.

jackboy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121907921#Comment_121907921

It's rapidly going on line and that trend will continue. I guarantee in 10 to 15 years there will be far fewer retail and hospitality units in Galway. Its only going one way.