News
Galway City’s oldest pharmacy closes its doors
After nearly eighty years doling out advice and medicine to the people in ‘The West’ area of the city, the oldest pharmacy in Galway has shut up shop.
O’Beirn’s Pharmacy on Henry Street pulled down its shutters last week after Allcare, the franchise group which owned it, decided the branch was no longer viable.
Pharmacist Mark O’Flaherty and two assistants – Corina Walsh and Hayley Colman – will lose their jobs. The chemist was opened by pharmacist and medical doctor Seamus O’Beirn on April 12, 1935.
According to the archives of the Connacht Tribune, he opened it in the hope that some of his large family might take up the trade as adults.
He died just six months after the chemist began trading, leaving a wife and 10 children behind. But his plan worked – two of his daughters, Eibhlin and Síle, qualified as pharmacists and kept the family tradition of healing alive for a second generation. In fact, six of the 10 children studied medicine in one form or another.
And it continued into a third generation, when Síle’s daughter Brigid (pronounced Bríd) joined the company in 1972 and took over from her mother and aunt in the 1990s.
She qualified as an assistant pharmacist and ran the business until selling up at the height of the Celtic Tiger in 2005 when pharmacy chains were opening up shops all over the country.
For years, customers would travel from as far away as Connemara to visit the pharmacy, such was the loyalty built up over the years.
The little pharmacy evolved to sell luxury items like cosmetics and, in the past 20 years, health foods and alternative remedies.
When O’Beirn’s first opened its doors, antibiotics did not exist and pharmacists had to make up their own prescriptions and tonics.
It also became known as the place to buy theatrical, stage and special effects makeup through Dr O’Beirn’s connections with the stage. He had co-founded An Taibhdhearc Theatre, the national Irish language company, on Middle Street.
Mark O’Flaherty, a native of Naas, Co Kildare, was appointed to manage the practice nine years ago.
“We were kept going. We wouldn’t have been as busy as somewhere like Salthill with a big passing trade, we were a little off the beaten track, but we had a strong local trade,” reflected Mark.
Having bought a home in Galway, Mark tried to get other work here but has been unsuccessful in securing another position. He will move to Dublin where locum work is available.
“It was a great place to work. It was a lovely small community, you felt a part of a really tight-knit community here in The West. There have been a lot of changes here, a lot of older people are passing on, houses are being sold up and rented to students so the demographic is changing.”
Three pharmacies still trade within five minutes walk of the Henry Street institution – Moughan’s on Cookes Corner, Pat Hogan’s on Fr Griffin Road and the Crescent Pharmacy.
Significant state investment is required to address ‘shocking’ inequalities that leave cancer patients in the West at greater risk of succumbing to the disease.
A meeting of Regional Health Forum West heard that survival rates for breast, lung and colorectal cancers than the national average, and with the most deprived quintile of the population, the West’s residents faced poorer outcomes from a cancer diagnosis.
For breast cancer patients, the five-year survival rate was 80% in the West versus 85% nationally; for lung cancer patients it was 16.7% in the west against a 19.5% national survival rate; and in the West’s colorectal cancer patients, there was a 62.6% survival rate where the national average was 63.1%.
These startling statistics were provided in answer to a question from Ballinasloe-based Cllr Evelyn Parsons (Ind) who said it was yet another reminder that cancer treatment infrastructure in the West was in dire need of improvement.
“The situation is pretty stark. In the Western Regional Health Forum area, we have the highest incidence of deprivation and the highest health inequalities because of that – we have the highest incidences of cancer nationally because of that,” said Cllr Parsons, who is also a general practitioner.
In details provided by CEO of Saolta Health Care Group, which operates Galway’s hospitals, it was stated that a number of factors were impacting on patient outcomes.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
On the eve of completing his 150th marathon, an odyssey that has taken him across 53 countries, Loughrea’s Marathon Man has announced that he is planning to hang up his running shoes.
But not before Jarlath Fitzgerald completes another ten races, making it 160 marathons on the occasion of his 60th birthday.
“I want to draw the line in 2026. I turn 57 in October and when I reach 60 it’s the finishing line. The longer races are taking it out of me. I did 20 miles there two weeks ago and didn’t feel good. It’s getting harder,” he reveals.
“I’ve arthritis in both hips and there’s wear and tear in the knees.”
We speak as he is about to head out for a run before his shift in Supervalu Loughrea. Despite his physical complaints, he still clocks up 30 miles every second week and generally runs four days a week.
Jarlath receives injections to his left hip to keep the pain at bay while running on the road.
To give his joints a break, during the winter he runs cross country and often does a five-mile trek around Kylebrack Wood.
He is planning on running his 150th marathon in Cork on June 4, where a group of 20 made up of work colleagues, friends and running mates from Loughrea Athletics Club will join him.
Some are doing the 10k, others are doing the half marathon, but all will be there on the finishing line to cheer him on in the phenomenal achievement.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
From the Galway City Tribune – An impassioned plea for a ‘masterplan’ that would guide Galway City into the future has been made in the Dáil. Galway West TD Catherine Connolly stated this week that there needed to be an all-inclusive approach with “vision and leadership” in order to build a sustainable city.
Deputy Connolly spoke at length at the crisis surrounding traffic and housing in Galway city and said that not all of the blame could be laid at the door of the local authority.
She said that her preference would be the provision of light rail as the main form of public transport, but that this would have to be driven by the government.
“I sat on the local council for 17 years and despaired at all of the solutions going down one road, metaphorically and literally. In 2005 we put Park & Ride into the development plan, but that has not been rolled out. A 2016 transport strategy was outdated at the time and still has not been updated.
“Due to the housing crisis in the city, a task force was set up in 2019. Not a single report or analysis has been published on the cause of the crisis,” added Deputy Connolly.
She then referred to a report from the Land Development Agency (LDA) that identified lands suitable for the provision of housing. But she said that two-thirds of these had significant problems and a large portion was in Merlin Park University Hospital which, she said, would never have housing built on it.
In response, Minister Simon Harris spoke of the continuing job investment in the city and also in higher education, which is his portfolio.
But turning his attention to traffic congestion, he accepted that there were “real issues” when it came to transport, mobility and accessibility around Galway.
“We share the view that we need a Park & Ride facility and I understand there are also Bus Connects plans.
“I also suggest that the City Council reflect on her comments. I am proud to be in a Government that is providing unparalleled levels of investment to local authorities and unparalleled opportunities for local authorities to draw down,” he said.
Then Minister Harris referred to the controversial Galway City Outer Ring Road which he said was “struck down by An Bord Pleanála”, despite a lot of energy having been put into that project.
However, Deputy Connolly picked up on this and pointed out that An Bord Pleanála did not say ‘No’ to the ring road.
“The High Court said ‘No’ to the ring road because An Bord Pleanála acknowledged it failed utterly to consider climate change and our climate change obligations.
“That tells us something about An Bord Pleanála and the management that submitted such a plan.”
In the end, Minister Harris agreed that there needed to be a masterplan for Galway City.
“I suggest it is for the local authority to come up with a vision and then work with the Government to try to fund and implement that.”
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Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
