News
Locked up – for the fun of it
Looks can often be deceiving and never has that been truer than when it’s said in relation to The Great Escape Rooms on Upper Abbeygate Street.
From the outside, there’s nothing remarkable about the seemingly small building that houses the rooms. However, inside, a world of excitement and intrigue awaits you.
The adrenaline-fuelled experience requires you, and a group of colleagues or friends, to work together in order to crack codes and solve puzzles to free yourself from the pressure-filled rooms.
If that’s not enough pressure, the 60-minute timer, placed strategically above your head, is ticking down from the moment you enter.
“We have different rooms, we take your group, your gang of friends or colleagues, we lock you in the room, and you have to use what’s in the room in order to work through the game, to break out in under an hour – it gets the adrenaline going.”
That’s according to Steve Bellissimo, who, with his business partner Rory Burke, set up the escape rooms in October last.
Inside, there are three rooms to test the inquisitive minds of amateur code-crackers. The prison break room is a particularly intriguing puzzle where you and your pals could be locked behind bars surrounded by graffiti-laden walls in the cramped surroundings of bunk beds, a toilet bowl and a hand basin. All very innocent, but all holding the clues and means for your escape.
Then there’s the quarantine room, complete with a hospital bed, a one-way mirror and a motionless body to boot.
And if you’re more of a pub person, there’s always the traditional Irish pub setting to satisfy your liking. There’ll be no time to indulge in a drop of the pure, though, if you want to make it out in time and join the exclusive group of only 15 per cent who managed to make their escape within the hour.
The task of creating a realistic experience was a big one for Steve and Rory, who went to great lengths to ensure that everything was perfectly executed, going as far as lugging a bar up two flights of stairs.
“We really travelled the whole country, my partner and I, with a big rental van and we picked up bits and bobs from everywhere, literally, to make it realistic. Like, the bar in our pub room came from Waterford,” said Steve.
The music, the wiring, the electrics and the fingerprint-controlled doors all add to the suspense and ensure that you will feel totally removed from reality.
Steve explained that they appeal to no particular customer base with men and women aged nine to 90 all giving it a shot and enjoying it greatly.
“We’ve had families come and, I’ll never forget, it was the nine-year-old son who figured out the last clue to get out.
“We had a family in with 86-year-old grandparents and the grandparents had a ball; it still shocks me to this day how many different customers we are hitting,” Steve exclaimed.
The couples who take part provide great entertainment for Steve as he watches the tension unfold on CCTV, waiting for a domestic to break out.
The CCTV shows up the psychology of group dynamics, and also allows Steve to see if a group are at a total loss.
However, their willingness to accept help is often greatly reduced when competitiveness kicks in.
Corporate groups are important for Steve and Rory with large numbers of work colleagues coming in to put their teamwork skills to the test.
“Surprisingly, our biggest customer at the moment is more team building and companies. We’re getting great feedback from them,” Steve explained.
Indeed the feedback in general for the business, which only started up in October, has been outstanding. It is currently ranked number one in its category on Trip Advisor and with over 60 reviews on Facebook, it has a five star rating.
“Galway was missing something that didn’t involve going out drinking on a night out and something you could do with a group of friends and just have a laugh,” said Steve, adding “To lose yourself for an hour and be someone else, and forget your everyday worries, it’s great for that.”
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.”
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
