People power prevents shop closure

Date Published: 13-Feb-2009

DESPITE the recession, people power and resilience is alive and well in Galway if the decision by a well-known household goods and gift store to reverse its announcement to close a city store is anything to go by.

Meadows & Byrne at Lower Abbeygate Street, which specialises in home and kitchen ware, gifts and furniture, recently decided to close its city shop at the end of this month, after more than 16 years trading in Galway.

The company said the shop would close at the end of February with the loss of four jobs and confirmed its Bunratty operation was expanding and being revamped instead.

But when local broadcaster Keith Finnegan announced Meadows & Byrnes’ decision to cease trading over the airwaves on his morning current affairs programme on Galway Bay FM, the company’s headquarters in Cork was inundated with phone calls from regular customers who pleaded with the company to keep the city store open.

Mr Finnegan, who admits he is a regular shopper at Meadows and Byrne, said the Keith Finnegan Show hotline was flooded with calls about the decision and these listeners in turn contacted the Cork Headquarters of the company which…