Slow but steady return to business as Lockdown eases at last

Galway’s retail sector was back in business this week, with eateries returning this weekend – and owners of wet pubs lamenting how they’ve been left behind.

The gradual reopening began on Tuesday with what one leader Galway business owner described as ‘slow but steady’ trade.

Anthony Ryan, whose city fashion outlets have been operating exclusively online for the past six weeks, said there were echoes of the last reopening in June, when people were slow to move away from the restricted life they’d been living for months.

“Business has been steady – there’s no huge rush, but people are getting out and they are spending money,” he said.

Restaurant owners are preparing for a busy weekend – and a successful four weeks – across the lucrative Christmas season.

Galway restaurateur Joe Bohan, who operates Dela on Dominick Street with his wife Margaret, said the bookings had been flowing in since last Friday’s announcement and they were readying themselves to see out 2020 with an ‘extraordinarily busy’ four weeks.

But proprietors of so-called ‘wet pubs’ were left wondering what the future held as the easing of Covid-19 restrictions didn’t extend to them.

Among them is Ger Delaney, co-proprietor of Mannion’s Bar in Abbeyknockmoy, who said he was left feeling ‘let down’ by local representatives who he believed failed to make the case for rural pubs that had been battered by 2020.

The latest Covid-19 figures show Galway continued to perform well ahead of most other counties in containing the spread of the virus, for a third week running, but the new cases include individual cases and outbreaks identified in schools.

See full Covid coverage in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now. 

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