Grocery stores, other stores, and prepared meals.
Note that in the grocery stores, and even in some of the convenient stores like Centra, you will find prepackaged small prepared meals for not a lot of money that are actually pretty good.
Mall – Downtown Galway walk-in
Penneys – Penneys is a department store in Galway’s mall, Eyre Square Shopping Centre, which is beside Eyre Square (pronounced Air Square). Cheap clothes and accessories and the quality isn’t bad. Check out the prices on their webpage. Not affiliated with JC Penney, also called Primark.
Flying Tiger – A fun store, like an upscale dollar store with some funky stuff.
Dunnes – Another department store, a little more expensive than Penneys but still affordable, also has a grocery store on the lower level.
Other Galway grocery stores
Tesco – The closest big grocery store to the West End, on the road towards Salthill on Father Griffin Road, five minute walk from Galway City. Also in the West End is a local very small mostly organic produce store called Ernie’s, it’s nice to support Ernie, who is usually there, but there aren’t a lot of everyday groceries there.
Dunne’s Grocery Store – In the mall as mentioned above
Aldi and Lidl are also within walking distance, but farther away and you have to know how to get there. But they both have some really good deals on prepared foods and are more interesting than Aldi and Lidl here. They also sell liquor there.
Farmer’s market is every Saturday and Sunday near St. Nicolas Church, more produce and food on Saturday than Sunday. They have artists there as well. You must have donuts from the donut guy, and if you like oysters they open them right there for you for an instant snack. There’s also a seafood vendor and other prepared foods as well so you can get good priced fresh seafood to cook in the apartment. I don’t even like donuts, but I like this guy’s donuts!
Sheridan’s Cheesemongers – Great cheese store, near the Farmer’s Market. Cold in there, though!
McCambridges – Near the McDonald’s (good bathroom stop downtown!), this is Galway’s gourmet store, great food and bread products
Sports
Two sports that you have to watch if you can, probably on tv in a pub or in the room or in person if you get lucky are Gaelic Footall and Hurling. Both are really fun to watch, and there may be some Galway teams in some playoffs. You can ask people about that, but you can also just pick up the weekly Galway Connacht Tribune, the newspaper which comes out every Friday, get it at the Centra. The Tribune is always fun to read about what’s going on in the community, and what’s coming up the next week. Hurling, Gaelic football, rugby and soccer (football) are a big deal in Ireland and Galway. The colors for Galway teams are maroon and white because that is a county thing, and those are the colors for County Galway.
Salthill
The community next to Galway is called Salthill, it is what they call the “beach” there, you need to walk to Salthill while you are there (about 15-20 minutes). They have a small amusement park there, an aquarium, and a diving platform called Black Rock which is fun to watch the locals jump off on nice sunny days. So walk over there, have an ice cream cone, and enjoy the summer! Salthill is home to Trad on the Prom, which is an Irish dancing and singing show that is very popular with tourists, sincere and very well done. If you are there in the late afternoon, drop into O’Connor’s Pub, just look in there if nothing else, it’s a really cool environment. It’s a small place, but there are a couple of casinos there. Our favorite restaurant there it The Galleon. The Black Cat is a good tapas place, a little pricier, and there are a couple of good Italian restaurants there as well.
Btw, if you like that kind of thing, there are a couple of interesting cemeteries in Galway as well.
Whew! Enough said. Bon voyage!