Old photo wall a hit with customers at Roy’s shop

Roy Connor, proprietor of Spar on Dominick Street, has brought a bit of old-world Mullingar to his shop with a new feature wall depicting images of days gone by.

“We put in a sit-down area and I thought a couple of old pictures of Mullingar would be lovely up there, so I got in touch with somebody who could do them for me and they did a great job. So far, they’re getting a lot of attention,” says Roy, adding that the photos were taken during the early 1900s.

“You can see Dominick Street, from the vantage point of the Green Bridge, looking down. The one above that is going up towards the Greville Arms. McDonald’s would have been on the left but it is interesting to see that there was a butcher’s there at that time, and all the meats hanging down outside like it used to be done.

“There’s another of Oliver Plunkett Street heading down to the Market Square, where the credit union is on the left. You can see down past Sullivan’s and what used to be called Liptons, it was a little supermarket at the time.

"The one on the bottom is the Dublin Bridge, where Millie’s is, and old Mrs Faulkner’s bungalow was there on the right hand side, it’s now Mullingar Autos, and there were bungalows on the left hand side too, but they’re all gone.

“There’s another of the railway and a train coming in. During the fleadh, someone was telling me that he has that original picture and there is actually a steam train coming into Mullingar from the Sligo side, if this picture was bigger, you could see it.

"This guy lives in America now but is from Mullingar originally, and he was surprised to see this picture on the wall here. In the original, you can see St Mary CBS, and the old church before the cathedral was built.”