Emergency services tended to a fire at a large commercial premises in the Connemara village of An Sraith Salach in the early hours of Thursday morning.
Most of the affected building was burned, according to local Fianna Fáil Cllr Gerry King, who said the pub, grocery store, post office and craft shop situated at the site were “internally all destroyed”.
He described the incident at Recess in Connemara, Co Galway as a “major loss to the area”.
“This [is] the last thing you ever think of happening,” he said, adding that receiving news of the incident had been “frightening”.
RM Block
King visited the scene in the afternoon, after it was declared safe, and said members of the Joyce family who ran the businesses were “overwhelmed by the amount of support from the community” and “couldn’t praise the fire service enough for doing what they did”.
Gardaí said they “assisted the fire brigade at a fire in a commercial building on the N59 in Recess, Co Galway, at about 4:45am. No injuries were reported.
King said that up to 50 fire service personnel were on site to extinguish the fire, describing the building as “iconic” as it was one of the first petrol pumps in the area.
Joyce’s Bar enjoyed a “good lunch trade”, he said, and a lot of people went there to play cards on a Thursday night.
He also said the shop would be “internationally known at this stage” for its marble crafts.
“[There was] plenty of resolve in the family to get this back and built again,” he said, adding that some of them had grown up with the business and had been there for years “looking after people in every way possible”.
