City businesswoman, Phyllis McNamara will feature on this weekend’s episode of National Treasures on RTÉ – proudly displaying her collection of iconic Galway Shawls.
Phyllis, who runs Cobwebs in Spanish Parade, started collecting Galway shawls when she was just 15.
BY MIRIAM GREENE
Now pieces from her collection will be shown on Sunday night’s episode of National Treasures Ireland, a series hosted by John Creedon exploring fascinating objects in the hands of ordinary people that reveal the social history of Ireland over the past 100 years.
“When I was a child, in the 1950s, and you went into the market place, you could see all of the women standing in their shawls with their baskets of eggs and I just thought they were beautiful,” Phyllis recalled this week.
“I was either 15 or 16 . . . after my first Summer job, I went down to the local pawn shop and bought my very first shawl.”
These shawls are symbolic of times past in Galway, especially in Claddagh. They were hugely common during the late nineteenth century and were still being worn up until the 1960s by a few older, more traditional women.
Phyllis is very proud of Galway’s traditions and is actively trying to preserve them. She believes that the shawls are something “peculiar” to Galway, although they were made in Scotland, and says that when she wears her ones she feels a sense of pride and dignity, just like the women did.
■ National Treasures screens on Sunday at 6:30pm on RTÉ One.
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