Nostalgia is back?

Nostalgia. It’s everywhere, especially in the form of sweet shops. they seem to be popping up everywhere. We have  a  new one in Carlow and a little 8 year old took to the Tubridy Show last week to tell everyone about her new “Pop-up” shop, guess what it was?

Yes, a sweet shop with all those nostalgic sweeties for you to buy.

One thing I get nostalgic about is my time in university-U.C.D-the best college ever. I shared a house with some great girls, 7 of us up on North Avenue, Mount Merrion. How lucky were we? £34 a week! A 10 minute walk to the stuent bar..sorry, lectures and the majority of us are still great friends. don’t think there is anything sinister about the fact I said “the majority of are great friends” but some of the girlies disappeared. Stephanie Burke aka Burpie and Fionnuala aka dry soup eater extraordinaire, where are you now?

There was something else brilliant about the Mount Merrion/Stillorgan area. No, not the 80s shopping centre or O’ Dwyer’s Pub.

The best thing about Stillorgan that I still dream about is a chip shop. Not just any chip shop. This was C.Aprille’s of Stillorgan.

They make chips the other ship shops can only dream about making. Super thick, slightly crunchy on the outside and soft in the inside. We would walk down to Stillorgan and buy a big bag with a tub of the best garlic mayo and walk back home. God, life was simple.

But, all is not lost. you can still avail of these chips. C. Aprile’s is still in business! Don’t get confused by the one in Portabello. Not the same. Get your self down to Stillorgan and bag yourself a bag of the “Best chips in Ireland awarded by Rozz”

As I was saying nostalgia is everywhere, usually nostalgia takes a year, maybe a few decades to come back. That’s what makes it truly nostalgic, doesn’t it?

Not in Carlow.

I was out walking through the area of Askea (The wannabe D4 of Carlow) last week and came across a new chip shop. It’s Billy Bunter’s, it closed down about a year or 2 ago and it did bloody good chips too. We were slightly disappointed when it closed down but about a million other chip shops seemed to open and we forgot about it.

You can imagine my joy when I saw that Billy Bunter’s was back, baby!

With a big, colourful and boasting sign saying” Billy Bunter’s is back!”

It’s not nostalgic.

They have good chips but it’s no C.Aprile’s.

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