A DIAMOND bracelet that went missing in Galway city several weeks ago has been found outside the jewellery shop where it was first purchased three years before.
The bracelet, which was valued at €7,500, was lost by its owner on the evening of ladies day at the recent Galway summer racing festival. It had been bought as a gift by the woman’s husband, and the couple, who do not wish to be identified, were very upset.
They contacted Claddagh and Celtic Jewellery on Quay Street, where it had been purchased, to secure a valuation certificate for an insurance claim. There, the shop’s owner, Labour councillor Niall McNelis, had some surprisingly happy news for them.
A short time earlier he had been sweeping outside his premises and had found the piece on the ground behind a rubbish bin. He recognised it immediately, as he had ordered it in specially three years before.
The couple had been eating in a restaurant close to his shop on the night that the bracelet vanished.
“It was pretty scratched when I found it,” said Mr McNelis, who was recently elected for the first time to Galway City Council, “but I remembered that we had fitted it with a special clasp at the time it was ordered.
“I can only presume it was lost somewhere near the restaurant and got swept down the street, possibly by the road-sweeper early the following morning. I couldn’t believe it – when you think of the thousands of people who were down that end of Quay Street on that night of Galway race week.”
Last year, Mr McNelis found a handbag outside his shop with €3,500 in a wallet. He traced the owner, a US visitor. She presented him with a Mass card when she came to pick it up.