{"id":38,"date":"2025-12-11T17:43:32","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T17:43:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eutonom.eu\/marianafigueiredo\/?p=38"},"modified":"2026-01-16T00:00:43","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T00:00:43","slug":"dungeons-donuts-feature-article","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eutonom.eu\/marianafigueiredo\/2025\/12\/11\/dungeons-donuts-feature-article\/","title":{"rendered":"Dungeons & Donuts: The Hobby Shop That Built a Community \u2013 One Game and One Donut at a Time"},"content":{"rendered":"
Shop front of \u2018Dungeons & Donuts\u2019 shop. Photo by Mariana Figueiredo<\/em><\/h6>\n

Ireland\u2019s culture capital is known for its artistic and vibrant atmosphere. As you walk through the heart of Galway\u2019s cobblestone streets, you find yourself surrounded by colourful shops and medieval buildings, and it\u2019s here that you will find Dungeons and Donuts.<\/p>\n

Dungeons and Donuts is a well-known hobby shop\/ gaming space amongst gamers and boardgame fans, opened by Ronan Murphy in 2012. Whilst you may have been to many other hobby shops or boardgame cafes, this one is unique as it combines the two into one and\u2026it has DONUTS!<\/p>\n

The Community<\/strong><\/p>\n

The downstairs is filled with boardgames, miniature models, paints, cards and of course, the donuts. Upstairs is a cozy space of tables and chairs surrounded by a wall mural of the \u2018People\u2019s Meeple\u2019, that the community is currently building with polaroids photos. It\u2019s the perfect place to come in out of the cold, wet streets of Galway and sit down, grab a coffee and a donut and play some games.<\/p>\n

Dungeons and Donuts pride themselves on being a welcoming space for all, where you can escape technology, enter any new world you want via boardgame and have \u201cmad craic\u201d.<\/p>\n

The shop proves people still crave those face-to-face interactions, connections, and shared experiences. Regular customer Kevin Gannon says:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe events here are where you can really see how big the gaming community is. Anyone can go into a shop and buy a board game, but you can\u2019t buy the feeling of a room full of people going mental and laughing over a board game [\u2026] It gives people something to do and something to look forward to, and its healthy, there\u2019s no phones involved.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The shop recently held their annual \u2018Gameathon\u2019, a 24-hour gaming marathon, fundraising for Cancer Care West. This year the community raised \u20ac15,000 for the charity through auctions, quizzes and gaming competitions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just about the community coming together and doing such a great thing, and I don\u2019t think any other shop, or gaming shop in Ireland does anything close to it and we\u2019re very proud of that.\u201d<\/em> \u2013 Shop owner Ronan Murphy said.<\/p>\n

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\nOn the right: Owner Ronan Murphy beside the \u2018People\u2019s Meeple\u2019 mural. Photo by Mariana Figueiredo<\/h6>\n

The shop\u2019s staff at are trained to help with the games and to advise on what games are worth purchasing. There is no pressure to buy, you can go in and simply chat. Ronan and his team ask their customers what they want and they don\u2019t overcharge.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always come to Dungeons and Donuts to buy my models or paints because I like to be able to see the items before I buy them, you don\u2019t get that opportunity when you\u2019re buying online [\u2026] the girls are always really helpful, it\u2019s nice coming and being around people who likes the same things as me, they always give good advice and fair prices.\u201d <\/em>\u2013 Said Angelika, customer at Dungeons and Donuts.<\/p>\n

How It Started<\/strong><\/p>\n

14 years ago, Ronan was offered a job that would relocate his family to the UK. Sitting in a McDonalds in Nottingham, he decided he did not want to uproot his family and was going to build something of his own. With years of experience working for \u2018Games Workshop\u2019, he had a clear sense of what Ireland\u2019s gaming hobby community needed.<\/p>\n

In 2012, Galway\u2019s hobby shops had either closed or were not making a real difference for the gaming community. There also wasn\u2019t any shop in Ireland which incorporated a store and a gaming space.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a gap, and I knew there was a gap, and I knew from visiting the 20 other odd stores in Ireland what the best things were to do.\u201d <\/em>\u2013 said Ronan.<\/p>\n

With previous experience and genuine passion for the community, Ronan wanted to build a space that wasn\u2019t just a business; he wanted to build something for the people.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to get rich from this, I just want to have a community store. We sit here at the weekends and have the craic with all our customers and gamers and that\u2019s riches to me.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The first Dungeons and Donuts shop opened in Bridge Mills in April 2012. Initially it seemed to be the ideal setting, visually, but it\u2019s hidden location meant that no one knew they were there.<\/p>\n

Through word of mouth, social media and a growing community the original location quickly became too small and at the end of 2018 the shop moved to its current home on Abbeygate Street.<\/p>\n

The new store has provided the much-needed space for the community, right in the center of the city.<\/p>\n

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Map showing old and new store locations of Dungeons and Donuts in Galway City.<\/em><\/strong><\/h6>\n

The Donuts<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ronan says the donuts started off as a \u201cgimmick\u201d, but people started coming in specifically for them. The donuts are his own unique recipes. He takes inspiration from TV shows, movies, friends, family and customers.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore we opened, there wasn\u2019t too many places doing donuts, and now there\u2019s a lot and I think we were at the start of that wave.\u201d<\/p>\n

The newest creation is \u2018The Millenni-yum yum Puzzle\u2019 which a Yu-Gi-Oh! themed vanilla iced donut with honeycomb crumb and a Toblerone chocolate.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Games<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are many great boardgames that everyone should play and no we\u2019re not talking about Monopoly\u2026<\/p>\n

Ronan recommends \u2018Ticket to Ride\u2019, which is a strategy board game where players collect train card to claim railway routes across a map and score points by connecting cities, and \u2018Wingspan\u2019, where you collect bird cards and use their special powers to build the best wildlife habitat and earn points.<\/p>\n

Pop culture collaborations like \u00a0\u2018Lord of the Rings Risk\u2019 draw in customers. The release of Stranger Things caused a huge increase in the popularity of Dungeons and Dragons.<\/p>\n

Irish game \u2018Dungeons and Naggins\u2019 a funny tabletop game where players go on fantasy adventures guided by a Dungeon Master, just like in regular D&D. The game went viral after its release in 2024. Ronan says it\u2019s a game they recommend to tourists who ask for something uniquely Irish.<\/p>\n

The Future<\/strong><\/p>\n

People often ask would they ever open up more shops, but Ronan feels that what he has created with this one shop cannot be replicated and be as successful.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere can\u2019t be two of me and there can\u2019t be two of my team [\u2026] because I want everything so perfect, I\u2019m very happy with just one store.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

But Ronan could see himself expanding again to an even bigger location in the future.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Dungeons and Donuts Official Logo. Photo created by Dungeons and Donuts<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shop front of \u2018Dungeons & Donuts\u2019 shop. Photo by Mariana Figueiredo Ireland\u2019s culture capital is known for its artistic and vibrant atmosphere. As you walk through the heart of Galway\u2019s cobblestone streets, you find yourself surrounded by colourful shops and medieval buildings, and it\u2019s here that you will find Dungeons and Donuts. Dungeons and Donuts … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":43,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eutonom.eu\/marianafigueiredo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eutonom.eu\/marianafigueiredo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eutonom.eu\/marianafigueiredo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eutonom.eu\/marianafigueiredo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eutonom.eu\/marianafigueiredo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/eutonom.eu\/marianafigueiredo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":265,"href":"https:\/\/eutonom.eu\/marianafigueiredo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions\/265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eutonom.eu\/marianafigueiredo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eutonom.eu\/marianafigueiredo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eutonom.eu\/marianafigueiredo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eutonom.eu\/marianafigueiredo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}