Galway Textile Printers
Our photograph today, which is courtesy of Pat McPhilbin from Emmett Avenue in Mervue, shows a large factory building which was constructed by Sisks (with Jack Lillis in charge) on a site on Sandy Road in the early fifties. It was to house an industry called Galway Textile Printers which was known locally as ‘The Cotton Factory’, and even more colloquially as ‘The Cotton’. There already was a Hat Factory and a China Factory here, but GTP was the first major industry to come to Galway and quickly became one of the biggest employers in the west of Ireland. Some of those who worked there were specialists who were brought in to help set the factory up, but most employees were local.
The factory specialised in roller printing cotton fabrics which were exclusively for export and were mostly used to make ladies dresses, curtains etc. Some of those who worked in this department were a Mr. Taylor & Joe Swallow from the UK, as well as Jackie Burke, Brod Conneely & Martin Murphy. GTP also handprinted silks on special screenprinting tables which were 100 yards long. This was done by Dickie O’Connor, ‘Kruger’ Griffin, Mick Courtney, John Shaughnessy, ‘Mossy’ Power, Eamonn Naughton and John O’Gorman. All of the dyes and colours were mixed in ‘The Colour Kitchen’ by Joe Lally, Mick Kelly and Paddy Concannon under the watchful eye of Pat Connolly from Castlegar.
Patricia Murray was the chief designer, helped by Hilary Martin, Paddy McDonagh and a man named Nepker. Jimmy O’Connell was in the colour department; Jimmy Barry & Paddy McDonagh were in dyeing; Eamonn Fay was in charge of the stores; Johnny Harrison was at the sanforiser; Dennis Lally and Paddy O’Brien were in bleaching; the overseer in finishing was an American named Cooney & you would also find Eugene O’Sullivan, Joe Canavan, Paddy Lenihan, Gay Walsh, Michael Naughton, Peter Griffin & Robert Garvey there; Theresa Darcy, Pauline Nolan, Kevin Crowley, Mattie Costelloe, Josephine Carrick & Mick Quaine were in Dispatch.
Among those in the office were Una Walsh, Anne Watson, Mary Farrell, Theresa Rabbitt, Bernie & Marie Phillips, Kay Kilgarriff, Carmel Casey, Jennifer Molloy, Michael Fox, Louis O’Grady, Brendan O’Beirne, Rose & Dermot Bray, Laura Browne, Mickey Walsh, Noel Gilmore, Bobby Molloy, Peter Burke & Peter Molloy.
Dennis O’Brien was in charge of the wages. A Polish man named Frank Kulicki worked as a carpenter as did Johnny Cox, Peter Keady & Joe Coffey and ‘Staff’ Higgins, Mickey Colbert, ‘Ginger’ Noone and Martin Welby were in Maintenance. Anne Lally & Brendan Hayes worked in the laboratory; Des Kenny was in Personnel and later became Export manager.
There were many others employed there, too numerous to mention. They had a good soccer team known as ‘Silva United’ and a Gaelic team who won their division of the Inter-Firms in 1975. They played regular home & away hurling games against Sunbeam in Cork. After one of those games and a few pints, Eddie Abberton was seen crying. When asked why, he replied that he had passed the ball to Mogan Duggan (who also played for Liam Mellowes) and he buried it in the net. “I’ll never be able to show my face in Castlegar again”.
The company did a lot of business with Jannink & Zonen in Enschede in Holland. In 1963, an American Company called Cranston took over the plant. It eventually closed down and the factory building lay empty for some time. Today it houses a number of small industries.
TK
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