Old Galway
BANKS CASTLE
by Tom Kenny
We came across this drawing in the National Library titled “A narrow street in Galway, c.1840-1850”. The Clue is in the handwriting at the top of the image, ‘Castle Bank’. In fact, it was a courtyard, not a street, looking at the back of Banks Castle off High Street. Our photograph (courtesy of the Chetham Library in Manchester), shows us much the same view about 25 years later. The property is now part of the King’s Head.
Galway Courthouse c1870
by Tom Kenny
“This fine building, which is superior to most provincial seats of justice, stands at Newtown-Smith, on the site of the ancient and venerable abbey of the Franciscans, which by the Charter of Charles II ‘is to be and remain part of the County of Galway forever’. It was commenced in 1812, and on 1st of April, 1815, was opened for the reception of the then going judges of assize.
THE BISH LEAVING CERT CLASS OF 1960
by Tom Kenny
The distinguished historian Gerry Hayes McCoy, a graduate of the Bish, once wrote of his Alma Mater “Going to school is the greatest emotional experience of a lifetime, the greatest and least forgettable. Do you remember how the sun shone through that wire-meshed window, shone in on your childhood, the bright sun of long ago? Do you smell again the smell of school—warm, varnish, leather, bread & butter, ink, powder, books, boys? Do you remember the flinty yard, tree-shaded; the speaking river; the screaming seagulls on a frosty morning? How cold could it be! Do you remember the lighting of the fire—how it smoked without heat, how it smouldered. Do you remember the wonderful morning when the key of the school was lost and who-was-it was sent up town to the shop where –how unsporting—they kept a box of keys to thwart just so delirious a possibility.”
FIRST STEAMBOAT ON GALWAY BAY
by Tom Kenny
“The Citie of the Tribes” was the name given to the first steamboat to sail on the bay. She was built in South Shields and registered on December 24th, 1872 for the pioneering Galway Steamboat Company and her arrival here was hailed as the precursor of the new shipping millennium, the era of steam. There was not another steamship to be seen in the harbour and the old sailing salts worried about the advent of the “Iron ships and Wooden men” as opposed to the great sailing days of the “Wooden ships and Iron men”. She was a paddle tug about 96’x18’x9’ and was involved in towing barques and other sailing vessels to and from Galway Port, often going many miles west of the islands with outbound vessels.
WHEN THE HANGMAN CAME TO GALWAY
by Tom Kenny
In 1883, Thomas Parry, a 26 year old assistant shepherd, was working for Major Thomas Braddell in Wexford. Also working there was Alice Burns, a 19 year old Galway girl. The two had a whirlwind romance, Parry was deeply in love and bought her a beautiful ring and they became engaged.
Alice eventually came back to Galway where she worked as a barmaid in the Royal Hotel on Eyre Square. It was owned by her stepfather George Mack. Parry wrote regularly to his fiancée and eventually got to Galway for a brief holiday during Race Week in 1884. He stayed at the Royal Hotel and he spent whatever time he could with Alice, they often took the tram from outside the door out to Salthill.
THE MARKET SQUARE IN GALWAY CITY, 1883
by Tom Kenny
The Square appears as a green piece of land outside the city walls on the early maps of Galway. The 1651 map shows it more or less in the shape it is today. In 1710, Edward Eyre (whose family had come over with the Cromwellians) became Mayor of the city. He lived in a house roughly where the Meyrick Hotel is today and the patch of land in front of his house was known as ‘The Mayor’s Garden’. He presented it to the city and it became known as Eyre Square.
CORBETTS, A BRIEF HISTORY
by Tom Kenny
S.P. Corbett, Ironmonger (known as Sam), opened a hardware shop for business in a premises on Williamsgate Street in 1894. It was a one-stop shop where one could get lost with the extraordinary array of goods, even those on display on the footpath. Inside, one could buy spade trees; ropes; churns; seed potatoes; Fenton’s cutlery; washing boards; kitchen chairs, oil lamps, fowling pieces, portmanteaus, non-poisonous sheep dips, perambulators, mail cars, threshing machines, wallpaper, glass and earthenware, oil paints in colours of every description, Persse’s whiskies, brass and iron bedsteads; hair, fibre and Spring mattresses, linoleums, bamboo and wicker goods, guns and ammunition, wall paper, mowers, reapers and binders, everything a fisherman might need.
LIAM Ó BRIAIN, IRISH REBEL
by Tom Kenny
Liam Ó Briain was born in Dublin in 1888. In 1916 he helped print the Proclamation and he served with Michael Mallin in the College of Surgeons during the Rising. He was subsequently interned in Wandsworth Prison and in Frongoch. In 1917 he was appointed Professor of Romance Languages in UCG. He was jailed in Belfast in 1919/20. When he returned to Galway he was appointed as a judge in the Republican Courts. In late 1920, he was having dinner in College when he was arrested by the Black and Tans, and jailed for 13 months in Galway and the Curragh. Some of his experiences in prison are vividly described in a recently published book.