Old Galway
SEAPOINT BALLROOM
by Tom Kenny
Last week we were writing about Cremen’s Health Spa and Sea Baths at Seapoint, and how the complex was bought out by Salthill man, Noel Finan in 1944. He closed down the baths in 1946. He realised that young Galway people wanted something more than the clean invigorating air and to be clean so he sold the family pub (now Killoran’s) and borrowed heavily from the EBS to build a first class ballroom and restaurant. The restaurant was 4,000 square feet, had ninety tables and could seat 350 diners. Attached to it was a kitchen with the most modern steam and electric equipment. The ballroom had a floor area of 5,200 square feet and was laid with a specially sprung maple floor capable of accommodating more than 2,000 dancers. It also had a balcony which could seat a few hundred people and from which patrons could spot the talent and could, from a distance, comment safely about them.
Seapoint was built in thirteen months by 30 men working for McNallys Contractors. They had to be very careful to work with the tide, so they built a breakwater around the perimeter. The foundations were critical as the building was going to be very high, one of the most imposing in the west. Some young local fellows probably drove the builders mad as they paddled lumps of wood around inside the foundations when the tide was in. Noel Finan told me he could remember no such thing as a crane or large machines during the construction, it was all men carrying blocks and pushing barrows of concrete. He kept at McNallys until he got exactly the dance hall he wanted.
SEAWATER BATHS IN SALTHILL
by Tom Kenny
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Salthill began to develop as a tourist destination. People found the salt air invigorating and the sea was a huge attraction, not just for swimming or paddling, but also for its curative powers. It was thought to have medicinal powers, and so local people began to take advantage of this wonderful asset beside them to possibly make some money.
Dr. Robert Rogers Gray opened his medicinal baths on Salthill Road at the junction with Grattan Road (where Grattan house was later) in 1831. Here, one went straight from a hot air bath to a cold shower bath to get the desired effect. “It is chiefly beneficial in removing Gout in all its forms –chronic rheumatism and rheumatic pains – and swelling of the joints – strengthening the tone of the stomach and thereby being a valuable remedy in Dyspepsia and all the train of nervous feelings consequent on indigestion. It is highly and deservedly recommended for removing the effects of mercury from the constitution and Scrufolous swellings. Ulcers and obstinate diseases of the skin in general yield to a properly medicated Vapour Bath. The plain Warm Baths and Shower Baths &c. will be given by experienced assistants and the medicated Baths under the immediate direction of a Medical gentleman.” With all those potential cures, it was hardly surprising that this technique and also seaweed baths became very popular at many seaside resorts around the country.
THE MEN OF ‘34
by Tom Kenny
There has been so much hype recently about how Galway had not beaten Dublin in football for 90 years that it got me wondering, what were those men of 1934 like? They must have been mighty men. They were!
MENLO HEROES
By Tom Kenny
On this day eighty five years ago, the fourth of July 1929, rowing history was made at Galway Regatta when a crew from the Menlo Emmetts Club brought the Senior Eights Championship trophy to Galway for the first time. All of the crew were from the small village a few miles up the Corrib, were native Irish speakers, and had lived locally and worked by the river all of their lives.
Some years before, there was a very wet spring and these men could do very little farmwork. They would watch rowing crews training on the river and then someone suggested that as they were all boatmen who went out fishing, if they were all together in a racing eight, surely they would be able for any opposing crew.
So, a club was formed with Mr. P.Ellwood as president, T. Brown as captain and P. Lydon as club secretary. The crew started slowly and improved with training, in 1926, they won the maiden eights at Galway Regatta. In 1927, they moved up a category to junior level and in that capacity won the eights at Limerick, Galway and Metropolitan regattas and also the junior fours titles at the latter two events. In 1928, they graduated to senior eights, senior fours and premier fours. They won the eights at Galway and the senior fours at Galway, Derry and Bann regattas and they finished as runners-up in the senior eights championship which was held in Cork.
GALWAY IN SONG
by Tom Kenny
Our first illustration today is of the cover of the sheet music for the song ‘Galway Bay’ as sung by Bing Crosby. It was written by Dr. Arthur Colohan, apparently in memory of his brother who was drowned somewhere near Seapoint. I have also been told that it got its first airing in the Hotel at the top of Prospect Hill. It seems Colohan, a medical student, was in there with a group of his fellow undergraduates when he told them he had written a song and sat down at the piano to play and sing it for them. The legend is that they fell all over the place laughing. He of course had the last laugh as his song became one of the world’s best sellers, topping the charts in Britain in1950.
THE TOWN HALL, A BRIEF HISTORY
by Tom Kenny
In 1639, the Corporation ordered that some of the shops and buildings adjacent to the market be pulled down and “all the same be reduced into a strong sufficient stone house, covered with slate and to be underpropped with good stone pillars, whereby way through it shall be to the said church”. The proposed building was to be opposite the present Anthony Ryan’s shop and was to be a Tholsel or premises for the town clerk, for the Corporation records and for meetings of the Common Council.
There were many delays in the completion of the building but, in 1709, it was finally open for use. It functioned as an exchange, a market building, a municipal office as well as a courthouse. Little over a century later, it was condemned as dangerous and in 1822, it was demolished. The stones from it were in the possession of Thomas Barnwell Martin of Ross and he used them to build a new market house on Eyre Square which is now the Bank of Ireland building on Eyre Square.
A MEDIEVAL CASTLE IN QUAY STREET
by Tom Kenny
Blake’s Castle is a medieval urban fortified town house at the bottom of Quay Street which was built c.1470 with single bay ground and first floors and a two-bay second floor. It has a flat roof with a crenelated parapet with a projecting machicolation on supporting corbels on the top floor above the entrance. This was an opening at the parapet through which defenders could drop material such as boiling water or hot pitch down on would be attackers. It was built with coursed roughly dressed limestone rubble walls with square headed window openings to the upper floors.
According to Hardiman’s History, this castle originally belonged to the O’Halloran Sept. It was then taken over by the Anglo-Norman Blake family. The Blakes were one of the tribes of Galway who owned extensive properties throughout the county, including Menlo Castle. They forfeited this Quay Street castle in 1641 and it was then granted to the Morgan family who were based in Monksfield, but it has always been known as Blake’s Castle.
ST. JOSEPH’S SPECIAL SCHOOL, THE EARLY YEARS
by Tom Kenny
On October 28th 1961, the following letter appeared in the Connacht Tribune --- “Sir, Educational facilities for mentally handicapped children are entirely inadequate in this country and except for the excellent work of the religious orders, the problem would be of much greater magnitude……………. Would anybody be interested in doing something for mentally handicapped children in Galway? Signed PARENT OF A MENTALLY HANDICAPPED CHILD”
The letter was written by Seán Keane who was looking for what all parents want for their children, a chance for them to reach their full potential, whether they are handicapped or not. He got no reply so he wrote again, this time in answer to his own letter. This prompted some more letter writers to contribute and then some editorials were published which highlighted the growing awareness of the needs of mentally handicapped children in Galway.