“Every Saturday morning a procession of donkey-carts set out, nose to tail, for the market in Galway. This took place in the triangular patch by the Collegiate Church of St Nicholas. It dates from 1320 and was dedicated to St Nicholas, the patron saint of sailors, who was chosen then as the patron saint of Galway. There the donkeys were unharnessed and tethered to a wheel, the shafts were let down to the ground and the goods to be sold were displayed on the sloping cart. Vendors came from many more prosperous areas and their wares were a source of envy to those who lived in the congested strip along the coast. Eggs in big wicker baskets with hinged lids, ducks, hens and chickens, wooden kegs of buttermilk, home churned butter laid in rolls on cabbage-leaves, cabbages, onions, sometimes geese, hand-knitted socks – all sold briskly throughout the morning to the people of the town.
"Nearby, travelling salesmen laid out china and glass on the ground and attracted buyers with shouts and songs and various other ploys. One was to smash a cup or bowl with a loud noise, and the remark that it was better to smash it than to sell it too cheaply. The women loved china, especially if it was patterned with roses, and they groaned in dismay at the destruction of such beauty. At home, their kitchen dressers shone with china and lustre jugs, preserved over many generations, washed carefully once a week.
"Few could afford to buy anything but the essentials, however. When everything had been sold, the money was instantly spent of food supplies for the following week – tea, sugar, flour, salt, a few sweets for the children who had been left behind. Then everyone had a cup of tea in a cottage near the market and the long trek home began.
"The market still takes place on Saturdays under the shadow of the old grey church, but now the donkeys are gone and pickup vans have replaced them. A great variety of vegetables is sold, things undreamed of by an older generation – carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, huge heads of blanched celery which grows particularly well in peaty soil.”
This wonderfully evocative prose is an extract from Inside Ireland written by Eilís Dillon. She was born in Galway 100 years ago. Our photograph dates from c1935 and shows some of the people mentioned above, and in the background, part of the Shambles Barracks.
