William Evans was a distinguished painter in the 19th century who did a very unusual and adventurous thing for an English artist at the time — he travelled widely in Connemara and west Mayo. We can only speculate what attracted him to this wild, rugged, and remote terrain but he liked the parts of the country least visited, and said that, “Ireland failed to attract the pencils of the recording brethren of the easel and lay like a virgin soil untouched by the plough.” He produced many studies and finished watercolours, a mixture of landscapes, streetscapes, and market scenes, and what might be called peasant structures and peasant portraits.
He has left us an important visual legacy of colourful images that are evocative of the west of Ireland before the Famine. He carefully recorded the types of traditional clothing worn by the locals and the everyday tools and equipment used by them such as milk churns, baskets, cooking pots, and spinning wheels.
Our illustration today is a typical study by Evans. It is of the top of Buttermilk Lane as one looked down towards Middle Street. Note the blue cloak and the red petticoat worn by the woman selling vegetables. She is barefoot and would probably have carried the creel of vegetables into town, or maybe the tired looking boy beside her helped. She also has what looks like a bag or maybe a churn on the ground beside her.
Buttermilk Lane was one of the best addresses in Galway at the time. Judges and barristers used to stay there when they came to town for the Assizes. When Daniel O’Connell arrived in Galway to address a mass meeting in Shantalla, he stayed in the lane and spoke to a large crowd from a first floor oriel window which is not visible in our image.
What looks like flagpoles further down were probably clothes lines on which to hang out the washing. There is an arched doorway halfway down on the left which may have been an ‘entry’. The arch we are looking at in the foreground was known locally as ‘The Bow’, which prompted an old Galway expression “Meet you at the Bow”.
We have a request from Ciaran McFadden who is working on a history of UCG Boxing Club. He is looking for old photographs, news clippings, programmes, or stories of the club and boxers over the years. If you can help him, contact him at [email protected]. His postal address is Kilmacowen, Ballisodare, Co Sligo. He will care for and return any materials sent to him.
