Officials in Galway City Council are powerless to remove the hulks of rotting boats in the Claddagh as the ownership of some quays in the Corrib estuary is unknown.
Central Galway city councillor John McDonagh says he is surprised council staff are still unable to verify land ownership of an area near the beginning of Nimmo’s Pier, despite the issue of wrecks being a health hazard and eyesore there for almost two decades.
The Labour councillor says Galway City Council, Galway County Council, the Office of Public Works and the Corrib Navigation Trust have all failed to remove a number of hulks littering the foreshore opposite Claddagh Hall. This area is regularly photographed by tourists looking across at The Long Walk, and was immortalised in a famous Christmas Guinness advert.
“No one seems to know who is responsible for the wrecks, never mind who owns them” says McDonagh. “They are an eyesore, dangerous to children playing in them, and possibly nesting areas for vermin.”
McDonagh wants officials to do a deep dive into land ownership in the area, where locals have suggested the foreshore may belong to the remnants of an historic landowner, such as the Grattan Estate, or an old philanthropic organisation, like the Carnegie Trust. The HSE is another possibility, as it inherited lands from historic welfare bodies predating Irish independence.
Stephen Gwynn was MP for Galway in the early twentieth century, and there are records of him securing grants for land improvement in the Claddagh in an area which later became a seaside dump. In 1931 the Carnegie Trust provided £500 to develop the waste ground as a municipal facility.
“If we can’t find who owns the boats or land, what cost is there to hiring a truck and crane and removing these wrecks? If their owners turn up, they can always come collect them,” says McDonagh.
“A famous German architect, Wulf Daseking, who visited Galway recently made reference to these wrecks, stating they are still in the same place following on from a previous visit he made to our city years earlier.
“Are these wrecks still going to be here in five years time with no end in sight when he comes back?”
