Galway could soon be memorialising one of its best-known writers following calls to honour Ken Bruen by renaming the road beside his former home.
Bruen, who was born in Galway city and lived here for most of his life, was a giant of modern crime fiction and brought Galway to a global stage through his Jack Taylor mysteries, which were also made into a locally filmed TV series of the same name.
Mr Bruen lived at No 1 Lower Newcastle, beside a road known locally as the Mass Path, before his death last year. Now, his widow, Philomena Kennedy Bruen, has called for this road to be renamed after him.
“This is something that Ken deserves,” said Ms Kennedy Bruen, who raised the prospect of naming a road during an interview on Galway Bay FM this week. “I came up with the Mass Path myself. I don’t want him bronzed down the town with Oscar Wilde. That little pathway is beside where Ken was reared.”
Her suggestion has been picked up by Cllr Niall McNelis, who plans to bring a proposal to the next meeting of Galway City Council
“I’m going to follow up on behalf of Ken’s wife and seek to have a road named after him,” Cllr McNelis said this week. “I will be bringing it to council as a motion in September and hope the civic naming committee will take on the request.”
There may yet be a significant hurdle to renaming the road after Mr Bruen - under the current rules of the city council’s civic naming policy group, people are not generally considered for commemoration until at least 10 years have passed since their death. However, exceptions have been made, and Cllr McNelis is hoping the committee will circumvent this policy to honour Mr Bruen’s enormous contribution to raising the city’s international profile.
“Ken has given so much to the city,” Cllr McNelis said. “We’re not looking at a new road. I’ve spoken to residents who are in favour of it. The number of visitors who come to the city every year because of Ken Bruen and the Jack Taylor series is phenomenal.”
Ken Bruen was born in the Bruen family home and business at 9 Eyre Square in 1951. The family moved to 1 Lower Newcastle when he was eight years old. Mr Bruen lived there for much of his life, and while his widow no longer lives in the property, the couple were still living there when he died last year.
The former Bruen home stands on the corner of Lower Newcastle and the Mass Path - so named because the bodies of people who died in the Regional Hospital - now UHG - were traditionally brought along this road on the way to church.
Cllr McNelis has said he plans to propose at the next meeting of Galway City Council that the road be re-named Bruen Avenue.
On March 25 last year, Mr Bruen fell and hit his head while walking to the shop to buy a paper. He died in UHG four days later.
Mr Bruen wrote 45 books during his prolific career, including 18 novels in the multi-award winning Jack Taylor series.
