Martin Brennan came from Kildysart in County Clare and was apprenticed in a drapery shop, probably in Ennis, in 1861. In 1881/82, he moved to Galway and set up business on Shop Street. Twenty years later, he had a fire in his premises and had to organise a major Salvage Sale in which to sell off all goods left after the recent fire, some partly burned and a large portion damaged by water. He obviously recovered and made a success of the business as you can see from this advertisement c1910, his premises had taken up a good portion of the street. He brought his nephew Martin into the business in 1906.
The advertisement is typical of the vintage, designed to be dramatic with a strong text and beautiful flourishes. Everything associated with the business is exaggerated, the ground floor windows are about two and a half storeys high, the building looks higher than actuality. There are a few horse-drawn vehicles parked outside and the Galway and Salthill summer tram is on its way back to Eyre Square.
Martin died in 1923 and left the business to his nephew Martin, who, with his brother Jack, ran the company.
In 1953, a fire gutted the premises. It started in a paint store at the back of Commins’ and Greaney’s hardware store next door and spread very quickly. At the time, many of the buildings were interconnected, some would have a common attic, and all of them had wooden floors which helped the fire to travel. The firemen worried that all of Shop Street would go up in the blaze.
Most of Brennan’s business at the time was based on credit, so Martin wanted desperately to go back into the building and rescue his safe.The firemen had to hold him back and happily, the safe fell through the burning wooden floors into the basement and it and its contents were all recovered safely.
At the time, there was a shrine to Our Lady at the back of the building between Elle’s Café and Brennan’s Shoe Shop and miraculously, the fire never passed that spot.
Brennan’s was completely rebuilt to a design by Ralph Ryan. It reopened a couple of years later, and was unusual in the Galway context in that it had reinforced concrete throughout, and also had a modern glass façade island that one could walk around.
Our photograph shows the original façade on the building before the fire which was quite modern for the time. It boasted the longest single window span in Connacht.
Among those who worked there were Mona Kenny, Nan Davey, Mary Martin, Bridget Heaney, Nan O’Reilly, Kathleen Barry, Bernie Raftery, John Davey, Mick Dolan, John Commins, Frank Tuohy, Dominick Forken, Michael Browne, Sonny Molloy and George Fennell.
