Search Results for 'Bertie Simmons'

On this day, February 13, 1922, the IRA took over Renmore Barracks from the British. When the Anglo-Irish Treaty was ratified on January 7, 1922, it was only a matter of time before the British Army would leave the Barracks. There was some suggestion initially that the Regional Hospital might transfer to the barracks. On February 2, the last Black and Tans had left Galway by train. The British did not want to surrender the Barracks to the Volunteers, so an arrangement was made where they would leave at a certain time, and the formal handover would take place a few hours later.

Frank McDonagh and Company were wholesale and retail drapers and outfitters that opened in Williamsgate Street in 1883. In early advertisements, they described themselves as “Successors to M. Hennessy, the house for original Claddagh cloaks as supplied to the Royal family”.

The foundation stone for this bridge was laid on June 29, 1818, by William Le Poer Trench and the structure was completed the following year. The original purpose was to connect the new County Courthouse with the County Gaol on Nuns' Island. It is a fine gently humped five-span bridge which was originally known as ‘The New Bridge’ or ‘Gaol Bridge’.

In 1912, WP Higgins, working from his base in Athenry, went to Cork city to meet Henry Ford to ask him for the Ford dealership. It marked the start of a great business partnership between a business legend and Higgins' Garage.

The area we know as Devon Park in Salthill was originally part of the Lenaboy estate which belonged to the O’Hara family, who were based in Lenaboy Castle. The entire left hand side of our aerial photograph (c1940) was part of the estate, originally a green field site, the outer wall of which ran along the main Salthill Road. Bertie Simmons knocked part of that wall in the early 1930s and built two houses, one at the corner (where the fish shop is today) and one behind it where Hartigans lived.

The area we know today as Devon Park was originally part of the O’Hara Estate which was the land around Lenaboy Castle (now St Anne’s on Taylor’s Hill). The main gates to this estate were, and are, next door to the Warwick Hotel. Part of the estate wall ran along the main Salthill road.