Search Results for 'Brendan McGowan'

THE GREAT War’s impact on Galway city, the slaughter in the trenches, and recruiting Galwegians to fight for “king and country” will be the subject of a series of public lectures taking place at the Galway City Museum, every Thursday from 7pm to 8pm.

There are buildings, streets, and ruins surviving from Galway’s Elizabethan heyday in the 1600s, but it is still difficult to imagine what the entire city would have looked like then.

It lasted only an hour, but for a generation of Galwegians it was a momentous occasion, one that gave a city and a population emerging from the oppressive 1950s, a much needed boost of confidence. It was the day US president John F Kennedy came to visit.

Despite Liam Mellows and his men answering the call to arms, and for five days to have caused mayhem in the Oranmore and Athenry areas, Galway was slow to realise that the Easter Rising 1916 was to be a permanent affair. The town was known as a ‘showneen town’, that is a town with a close allegiance to the British way of doing things. This was mainly because of the status of having a major army barracks on its doorstep. The army was an important purchaser of supplies from the town merchants; and many local people were soldiers, or had husbands or boyfriends who were in the army.

To mark Eyre Square’s 300th anniversary, a new limited edition book on the history of the city’s central point is about to be launched.

The Galway City Museum will commemorate the 300th anniversary of Eyre Square this Saturday with a public lecture on the city’s main civic space.

Colin Murphy is coming to Westport

Seapoint Ballroom was officially opened at 10pm on July 17 1949 by Joe Costelloe, Mayor of Galway. Noel Finan bought the site from Jim and Mary Cremin, who were brother and sister. They ran a famous seawater baths there, a kind of health spa of its day. At the time Salthill was a small village with a few hotels, B&Bs, and shops. It also had the Hangar which was run by John Allen, but it closed down in Race Week when dancing moved into a marquee in Eyre Square. At the time it was 1s 6d into the Hangar for women and 1s 9d for men.

Tuesday is February 1, the feast day of St Brigid, and the Galway City Museum will be marking the day with a series of events.

The Galway City Museum is hosting a quilting exhibition from the North of Ireland, artwork by Cecil Maguire, and workshops for younger visitors keen to keep busy during the mid-term break.