Search Results for 'Galway Archaeological and Historical Society'

Sixty six years ago tomorrow, on July 17 1949, Seapoint Ballroom was officially opened by Joe Costelloe, Mayor of Galway, at 10pm. 

On Friday March 23 1846, the sub sheriff of County Galway, accompanied by a large force of policemen and soldiers, approached the townland of Ballinlass, and evicted 270 people.

The Augustinian Friars have been in Galway since 1508 when Margaret Athy, whose husband was mayor at the time, built a friary at Forthill, near a spring called St Augustine’s Well, the waters whereof wrought miraculous cures. In O’Flaherty’s Iar-Chonnacht, there is reproduced a document in which a miraculous cure is attested to by the signatures of several witnesses.

Máire and Seán Stafford were a touchstone of Irish language culture in this city for more than 60 years. They each had many and different talents and, when they were together, they made a formidable team. They were always together. It took him a whole three weeks after he met her to ask her to marry him. They kept Conradh na Gaeilge going for years, they kept Feis Ceoil an Iarthar going for years, they kept Féile Drámaíochta na Scoil going for years, they were the mainstay of An Taibhdhearc from 1950 for many years, their contribution to the quality of life in Galway was immense. They also reared a very talented family, many of whom were on the stage for the first time while still in their mother’s womb.

A public lecture on the history of a little-known foundation in east Galway, the priory of St Catherine in Aughrim, takes place in Galway city next week.

The Galway senior football team played in four All-Ireland finals in a row from 1963 to 1966. They lost the first one to Dublin but achieved a magnificent three in a row in 1964, 1965, and 1966. They were not the only Galway team to do so as the New York Galway senior hurling team managed a similar treble, winning the New York Championship in 1964, ‘65, and ’66.

Maurice Semple’s book Reflections on Lough Corrib has a very good section on the history of rowing on the river and lake. The first clubs were formed in the mid 19th century, and competitive rowing has been a feature of Galway life since. A number of pupils in Coláiste Iognáid came together in October 1934 to ask the school if it would consider setting up a Jes Rowing Club. Happily, it did, and thus began a history of great achievement which continues to the present day.

Towards the end of last year, we featured a series of articles on the building that is now occupied by the students’ bar in NUIG. The building started as a jute bag factory, then was converted to a bonded warehouse for Persse’s Distillery, later became the National Shell factory during World War I, was occupied by the 17th Lancers and the 6th Dragoon Guards, before being converted into the ammunitions factory known as IMI.

During the First World War, towns and cities throughout Britain and Ireland had factories producing munitions for the battlefield. Galway was not one of these locations and indeed many Galwegians were travelling to the UK to work in these factories. There was a lot of criticism over this and so the members of the Urban Council and some local industrialists began a lobbying campaign to attract such an industry to the city. It would create employment and would be beneficial to the community.

The story of how the west of Ireland came to be mapped is the subject of the next public lecture of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society.