Search Results for 'Henry Burbridge'

The unfortunate collision of the Indian Empire into the well marked Margaretta Rock in the middle of Galway Bay was a blow to the newly established Galway Line. But by no means was it a knockout. Galway’s vaulting ambition to open a new ‘highway between the old and new worlds’ took on an even more determined energy. The exploitation of steam-power, driving ever bigger ships and faster trains, led to wild speculation as to what could be achieved even from Galway, in the middle of the 19th century.

In June 1858 Galway town was in a fever of wild speculation and excitement. Its vision for a magnificent transatlantic port off Furbo, reaching deep into Galway Bay, where passengers from Britain, and throughout the island of Ireland, would be brought to their emigration ship in the comfort of a train, now faced being scuppered by the apparent criminal intent of the two local pilots.

New plans projected over a 20 year period will see the inner lands of Galway harbour developed into an attractive commercial and residential area, while reclaimed land from the sea will push out harbour facilities into deep water to accommodate shipping connections to European ports and elsewhere. It is a long over due and worthwhile plan, but it pales almost into insignificance compared to the vaulting ambitions the Galway merchants schemed in the mid 19th century.

Described as a ‘turbulent priest’, and ‘the dominant public figure in Galway during the 1850s’, who was ‘a stubborn, abrasive, guileful and egotistical populist,’* Fr Peter Daly was the principle mover and shaker behind Galway’s drive to become the main transatlantic port for traffic to America in the 1850s. As chairman of both the Town Commissioners and the Harbour Board, he supported J O Lever’s Galway Line, which was to run three state-of-the-art steam-sailing ships between Galway and New York, from a grandiose harbour to be built off Furbo. Passengers from Britain, and all over Ireland, would be delivered to the terminal by train. It was to be the most comfortable, and shortest, route to America.

In June 1858 Galway town was in a fever of excitement. Its vision for a magnificent transatlantic port off Furbo, reaching deep into in Galway Bay, where passangers from Britain, and throughout the island of Ireland, would be brought to their emigration ship in the comfort of a train, could now be scuppered by the apparent carelessness of the two local pilots.

If Eamon Bradshaw and his crew think their courageous plan to extend Galway harbour into deep water to accommodate cruise liners is a step into modernity that will bring commercial success to the city on a grand scale, it pales almost into insignificance compared to the stunning ambitions the Galway merchants schemed in the mid 19th century.