Search Results for 'Horse Island'

Last week we showed you a reproduction of a painting of Woodquay which was painted by an English artist, William JC Bond, in 1850. Today, we show you two details from that painting, each one showing a side of Woodquay.

William Joseph JC Bond (1833-1926) was a landscape and marine painter of the Liverpool School who was much influenced by Turner, and in the 1850s and 1860s, by the Pre-Raphaelites. His work features in a number of museums and galleries. He came to the west of Ireland on a number of occasions, we know one of his paintings was titled “Near Oranmore” and he also painted “The Galway Coast” in 1872. Our main image today is of an oil painting he did of Woodquay in 1850, and the second is a detail from that painting. He may have taken some artistic licence, but his picture underlines the importance of early artworks as historical documents in an era before photography reached Galway.

In the early 1950s a group of people got together to come up with ideas for extending the tourist season. They decided to focus on traditional Irish cultural events throughout the country, often with a local flavour, and they called the project An Tóstal. A committee was set up in Galway and they came up with the concept of an All-Ireland Currach Racing Championships. Nothing like this had ever been done before, so it took quite a bit of organisation.

Most of the area seen in this photograph was once part of a grant of land to Edward Eyre in 1670. It was all originally outside the city walls and was mostly made up of three islands which included St Stephen’s Island and Horse Island.