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This aerial photograph was taken c1945. On the left you can see the Eglinton Hotel which was originally built in the 1860s. Up to that time, Salthill was a small village that included Lenaboy Avenue and the area between what we know as Seapoint and the Bal. The construction of the Eglinton was on a scale not seen before in Salthill, and it extended the village to the west. It came at a time when locals were beginning to promote the village as a resort, a destination for tourists.

In 1923 Forster Park, the residence of Gerald Cloherty, clerk of the crown and peace for County Galway, sold his house to surgeon Michael O’Malley. In July 1935 the Connacht Tribune reported that the purchase of plots in front of the house recently occupied by Dr O’Malley, and the question of allowing the purchasers to proceed with the building immediately, or to force them to defer until the road along the Promenade had been widened, was the subject of a long discussion at the Urban District Council meeting.

There was a long discussion at an Urban District Council meeting in July 1935 about whether to allow purchasers of plots in front of the house at Forster Park, recently occupied by Dr Michael O’Malley, to proceed with the building immediately, or to force them to defer construction until the road along the Promenade had been widened. The plots had been advertised as building sites. One of the objectors said, “We are a long time looking for a town planning scheme in Galway, and now that we have it, I strongly object to this building. We have one of the finest hotels in the country (The Eglinton) and now you want to destroy it.”