Search Results for 'Menlo'

Sonic geographer Francis Heery’s latest album is a dark and moody aural survey of a Galway city suburb.

What's that old adage about if you need a job done, to give it to a busy person. Well, that is what Galway Chamber has done by electing as their President for the next term a man who has a real passion for his native city.

Dermot Nolan has been elected the new President of Galway Chamber. Mr Nolan is the Group Finance Director of the Headspace Group and has previously served as Deputy President of the Chamber as well as Chair of the Evolving Galway Committee.

‘My father had a sister Bríd. She was a beautiful woman when she was young. She was friendly with Jack (Seán) ‘ac Coscair, but her father never knew they had spoken a word to each other. It was Bríd who used to rake the fire and close the door each night. She raked the fire and closed the door that night, and she went to bed. She was only a short time asleep when a sinneán (strong gust of wind) came, and the door was blown in against that wall below. ‘Get up, Bríd,’ said her father, ‘and close the door!’

One of the great sporting achievements of the last century was the remarkable success of a group of Irish speaking farmers and local men from Menlo. During a very wet spring when they could do little work on their farms or on the bog, as they watched rowing crews going up and down the river, a group of them decided to form a rowing club. They asked to become members of Menlo Emmetts Hurling Club and adopted the name. Many of them would have spent a lot of time on the river, but that did not mean they knew how to handle a racing boat. When they took their clinker out for the first time, it took them a good while to steady the boat. A local man watching, described them as “The Wobblers” and this name stuck for a few years.

Near by the ruins of Menlo Castle, built by the Blake family in 1569, is the village of Menlo, a small attractive cluster of houses, that appear to have grown near each other by accident, as it zigzags down to the river bank. There is no village centre as such, but its very irregularity has made it a desirable place to live. Today it is a prosperous suburb of Galway city.