Search Results for 'Mickey Walsh'

In the early fifties, Sisk’s (led by foreman Jack Lillis) built a factory ‘out the country’ on a two-and-a-half acres on Sandy Road. It was part of a 15-acre site and the state-of-the-art building would house an industry called Galway Textile Printers which would become known as ‘The Cotton Factory’ or even ‘The Cotton’. We already had a hat factory and a china factory in Galway, but this was industry on a new scale in here. They quickly became one of the biggest employers in the west of Ireland. A number of those who worked there were specialists who were brought in to help set up the factory, but most of the employees were local.

One hundred and twenty five years ago this month, at a meeting in the Royal Hotel, a new and rather exclusive club was formed bearing the title ‘The Galway Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club’. Initially, it was proposed that they play tennis at Glenarde (where the Ardilaun Hotel is today) but that their stated intention was to acquire land specifically to lay it down for proper tennis and croquet.

The game of soccer in Salthill really began with Christy Gilbert. He formed a club in the early 1940s called Salthill Crusaders and they played for several years with some success. Some of the players associated with the club were Harry Lupton, Donal Murray, Frank Lydon, Arthur Stephens, Brendan Collins, Tommy Stephens, Billy and Leo Shaw, and Donie Kelleher.

John Byrne’s face creases into a smile when recalling the magic of it all. The times were simple, but the game always mattered. In the Byrne household on Henry Street two prized possessions existed.

In 1951 Hastings Elliott Jephson was working in the ESB in Galway when he had the idea of setting up a hockey club in the city. He and his friend George Bevis decided to see if there was merit in this notion, so they simply went from door to door around town asking people if they would have any interest in playing the game of hockey.