Search Results for 'Stephen Gwynn'

Week II

This photograph was originally taken from the top of the high wall which fronted the town dump in the area of the Claddagh still known as ‘The Swamp’ in 1931. In the early years of the 20th century Galway’s Parliamentary Representative Stephen Gwynn prompted the Government to award a grant of £450 for the reclamation of this marshy ground between the Claddagh and the seashore, which was prone to flooding, and as a result a half-mile racing track in the shape of a rectangle with rounded corners was built around the perimeter of the area. It cannot have been very successful, because some time afterwards the area became the site for the city dump. In 1931 the Carnegie Trust presented the city with a grant of £500 to help develop part of the site into a number of playing pitches. This development was a gradual process and eventually, in the early fifties, the whole area was converted into a municipal park devoted entirely to sporting activities. The high wall was largely knocked and reduced to its present height. It took a while to completely clear the ground... many who played matches there at the time remember taking lumps of glass or tin out of the surface of the playing pitch and leaving them on the side wall.