Search Results for 'West Bridge'

This very stylised plan of Galway was made in 1583 by Barnaby Googe and is the earliest surviving map of the city. It shows the walled town as it stood at the end of the medieval period. Galway was packed with houses: the D-shaped circuit of walls with mural towers and gates was complete; there was only one bridge over the fast flowing river, which was also an important salmon fishery, and it possessed a wharf or landing place for ships. The parish church of St Nicholas and the central market place with its market cross were prominent in the townscape, which was structured around the northeast/southwest axis of Shop Street branching into Main Guard Street and High Street/Quay Street.

This very stylised plan of Galway was made in 1583 by Barnaby Googe and is the earliest surviving map of the city. It shows the walled town as it stood at the end of the medieval period. Galway was packed with houses: the D-shaped circuit of walls with mural towers and gates was complete; there was only one bridge over the fast flowing river, which was also an important salmon fishery, and it possessed a wharf or landing place for ships. The parish church of St Nicholas and the central market place with its market cross were prominent in the townscape, which was structured around the northeast/southwest axis of Shop Street branching into Main Guard Street and High Street/Quay Street.

The Connaught Journal of July 1823 reported that Michael Walsh, the nailer of Bridge Street, was in great distress. He was described as being very poor, and though he worked hard, his life had been a struggle for some 12 years now because of a ‘disease of his leg’. The unfortunate man had to have the leg amputated and was now ‘reduced to extreme want’ as he was unable to work. The newspaper highlighted his predicament and hoped that the charitable and humane people of Galway would contribute to his support while he was recovering from the operation. So we know that the nailer was in business there some 200 years ago.

This hand coloured prospect of Galway, looking northeast, was drawn in 1685 by Captain Thomas Phillips, surveyor-general of the fortifications in Ireland. It is especially important as it is the only quasi-objective pictorial record of Galway to survive from this period.

“The Younger Women with their cloaks draped around their heads looked piquant enough, their faces had not unfrequently the sweetest expression of passion, and their lips pouted charmingly. The old fisher-wives, on the other hand, who sat near the casks and smoked damp tobacco in short clay pipes, had something witchlike and menacing about them.” So wrote Julius Rodenberg in 1860. He obviously had a thing for beautiful young Galway women as he also wrote about them elsewhere. As for the older women, I would say they just glared at him because he did not buy any fish. Otherwise, what he wrote could be true of our 1908 photograph.