In May, 1924, Galway County Council resolved, ‘… the adoption of the Carnegie Rural Libraries Scheme in County Galway, and we, the members, undertake, individually and collectively, to press for the maintenance of the scheme of a County Library rate at the end of the two years during which it has been maintained by the Carnegie Trust’.
The county council established the Galway County Libraries Committee on May 22, 1926 and their first meeting was held in Bishop’s Court, Augustine Street. They officially took control of the Carnegie Libraries on July 1 that year. The first County Librarian was Sam Maguire who viewed and promoted the public library as an important educational institution ‘that would encourage the reading of good books of every kind’. He was in office from 1924 to 1955 and is regarded as ‘the father of the whole county library service’. The first priority was the need for adequate headquarters for the Library HQ, a city branch and provision of additional branches throughout the county.
Their first HQ was on the first floor of Bishop’s Court, later the former hospital building on Prospect Hill (now Áras an Chondae ) and, in 1934, they moved to the Courthouse. By mid-1925, there were 84 lending centres across the county; in 1932 the number was 194, by which time libraries had been established in Ballinasloe and Loughrea.
By 1957, the city branch had taken over all the library space in the Courthouse and the HQ moved to a premises in Woodquay, but the branch was still congested and the search for a dedicated site continued until November 26, 1981 when the city branch library opened on the ground floor of the Hynes Building in Augustine Street, a larger floor space than the Courthouse. In 1998, that building was refurbished and a new children’s library and reference library was added. Today, the HQ is in Island House and there are branches and library centres dotted all over the county. The County Library also offers a mobile library service, schools library service, archives service, and local studies service.
Sam Maguire was followed by Paddy White as County Librarian, acting 1955/56; Seán Bohan was in the post 1956-66; Tom Sharkey 1966-1994; Mary Kavanagh, acting, 1994-95; Pat McMahon 1995-2013; Peter Rabbitt, acting, 2013-2017; Catherine Gallagher 2017-2019; Bernie Kelly, acting, 2019-2023; and Josephine Vahey 2023 –present.
The branch in the Courthouse is remembered with great affection … Jim Higgins recalls: “The library on the first floor was reached by ascending a wide flight of varnished and polished stairs, lit from above by roof light. Polished brass door handles, the heft of heavy banisters, the chunky resonating sound of every thread and riser on the stairs was wonderful. You hopped, skipped and jumped up them, a voyage of discovery. There was a feeling of being on the deck of a ship and going off on a journey to faraway places, metaphorically speaking of course! There was an ‘airlock’ between the silence inside and the outside world, where one could be safely ensconced for a few hours."
Patricia Forde, our Laureate na n-Óg, tells us: “All of my books have a common denominator – that room on the first floor of the Courthouse – the junior library in Newtownsmyth that opened my eyes to the possibility of a good story and opened my heart to one author after another. I see them now as a long procession of storytellers climbing up that old wooden stairs and settling themselves on the shelves and wait to hear the running footsteps of a child. A benign ambush awaits in which she will be transported from one world to the next and left indelibly marked for the rest of her life.”
These quotations are among many in a book that will be lunched by Professor Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh at the weekend celebrating 100 years of Galway Public Libraries, titled A Nuisance or a Luxury … Historical and Nostalgic Reflections. It is a delightful production edited by Patria McWalter and Jo Vahey. The book is not on public sale, but you can get a free copy from your local branch while stocks last. It describes the evolution of this much loved institution which has been providing the community with books for a century and is well illustrated. Highly recommended. Tá cóipeanna ar fáil as Gaeilge freisin.
Our first image is of an exhibition of books in Irish, the works of Galway and Conamara writers and translations which was organised by the library and held at Áras na nGaedheal for Seachtain na Gaillimhe in July 1944. Our second photograph is of those present at the Blessing of the first mobile library van in 1960. They are, left to right, Tom Sharkey, Assistant Librarian; Joe Fahy, coach builder; Liam Ó Luanaigh, County Secretary; Tessie Lane, library assistant; Mrs. Chayes, Assistant Librarian; Claude Warner, County Engineer; Canon Glynn, Chairman, Libraries Committee; Seán Bohan, County Librarian; Eddie Fahy, coach builder; Joe Wood, Mechanical Engineer. The inset photograph is of Sam Maguire, the first County Librarian who got the show rolling from the very beginning.
