At the beginning of the last century, William Joseph Silke came to Galway from Kilconnell. He had occasion to visit the shop owned by Mrs Teresa Mannix on the corner of Upper Dominick Street and Pump Lane. She was a Macaulay from Scotland and was the widow of a Mr Mannix from Galway. They fell in love and eventually married and together, they had four children, Willy Joe, Michael John, Tess and Annie May.
In 1906, he began to expand the shop business which was in the grocery and provision trade and also hardware. To commemorate this event, he minted a number of tokens (see illustration ) these were tickets or discount vouchers which were passed out to customers in the week preceding the reopening of the shop. It was a marketing ploy, designed to attract new customers as well as regulars. These tokens could be redeemed for tea. Afterwards, the tokens were occasionally passed out to regular customers. In those days, tea would cost between 4/- and 6/- a pound, a considerable sum of money, so these tokens became very popular.
William gradually went into the business of leasing cars and charabancs … a kind of taxi service …. They used to take groups on tour to places like Lisdoonvarna and the Cliffs of Moher – as you can see from the illustrated advertisement. He eventually sold this business to O’Flaherty’s as the grocery business was continuing to expand and soon, they moved the short distance from Pump Lane to William Street West.
Our photograph was taken c1920 and shows William on the right, his daughter Tess in the centre, and four unidentified men, two of whom may have been his sons. The end part of the building (with WJ Silke written on it ) was originally a store for the Pump Lane shop. They knocked the part of the building (where you see & Sons ) and built a ‘palatial new premises’ seen in our second photograph, designed by Mr M Sarsfield and built by PJ Finnegan, contractor, Salthill, which housed their high-class wholesale business in confectionery, fruit, tobacco, sweets etc. This opened in September, 1931. The family lived upstairs.
By now, their two sons Willy Joe, who had done an apprenticeship in Liptons on Shop Street, and Michael John, who had worked in Higgins’ Garage, had come into the business. William Joseph died in 1939, his wife in 1949, but their sons continued to expand by opening a bakery on a premises they had bought on Munster Avenue. Willy Joe’s son Seán later had a furniture auction house on this site. The bakery used to supply a confectionery shop they opened on William Street. A little further along Munster Avenue, they had a small factory where they made sweets …. teddy bear bars, cream pies, lollipops and Chocolate Kimberley. This later house the fruit and vegetable shop run by Brian.
During the ‘Emergency’ the Government encouraged people in the Gaeltacht to erect glasshouses and grow tomatoes and other vegetables, thus becoming more self-sufficient while also turning over a few bob. Silkes had a contract to take in all of their produce and they wholesaled most of it and also sold some retail.
The building, which subsequently became Donal Silke’s Cash and Carry business, was originally a yard owned by a next-door neighbour Mr Devaney, who housed his horse and cart there. Silkes bought the premises and put a roof on it. They used to hold concerts there on Saturday afternoons with people like Paschal Spelman, Terri Silke and Gerry Forken performing, as well as a choir made up of members of the Silke family. Later, they used to run pongo sessions there and for a time they housed slot machines and other amusements there. Then Donal took over the premises and opened his business there in 1972.
