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Last Thursday, in a gathering under the trees in a corner of Eyre Square, Galway paused to remember one of its great visionaries. In the heart of the city, between the former Great Southern Hotel—where a young Ronnie O’Gorman first worked—and the Galway Advertiser building, hme of the newspaper he founded, President Michael D. Higgins unveiled a new stone bench in honour of the man who gave Galway its confidence, its voice, and much of its modern identity.

On this day, the 14th of August in 1958, the Dutch KLM Super-constellation airliner named Hugo de Groot crashed into the sea about 100 miles off the Conamara coast with the loss of 99 lives. The flight was on its way to New York from Amsterdam via Shannon with 91 passengers and eight crew on board. Nobody survived the tragedy. It was the worst disaster involving a single plane in the history of aviation up to that point.

The station opened on August 1, 1851. The buildings and the Great Southern Hotel were designed by John Skipton Mulvany. It was originally planned to have the station at Renmore, but the well-known Father Peter Daly convinced the railway authorities to construct Lough Atalia Bridge and bring the trains into the centre of town. The fact that he owned tenement buildings on the site where the Great Southern was built may well have had something to do with it. These tenements were levelled to make way for the hotel and station.

On this day, February 29, 1952, a meeting was held in the Bish the purpose of which was, “That a choral society titled the Patrician Choral Society under the auspices of the Patrician Brothers Past-Pupils’ Union be here and now formed.” The motion was proposed, seconded and passed unanimously. Jack Browne was elected President, Thomas Lydon as Vice-President, Jack Doherty and Brother Cuthbert as directors and Jack Begley as Treasurer.

When the city was being constructed in medieval times, the streets and even the lanes must have appeared wide and spacious. The only kind of traffic they would have experienced then would have been pedestrian, horse or donkey and cart and maybe the odd wheelbarrow. We have two images for you today of the east side of Eyre Square the first (courtesy the National Library) dates from c1890 and shows that type of traffic; The second (courtesy Galway County Library) shows the same area with motorised traffic. Since the latter was taken, the population has grown by 6 or 7 times, and of course, the traffic volumes have increased accordingly. So the Corporation had to make occasional changes to the bye-laws in relation to traffic.

Skal International Galway will honour Galway businesswoman and the first ever female World President of Skal International, Mary Bennett at a special celebratory black tie Dinner in the Ardilaun Hotel, Galway on Thursday, next March 30.

Years ago, there was neither an independent community orchestra nor a musical instrument teaching system in Galway city or county. A handful of schools, mostly run by religious orders, taught a small range of instruments and would put a small orchestra together for their annual school show or operetta, their music teachers being very influential in passing on a love of music to their pupils.

Roy Carroll was one of the best known characters of Galway City. As a resident musician in many city hotels in Eyre Square, he was forever the epitome of decorum, bedecked in his bow tie. He was known to many as the man on the scooter which he rode through the city while often carrying an open umbrella, Roy sadly passed away in early winter, but it would be remiss of the city to not pay tribute to this remarkable character with an even more remarkable back story. Because Roy Carroll was his stage name, not many knew that he was born Peter Salvatore Armonde Louis Volpe.

On August 31, 1939, Dr Douglas Hyde, President of Ireland, signed his name in Irish in a small leather-bound book as the first Freeman of Galway.

One of Galway’s best known businessmen Dermot Murray, Ard Aoibhinn, Dalysfort Road, died peacefully at University College Hospital last Friday.