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Markets and fairs were where town met country years ago, when rural people from the hinterland came into town with their produce and sold it on the streets to the townspeople who needed it. So the city hosted cattle fairs, sheep fairs, horse fairs, hiring fairs, vegetable markets, hay markets, fish markets, sock markets, fowl markets, egg and butter markets. When the country people sold their produce, they would often spend money on necessities they could not produce at home such as flour, tea or sugar. If they did not sell, they had to return home, usually by shank’s mare, with whatever they had to sell, whatever the weather.

In the early 19th century, most of the area we see in our photograph would have been under water. Woodquay was so called because of the 150 feet wooden quay that ran the length of it. It was a kind of second docks for the city, attracting a lot of commercial traffic down the river. The Corrib Drainage Scheme in 1852 began to change the face of the space we are looking at, and later, when Steamer’s Quay was built, the area was gradually filled in and reclaimed.