Search Results for 'Michael Derrane'

The buildings we see on the left of our photograph were once two-storey houses which featured on the 1651 map of Galway. Some years ago, in this column, we showed a painting of those houses and also the ones across the street which gave the impression of a continental atmosphere to this area. According to Griffith’s Valuation, which was published c1855, the houses on the left were occupied at that time by Dennis Quinn, Patrick Commons, and Michael Derrane, all of whom kept lodgers.

Antique paintings can be very important documents of social history, giving us an insight into what life must have been like when the picture was painted. They can recreate for us the streets and scenes and buildings where our ancestors may have lived or worked, show us how they dressed, the games they played, etc, before the Famine or before photography was invented. Such images of Galway are rare, so it is a pleasure to come across this descriptive watercolour of the back of the Spanish Arch, which is in a private collection.