Search Results for 'Michael Naughton'

In the early fifties, Sisk’s (led by foreman Jack Lillis) built a factory ‘out the country’ on a two-and-a-half acres on Sandy Road. It was part of a 15-acre site and the state-of-the-art building would house an industry called Galway Textile Printers which would become known as ‘The Cotton Factory’ or even ‘The Cotton’. We already had a hat factory and a china factory in Galway, but this was industry on a new scale in here. They quickly became one of the biggest employers in the west of Ireland. A number of those who worked there were specialists who were brought in to help set up the factory, but most of the employees were local.

They came in their thousands and thousands across the Atlantic. Flights from New York, Shannon and wherever else possible carried the faithful in their droves.

This photograph was taken in 1900 of the staff of Robert MacDonald, the plumber from Dominick Street. The business was started by his father, Peter MacDonald (late manager for Ross and Murray), who advertised himself in 1887 as “Plumber, Brassfounder and Gasfitter”.