Search Results for 'Odeon Hotel'

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.

John Henry Bailey was a well known business man in Galway at the close of the 19th century. He was a rate collector and an auctioneer but was better known for his selling and repairing Morris cars from his garage on the east side of Eyre Square, on a site now remembered as the former Odeon Hotel. He also had the distinction of being the first man in Galway to ride a bicycle.

When Bailey’s Hotel was being sold it was advertised as being “Fifty Yards from the Railway Station. One hundred and fifty yards from the docks. Frontage; Fifty Feet. Depth: one hundred feet. Eigheen bedrooms, four reception rooms. One additional large room sixty feet by twenty six feet. Bath rooms, lavatories, Kitchen, Pantry, Yard etc. Electric light throughout. Very fine bar, seven day licence. Premises held under lease of 99 years from March 1904, at yearly rent of £4.”