Search Results for 'William Persse'

One hundred and twenty five years ago this month, at a meeting in the Royal Hotel, a new and rather exclusive club was formed bearing the title ‘The Galway Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club’. Initially, it was proposed that they play tennis at Glenarde (where the Ardilaun Hotel is today) but that their stated intention was to acquire land specifically to lay it down for proper tennis and croquet.

Despite the challenges, dangers, bankruptcies, and in some cases, exploitation, by the mid 19th century Galway had a small but profitable fleet of sailing ships. In previous weeks I have outlined some of the achievements and failures of the Galway Line, which between 1858 and 1864 completed a total of 55 trouble free return voyages to New York and Boston. One of its ships, the Circassian, which I discussed last week, sailed from Galway on September 21 1859 to New York with 342 passengers of whom 108 were first class. One hundred and seventy persons who applied for passage were turned away as the ship was full.