https://www.etsy.com/ie/listing/1867494645/signed-little-history-of-galway-hardback

The History of Connemara, Clifden (2025)

21/11/2025

Sean Heuston was executed on 8th May 1916 for his role on the Easter Rising. He was 25 years old.

Heuston, often called Jack, was born in Dublin but spent much of his working life as a railway clerk in Limerick. He had joined Na Fianna Eireann in 1910 and went on to be one of the founding members of the Irish Volunteers three years later.

Captain of Dublin's D Company by 1916, Heuston was a trusted member of the Volunteers and was chosen to command the rebels in the Mendicity Institute near Kingsbridge Railway Station (Named Heuston Station in his honour since 1966) an important route for British soldiers from the station to the city centre.

Heuston's troops performed well and were involved in several fire fights with Crown forces.

After the surrender of the rebels, Heuston was amongst the large number sentenced to death.

Many would have their sentences commuted but not Sean Heuston.

Sean's sister, Mary, was a dominican nun in Galway in 1916. She would go on to become principal of the Dominican College in Taylor's Hill and was well known in the city.

It was to her that Sean Heuston's final letter was sent from a cell in Kilmainham Gaol.

It read:

'My Dearest M.

Before this note reaches you, I shall have fallen as a soldier in the cause of Irish freedom.

I write to bid you a last farewell in this world, and rely on you to pray fervently and get the prayers of the whole community for the repose of my soul.

I am quite prepared for the journey. The priest was with me, and I received Holy Communion this morning. It was only this evening that the finding of the court martial was conveyed to me.

Poor Mother will miss me, but I feel that with God’s help she will manage.

You know the Irish proverb: “God’s help is nearer than the door.” The agony of the past few days has been intense, but I now feel reconciled to God’s Holy Will.

I might have fallen in action as many have done and been less well prepared for the journey before me. Do not blame me for the part I have taken.

As a soldier, I merely carried out the orders of my superiors, who should have been in a position to know what was the best in Ireland’s interest. Let there be no talk of foolish enterprises.

I have no vain regrets.

Think of the thousands of Irishmen who fell fighting under another flag at the Dardanelles, attempting to do what English experts now admit was an absolute impossibility.

If you really love me, teach the children the history of their own land, and teach them that the cause of Caitlín Ni hUallacháin never dies.

Ireland shall be free from the centre to the sea as soon as the people of Ireland believe in the necessity for Ireland’s freedom and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices to obtain it.

Pray for me.

Your loving brother,
Jack.'

20/11/2025

'Now the summer of 1936 is gone and, one by one, the strangers are leaving Connemara, but each takes with him in his own heart something which is the real spirit of Ireland.

For no one can help feeling the mysterious charm of Connemara.

It casts a spell.

To me, personally, Connemara has become dearer than home. It cast a spell on me from which I shall never be able to free myself.

But I did not stay in a hotel nor visit an Irish college.

I stayed in a small whitewashed cottage on an island off the coast of Connemara.

There is not a single tree on the island and the Atlantic Ocean roars all around. Sometimes the tide floods the narrow causeway which connects the island with the mainland but it is one of those fair places where the people seem to belong to another time and another world.

For seven months I lived with a Gaelic family.

I shared their joys and sorrows. I worked and played with them and loved them for their unspoiled minds and their warm generous hearts.

One day, when visiting Clifden, I met a man who could not understand it how I was able to 'stick it' in Connemara.

He added in supercilious tones 'Believe me, when you are old, you will regret the abstinence of your youth.'

To 'stick it' in Connemara, however, is the easiest and most pleasant thing in the world. All you have to do is shed your city personality.

Forget that you once used to rush to an office and jostle your fellow passengers in the bus or tram.

Fall back on your own minds and the minds of those around you. That, and the wild varied nature of Connemara and its people, is all you need to be happy.

It was still winter when I first came to Connemara and the work on the land had not yet been done.

The days slipped by and the long evenings were spent around glowing turf fires. Neighbours came in with a quiet 'Dia Anseo.'

News was exchanged, stories were told, pipes were brought forth and filled with strong black 'plug' and an old friend of the family would wipe his 'dúidín' and hand it to me with the words 'Here, smoke now, smoke your 'nough.'

With the coming of spring, when the gorse looked like wildfire on the hillside, there was more work to be done.

Many times, old Seamus and myself rowed a currach full of seaweed to the garden and he laid the seaweed out in neat strips.

A little later, the potatoes were sown.

In the autumn, I had the satisfaction of sitting down by the ciseóg in front of the fire to eat some potatoes which had been planted by myself.

Other times, I would walk beside the patient ass while Bridie, with her white shawl crossed over her chest, chatted to me from her perch on his back.

She can ride the ass at breakneck speed and still keep her position. I tried it too but failed from the beginning. The first time I jumped up on the donkey, my legs ended up pointed skywards and my head hit the ground.

The fine hearty laughter of Bridie rang in my ears!

Now I am back in Dublin.

I nearly cried when I got a letter from Bridie the other day.

'How do you like the tea in Dublin?' She wrote.

'Your mug is still here. I will leave it up until you come back. I cannot reason to you how lonesome we are.'

But not as lonesome as I am. I am homesick for the sea and the hills and the familiar roll of the deep voice of old Seamus and the ringing laughter of Bridie.

I would give my two eyes for a mug full of real Connemara tea.'

Above was written by Ulla O'Brien-Hitching in September 1936 and printed in the Evening Herald.

Pictured is 'Sunday in Connemara,' by James Humbert Craig.'

19/11/2025

Bridget Dirrane was a nurse, a revolutionary and, at one point, the second oldest person in Ireland at 109.

But, most of all, she was a woman of Aran.

Bridget was born in 1894, the youngest of eight siblings in the Gillan family of Oatquarter, Inishmore, the Aran Islands.

The family were weavers and farmers, managing to sustain themselves through hard work from the rocky land around them.

Bridget rarely left the island during her childhood but nevertheless met many important people, including revolutionaries Pádraig Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh, Joseph Plunkett and Thomas Ashe, all of whom had come to the island to learn Irish.

Bridget later moved to Tipperary, a county known for its fierce republican tendencies, where she worked as a children's nurse.

This move hardened her belief in the Irish independence movement and she joined Cumann na mBan, the republican women’s organisation, and drilled regularly.

She became known to the Black and Tans and was eventually arrested and imprisoned in Mountjoy Prison, going on hunger strike there for a time.

She spoke Irish to the guards and spent much of her time Irish dancing while in prison, much to the irritation of her captors.

After independence, Bridget settled into life on Inishmore again, although she harboured a desire to travel and in 1927 she took the 'Bád Bán' to America.

She worked variously in Boston, Mississippi and Alabama, first as a nurse and then in a munitions factory during World War II.

She also met and married Ned Dirrane, a neighbour of hers from Inishmore. Sadly, Ned died just eight years after their wedding day.

Bridget had a wide circle of friends in the Irish community in Boston and became active in politics, enthusiastically canvassing for John F. Kennedy in the 1960 election.

After thirty-nine years she returned home to Aran on her retirement.

She again lived in Oatquarter and eventually married Pat Dirrane, the brother of her deceased first husband. She stated that the pair were very happy and never exchanged a cross word.

Bridget helped to refurbish the house the pair were living in and spoke of how she personally worked on slating the roof and mixing cement to construct the doorstep.

She also planted abundant flowers and trees in the garden

Bridget and her second husband lived contentedly together until Pat's death in 1990.

She melded her two wedding rings together after his death as a sign of her love for the Dirrane brothers.

Bridget soldiered on and was something of a celebrity on the island due to her colourful life and fun-loving character.

She even flew on Aer Arann's inaugural flight to the islands and met the American ambassador Jean Kennedy-Smith on several occasions.

In 2003, her memoirs were written down in the invaluable book 'Woman of Aran.' She died later that year and was buried on her beloved Inishmore.

At 109 years old, she was Ireland's second oldest person at the time.

When asked what advice she would give those who wished to live a long life, Bridget said:

'I do not like to preach but try a little kindness. Think positively and act swiftly.

And to the young people: stick to your books, avail of the educational opportunities available to you and eat green vegetables.'

18/11/2025

'The people of this district wear boots in winter time and some of them wear them in summer too.

The young children do not wear any shoes or boots in summer time.

They leave their boots off in the month of April and they put them on again in the month of October. The people put shoes on the young children when they are about two years of age.

Some people in this district wear wellingtons in winter time. These are made of rubber and they cover the leg up as far as the knee.

The farmers of this place generally wear nailboots in winter. There are made of very strong leather and there are nails on the soles of them.

Long ago the people of this district used make their own boots and shoes but no one in this place makes them now.

There is a man who used make his own boots but he does not - now he mends boots for other people. A few people in this district used wear clogs with wooden soles. The people of this place do not wear clogs now. The boys of this place wear sandshoes sometimes in the summer.'

Above taken from the testimony of Cait Bean Uí Rioghbhardáin of Gurraun, Co. Galway (1937)

Pictured are three barefoot boys in the west of Ireland.

17/11/2025

Nora Barnacle was born in 1884 at Galway City workhouse, the second child of Thomas and Annie Barnacle.

At a young age, she was sent to stay with her grandmother, although later she returned to live at a house in Bowling Green in the city with her mother and six siblings.

Nora was known for being impulsive and carefree and enjoyed flouting convention.

She moved to Dublin in 1904 where she worked as a maid in Finn's Hotel on Nassau Street.

It was at this point that she caught the attention of an aspiring author named James Joyce.

Later that year, after a whirlwind romance, the pair eloped to Switzerland. They lived together thereafter and had two children, although they did not marry until 1931.

It appears that James Joyce visited his wife's home county of Galway just twice.

On the second occasion in 1912, he spent several weeks and attended the Galway Races, cycled to a graveyard in Oughterard, sailed to Inishmore and possibly went as far as the Marconi Station near Clifden.

Joyce was clearly inspired by his visit to the west.

His poem 'She weeps over Rahoon' is written about the cemetery in Galway while Joyce also wrote two essays on the county.

He also published an article on his namesake, Myles Joyce, hanged unjustly for a murder he did not commit at Maamtrasna in 1882.

Joyce and Barnacle moved around Europe regularly over the coming years and Nora became a multi-linguist.

She also worked various jobs, including as a laundress, to support her husband, whose career as a writer took some years to take off.

Nora was less than impressed with Joyce’s complicated writing style, and later said she had never read Ulysses, his most famous book.

Nevertheless, she was a superb muse and Joyce based many of his most famous characters, including Molly Bloom, on his wife.

Joyce eventually found literary success, giving Nora much of the credit for her support.

James Joyce died in 1941, having not returned to Ireland since his sojourn to Galway in 1912.

His relationship with his homeland was strained.

“Do you know what Ireland is? Ireland is the old sow that eats her farrow,” Stephen Dedalus, a character in Joyce's 'A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man' says, perhaps mirroring Joyce's own view of the country.

Nora Barnacle outlived her husband by a decade, dying in Switzerland in 1951.

Today, there is a little museum in Galway City, Nora Barnacle House, dedicated to her life and that of her husband.

16/11/2025

Peter O'Toole, the world-famous actor, maintained throughout his life that he had been born in Connemara in 1932 although a later birth certificate cast doubt on this, indicating that he had been born in Leeds.

Either way, O'Toole's strong Connemara connections and his enduring love for the area were not in doubt.

His father was Patrick John 'Spats' O'Toole, a Connemara native who had moved to England in search of work and set up as a bookmakers before meeting and marrying Constance Ferguson, a Scottish nurse.

Their son Peter showed promise on stage from an early age and found a certain amount of fame as a theatre and television actor in the late 1950s.

His big break came in 1962 when he starred as the hero T. E. Lawrence in David Lean's epic 'Lawrence of Arabia.' His powerful performance earned him the first of his nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor.

O'Toole's fame and notoriety grew throughout the 1960s and he came to be regarded by many as one of the finest actors in the world.

He also came to be known as a quick wit who enjoyed a party. In 1968, while staying in Galway City, he crashed the staff party of the Connacht Tribune newspaper after stating that he was 'looking for a bit of craic.' The picture below indicates that he found it in spades.

In 1971, O Toole and his then wife, the Welsh actress Sian Phillips, built a house on the Sky Road, near Clifden. The pair went on to have two children, O'Toole later having a third child with a new partner, Karen Brown.

Peter and Sian spent an extended summer holiday in Connemara each year throughout much of the 1970s and 80s and the house, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, played host to Hollywood luminaries such as Katherine Hepburn and Richard Harris.

O'Toole came to be well known and liked in the Clifden area at the time and enjoyed interacting with the local people, whom he said treated him like one of their own and had little time for notions of grandeur.

At one point, he was said to have walked into one of the pubs in Clifden. Few heads turned. After an interval waiting to be served, O'Toole is said to have declared in amused frustration: 'I’m Lawrence of Arabia.'

The barman is said to have responded 'I don’t care who you are, sit down and I’ll get you a drink.'

O'Toole was also the owner of several Connemara ponies and a horse enthusiast.

He regularly appeared at both the Roundstone and Clifden Horse Shows and presented prizes to winning breeders on several occasions.

O'Toole was also a fine sportsman and was reported to have played cricket in the Connacht Senior League for several summer seasons where he enjoyed the anonymity of being just another player.

He was later Oscar-nominated for Becket, the Lion in Winter, Goodbye Mr Chips, The Ruling Class, the Stunt Man and My Favorite Year. He lost out on each occasion.

He was finally awarded an honorary Oscar in 2003, to much jubilation, many experts feeling he should have won a gong long before.

O'Toole retired from acting in 2012 due to illness. He died the following year at the age of 81

Asked once what being Irish meant to him, the legendary actor is said to have deliberated slowly, before replying: “It’s almost the centre of my being.”

Perhaps fittingly then, Peter O'Toole's ashes were said to have been spread in his beloved west of Ireland.

Pictured is Peter O'Toole at the Connacht Tribune staff party in 1968, courtesy of the Connacht Tribune.

15/11/2025

Theobald Wolfe Tone, a leader of the 1798 Rebellion who subsequently met a mysterious and violent death while in Brithish custody, had a very important connection with Galway.

One of sixteen children, Tone was born in Dublin in 1763 into a comfortable middle-class Protestant family. He had little interaction with Catholics in his youth, despite the fact that his mother Margaret had been born a Catholic.

Tone entered Trinity College in 1781 to study law, a subject which he admitted to finding uninteresting.

After less than a year, Tone was suspended from the College, having taken part in a duel which led to the death of another student.

Thus, being at a loose end, Tone applied for a tutoring job in Galway which appeared in the newspaper. The job was advertised by Connemara landlord Richard Martin.

During his life, Richard Martin was known as both 'Hair-trigger Dick,' due to his penchant for taking part in duels, and 'Humanity Dick' for his role in founding the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Martin owned a house at Dangan, just on the edge of Galway City, and also a castle at Ballinahinch and 200,000 acres between Oughterard and Clifden. This made him the largest landowner in Ireland or Britain at the time.

In 1783, he was searching for a tutor for two of his half-brothers, Anthony and Robert. This was the post for which Tone applied and was accepted.

Tone moved to Galway and took up the job, finding his experience in Dangan to be completely different than anything he had known in Dublin.

The Martins, although Protestants themselves, were popular with the Catholics of Galway and were keenly aware of the injustices faced by them in the form of the Penal Laws. Catholics were regular visitors to the house, something which Tone had not been familiar with in his youth.

This open attitude to Catholics had a profound effect on Wolfe Tone. Martin also wanted to see parliamentary reform and more Irish influence on their own affairs, another opinion which would come to shape Tone's attitude and change the course of Irish history.

During his time in Galway, Wolfe Tone also tried his hand at acting in the newly-opened Kirwin's Lane theatre.

He credited Robert Martin's wife, Eliza, as teaching him how to act.

Tone was enamoured with Eliza and he may even have had an affair with her during one of Robert Martin's many absences to parliament.

Either way, Tone eventually left Galway, married Martha Witherington and had four children. He then qualified as a barrister, a job he did not enjoy.

He also grew more interested in radical politics after the French Revolution and helped to found a group called the United Irishmen in 1791.

He spread his views by writing columns about Ireland and his idea of secession from the empire.

'What are the victories of Britain to us? Nothing! . . . The name of Ireland is never heard: for England, not our country, we fight and we die.'

On another occasion he described England as 'the bane of Ireland's prosperity.'

This talk was considered seditious by many and Wolfe Tone was forced into exile, first in America, then France.

He used his time in France to try and persuade the country's government to attack their old enemy, England, through the back door by sending troops to Ireland.

In 1796, the French duly sent 15,000 soldiers to Ireland to foment rebellion. The fleet was unable to land at Bantry Bay, however, due to terrible storms and they eventually returned to France.

Wolfe Tone was devastated by the missed opportunity but two years later, in May, the 1798 Rising began, seemingly out of nowhere.

Amazingly, it was initially a success, especially in Co. Wexford, which saw several victorious battles for the poorly-armed rebels, who mainly wielded pikes or other farming implements.

These victories caused a huge shock to the establishment. Several engagements in Antrim and Down also occurred and there were battles fought in counties Carlow, Wicklow, Kildare and elsewhere.

Briefly, it looked as if the British could even be defeated.

Eventually, however, after drafting in thousands of well-equipped soldiers and instigating a reign of terror, which included pitch-capping, half-hanging, beheading and mass ex*****on, Ireland was defeated and forced back under British control.

Wolfe Tone had been in France when the Rising began and was unable to return for several weeks. When he did so, he was part of a fleet of 3,000 French soldiers who attempted to land in June.

He was on a ship which was captured after a fierce battle with the British navy off Co. Donegal.

Tone was immediately recognised and arrested and it was decided that he would be court-martialled, his offence of rebelling against the British being considered treasonable. Unsurprisingly, he was found guilty after less than one hour.

He said 'I know my fate, but I neither ask for pardon nor do I complain.'

His only plea was that as a member of the French army he be shot as a soldier rather than hanged. This was rejected.

To the people of Ireland he said 'I have only laboured to abolish the infernal spirit of religious persecution.'

On 19 November 1798, as he awaited ex*****on in a prison cell, Tone was found dead with his throat slit. Whether he had committed the act himself, in an attempt to cheat the hangman, or whether it had been done by someone else is not known.

He was 35 years old

Wolfe Tone was buried in a family plot in Bodenstown Graveyard, Co. Kildare, on 21 November 1798.

Interestingly in 1843, famous patriot and song-writer Thomas Davis visited Tone's resting place and found to his horror that it was overgrown and unmarked.

He wrote the famous song 'In Bodenstown Churchyard' afterwards, lamenting this insult to Wolfe Tone and begging his countrymen to erect a fitting marker for their fallen hero.

'In Bodenstown churchyard, there is a green grave,
And freely around it, let winter winds rave.
Far better they suit him, the ruin and the gloom,
Till Ireland, a nation, can build him a tomb.'

An impressive marker was eventually built and became the scene of an annual pilgrimage for republicans from all over Ireland which continues to this day.

Neither was Wolfe Tone forgotten in Galway, a city he had called home for a spell and which played a huge role in shaping his political beliefs. In 1934, the Wolfe Tone Bridge was opened over the River Corrib where it still stands.

In the 1920s author Seán O Faoileán said of Wolfe Tone:

‘Without Wolfe Tone, republicanism in Ireland would virtually have no tradition.'

14/11/2025

Mícheál Breathnach was one of the most important figures in the revival of the Irish language.

Born in an Lochán Beag, near Inverin, in 1881, Mícheál was the son of a large farming family where Irish was the only spoken tongue.

He learned English at school but only learned to write Irish in his teenage years when he largely taught himself by reading Irish language newspapers.

Mícheál Breathnach qualified as a teacher but in 1901 applied for a job as secretary with Conradh na Gaeilge who had been working hard to spread the Irish language for the previous decade.

They were very impressed with the purity of his Irish and he was given the job which was based in London.

He worked each day to spread Irish amongst the diaspora in London and each evening taught classes to people of all ages, composed poetry, took part in Irish plays and concerts and wrote articles on the history of the language, imploring Irish people to view the ancient language as a modern European tongue akin to French, which he also spoke fluently.

He was said to be able to speak German and Russian also.

In 1905, Breathnach returned to Ireland when he was offered a job in Tourmakeady, Co. Mayo as professor of Irish at the newly-founded Coláiste Connacht.

He would became friendly with many important figures, including Rosmuc native Colm O Gaora, who would go on to fight in the War of Independence.

He was also well acquainted with Padraig Pearse who said of him 'Such absolute mastery over all the teacher’s art was his, that to be taught by him or to see him teach was in itself a training in all that is teaching ideal and methods.'

Breathnach travelled widely in Europe and studied linguistics and the latest bilingual teaching methods in both Belgium and Switzerland, working hard to bring these back to Ireland.

He translated books into Irish and wrote widely on Irish history. He also taught Irish in St. Jarlath's College, Tuam.

Breathnach suffered from ill health for much of his life and died in 1908 aged just 27.

He was buried in the cemetery at Knock, near his home, and Éamonn Ceannt was amongst the musicians at his funeral.

It is difficult to list all of Mícheál Brethnach's achievements in relation to Irish language and culture as there were so many, despite the shortness of his life.

He had several collections of his writings published posthumously, including a book for children, and the GAA club in Inverin, CLG Mícheál Breathnach, is named in his honour.

Is deacair a chreidiúint an méid oibre a rinne sé ina shaol gearr ar son na Gaeilge agus cultúr na hÉireann.

Ní bheidh a leithéid ann arís.

Go ndéana Trócaire ar a anam dílis.

Pictiúr le buíochas coisfharraige. ie

13/11/2025

Galway City and the Claddgh are today joined by the Wolfe Tone Bridge and are directly opposite one another across the River Corrib.

For centuries, however, the two areas were completely separate and had little in common.

Thomas Fitzpatrick imagined Galway in 1652 in the midst of the Cromwellian invasion and the differences between the two peoples then:

'What was going on in Galway?

The question was being discussed by little groups of men in odd but distinctive attire who had collected in front of the thatched cottages on the Claddagh side of the bank of the River Corrib.

As a rule, what was going on in Galway held no interest for them.

There was so little communication between the peoples of Claddagh and those of Galway that no Claddagh man ever crossed the West Bridge except on urgent business, and few had ever so much as seen the East Gate of Galway.

They differed in dress, taste, occupation and wealth.

They even looked different.

The people on the east side, the town side, were tall and mostly fair with a somewhat haughty bearing.

The inhabitants of the Claddagh were short, hardy, dark-haired and dark-complexioned; conscious of being an older race and quite unheeding of the Gaillimhe.

No two peoples living one thousand miles apart could have differed more widely.

The one, a firbolgan tribe by whom Ireland was originally colonised thousands of years before, the other Anglo-Norman, newcomers who could trace their ancestry back a mere four hundred years.'

Pictured is The Claddagh, around the turn of the twentieth century, courtesy NLI.

12/11/2025

Walter Macken is one of Galway’s most famous writers and although he was born in the city, he had a huge love for Connemara and spent the last decade and a half of his life there in a cottage on the edge of the majestic Lough Corrib.

Macken was born in 1915. Just one year later, his father was killed in the trenches of Flanders.

The young man was gifted academically and as he grew he began to show promise as an actor and playwright.

He began acting as a teenager and eventually secured regular, if poorly-paid, work in An Taibhdhearc the Irish language theatre in Galway.

Here he was a prolific writer and producer of plays.

These works were often well-received but being in the Irish language were rarely profitable and it would be for novel writing through the medium of English which Walter Macken would find fame.

In August 1950, Walter and his wife Peggy bought a house at Gort na Ganniv in the countryside near Oughterard.

The author had not enjoyed living in cities, having spent some time in London and Dublin, and he later stated that the Connemara countryside allowed him to 'just write,' although he was an avid fisherman in his spare time also.

It was here, in fact, that Walter Macken would write many of his most acclaimed books, including Seek the Fair Land (1959), The Silent People (1962), and The Scorching Wind (1964).

All his novels were simple and unsentimental, examining starkly the difficult lives of the poor in the west of Ireland; they variously looked at the Famine, the Cromwellian Massacres and the War of Independence. They proved hugely popular.

Walter wrote from the perspective of the ordinary people, having little time for the elites. He researched his work meticulously however, believing that any historical errors would be pounced upon by the experts who did not appreciate his manner of writing.

It was Walter's time in Connemara which allowed him to write so realistically of the plight of ordinary people in bygone days. As one reviewer wrote in 1962:

'Macken has been criticised for burying himself away, among the lakes, bogs and mountains, away from city life. They think he is missing a pool of knowledge.

But in Dublin, people are more than a century removed from the Famine and from Irish as a native tongue.

In Connemara, even where they speak English, they are not far in time from the Irish language, and there are many who are the sons and daughters of people who knew famine.

Walter Macken might go out to Connemara to study the history of the first half of the last century but nowhere outside the western county could he have come as close to the people who suffered most and really understood the harsh reality of our past.'

Walter Macken died very suddenly, aged just 51, in 1967.

He was survived by his wife Peggy, who had been an inspiration to him, and his two sons.

He had ideas for several more novels and although he had an amazing back catalogue of books and plays, it is likely he would have written even more high-quality works had he lived.

As his son lamented:

'A voice was stilled that night. The voice of one who spent his life writing and living with the people of the west.

The personal loss is to us, his family, is indescribable but it was also a loss to the world.'

For more stories of Galway, see my book 'The Little History of Galway.' With Christmas coming, why not pick up a signed copy at (on sale today):
https://www.etsy.com/ie/listing/1867494645/little-history-galway-ireland-colm

The History of Connemara

21/11/2025

20/11/2025

19/11/2025

18/11/2025

17/11/2025

16/11/2025

15/11/2025

14/11/2025

13/11/2025

12/11/2025

Address

Website

Alerts

Contact The Practice

Shortcuts

Share