Market Square - once a shambles
MARKET Square in Castlebar has changed dramatically over the years. Thankfully, market stalls have returned to the area on Fridays and Saturdays after it was redesigned some years ago, writes Tom Gillespie.
The photos here show how vibrant the square was on fair days when farmers brought their produce in to town for sale. I remember when the weigh-bridge was located in the area and vehicles could park in the square.
Shambles Square was the former name for Market Square, which was indicative of the area’s former association with the slaughtering of animals.
A ‘shambles’ is a butcher’s slaughterhouse, an archaic name that only survives in placenames. It is derived from a mixture of Latin and Anglo-Saxon words.
It is clearly marked on the Ordnance Survey map c. 1900, ‘the shambles’, and Shamble Street - from the new Connaught Telegraph offices at JB’s corner to Kilkelly Travel - was the way to it.
After the Famine and during the 1850s the market for meat diminished due to a lower population and a lack of money.
The shambles had no windows but hinged open fronts from where they sold their produce.
The House Survey of 1842 shows the existence of no less than seven butchers trading on the street while a note is attached that the rate of tax should be halved for the three shambles trading in Shambles Square as they are regarded as open sheds (Valuation Office House Survey 1842).
Brennan’s hardware was the main business in the square when I was growing up. Where Kilkelly Travel now stands was Willie ‘Buzzard’ Munnelly’s bicycle and toy shop, later the greengrocery occupied by the late Val Donegan.
Close by was Eddie Cannon’s pub with its still meticulous exterior, maintained by his son Michael, but sadly not trading.
On the same side of the street is the newly refurbished Castlebar Credit Union and below that in the old days was Josie Bourke’s garage, which extended all the way to the river.
‘Smiler’ Murphy, who resided next to the vocational school, had a pub next to Boland’s House - now Brendan Heneghan’s healthfood shop, previously the location of his father John’s chemist shop, in front of which was one of the town’s many public phone boxes.
Murphy’s pub later became Padraig Flynn’s Sunflower Lounge where Joe Geraghty and Sadie Nolan worked and was a headquarters to Fianna Fáil followers.
The lounge upstairs was a popular music venue where the legendary Mick Cuffe had a residency and the staff could climb up on a ‘ladder’ from the lower bar to the upstairs lounge without coming outside the counter.
On the other side of the square is Duke Street - down by Heaton’s, formally Langan’s - which was named in honour of the Duke of Richmond.
In 1859, the fourth Earl of Lucan, George Bingham, married Lady Cecelia Catherine, the Duke’s only daughter, and George had a street named after him. He was Sir Charles Gordon-Lennox, fifth Duke of Richmond, and there is no evidence that he ever visited Castlebar.
Born in 1791 in London, he was educated at Trinity College Dublin. He had a distinguished military career, rising to the rank of Captain and holding many offices, including Aide-de-Camp for the Duke of Wellington and both HM King William IV and HM Queen Victoria.
He was bestowed with numerous titles during his lifetime and fought during the Peninsular Wars and was present in 1815 at the famous battle of Waterloo.
At the top of that street is Ellison Street, named after Reverend Dr. Thomas Ellison.
Mr. Ellison, after studying at Trinity College, became rector of the Protestant Church, Magistrate of Castlebar and also land agent for Lord Lucan, making him both loved and loathed by the various citizens of the town. The family moved to Mayo from England in the middle of the 17th century.
Thomas Ellison was in Killala at the time of the French landings during the rebellion of 1798 and the family moved away by the end of the 19th century.
The Castlebar House Survey published in 1842 shows that this street was home to the more wealthy inhabitants, with mostly private residences and offices (Valuation Office House Books, 1842).
Also pictured here is my grandfather, T.H. Gillespie, standing outside The Connaught Telegraph offices on Ellison Street in 1910. The four-storey building, next to Cavendish Lane and now the home of the TSB Bank, was the home of the Gillespie family before they moved to Creagh Villa, now the Lough Lannagh Holiday Village.
The offices were inside the main door and the family resided upstairs. Later the offices and printing works and printing press were moved down Cavendish Lane.
I remember my father, Dick, recalling as a child, how he and his brothers and sisters would position themselves at the window on the top floor - there was no health and safety then (as you can see there were no protective railings to stop them tumbling out) - and they would throw items down on top of unsuspecting passing pedestrians.
I remember as a youngster the Ellison Street house was vacant and closed up. The railings to the left had been removed but the steps and railings to the right remained in place until the building was demolished to make way for the TSB Bank.
I recall standing on the steps watching a Rás Taltain bicycle race coming through the town in the early 1970s.
Seamus Chambers resided next door in what is Chambers House today. He had a yard at the back from where he conducted his building and undertaking business.
Getting back to Market Square, on the Duke Street side were private houses, one of which was the location for barber Ger Staunton after he moved from the Mall. This building was demolished to make way for Hopkin’s Road, which completely changed the landscape of this historic area of the county town.