Historical look back on Castlebar since 1831
By Tom Gillespie
OVER the years many different descriptions of Castlebar have been penned by eminent authors, many of which make interesting reading and give an insight into how life in the county town was 189 years ago.
A journey throughout Ireland, during the spring, summer and autumn of 1834, by Henry David Inglis, reads as follows:
“Castlebar is not so pretty a town as Westport; but it is a place of greater business; and it is a considerably large and more populous town.
“There is only one good street in Castlebar, but the town contains many lanes and has very long, bad suburbs of mud cabins.
“For a while the construction of the gaol and barracks had been a source of local employment. However, with the completion of those two projects the labour market was more ‘overstocked’ than previously. Lord Lucan was described as ‘a tolerably fair landlord’.”
A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland by Samuel Lewis, 1837, described Castlebar, with a population of 6,373, as follows:
“The town is situated on the river Castlebar, which has its source in Lough Lanark (Lannagh), and on the mail coach road from Ballinasloe to Westport. It consists of one principle street, nearly a mile in length, from which diverge several smaller streets and lanes; and in 1831 contained 909 houses, some of the best of which are built around the green, which forms a pleasant promenade; the streets are paved and kept in repair at the expense of the county.”
He recorded there was a military barracks with 60 artillery, and '24 officers and 565 non-commissioned officers and privates’ in the infantry.
Local manufacture and employment included: linen weaving, tobacco, snuff, soap candles, a brewery, a tannery, turf (or peat) gathering, and limestone quarrying. There was a Saturday market and fairs were held on May 11, July 9, September 16 and November 18.
Assizes, quarter sessions, and petty sessions were held at the courthouse.
The gaol had 140 cells. The average number of prisoners in 1831 was 181. The prisoners were employed chiefly in ‘breaking stones’.
The Parliamentary Gazetteer of Ireland, 1844 to ’45, recorded: Castlebar ‘on the main road from Dublin to Westport’.
While the square ‘has an appearance of considerable pretension, all the rest of the town, consisting of lanes and alleys near the centre, and of streets straggling away, in suburban order, from the main body, is altogether of hamlet character, and rarely boasts a better building than a poor thatched cabin’.
The ‘castle' for which the town was named was the stronghold of the DeBurghs. The Catholic Church was of 'large proportions’ and ‘substantial masonry’.
The prison, on inspection day, 1840, recorded there were 26 females and 98 males and were found to be occupied as follows: 20 females at work, and six at prison duties, 44 males at useful trades, 19 at stone-breaking, 26 at tread-wheel, and nine at prison duties.
On December, 31, 1842, the prisoners were 45 male debtors, one female debtor, 103 tried male criminals, 17 untried male criminals, 22 tried female criminals, 12 untried female criminals, six sick in hospital, two male lunatics and three female lunatics.
The total number confined during 1842 was 1,171; the average number at one period between 168 and 169; the maximum number, 210; the number of cells, 128; the number of beds in other rooms, 60.
The population of the town in 1831 was recorded as 6,373, in 1841 it was 5,137; houses 769. Males above five years of age who could read and write, 1,104; who could read but not write, 274; who could neither read not write, 741. Females above age five who could read and write, 733; who could read but not write, 489; who could neither read nor write, 1,171.
The Saxon in Ireland, or The Rambles of an Englishman, by John Hervey Ashworth, in 1851, wrote: “I took up my quarters at an inn near the church, overlooking a handsome green, planted with trees, and surrounded by good houses and public buildings; but, as usual in this untidy country, several ruined and roofless buildings were intermixed with them, such as the wretched old goal, spoiling the general effect.”
The Lawn was the residence of Lord Lucan, 'who is the great proprietor of the district'.
“His lordship is also an improver on a large scale - destroying many of the small holdings, and laying out his lands for larger occupation. There certainly appears, at first, no small amount of hardship inflicted by this mode of proceeding; but it must ultimately work well for the people themselves, and tend materially to rescue them from their present state of degradation.”
In Letters from Ireland, by Harriet Martineau and Reinhard S. Speck, in 1852, reported: “While within the town of Castlebar there is a general air of poverty and negligence, there are in the neighbourhood a good many unfinished roads.
“There were apparently a large number of roads that had been started as work projects during the Famine but had never been finished. This roads were infamous because the men who worked there were so malnourished that they fainted and died from hunger.
“The men who were to earn their meal by working on the roads could not work on the roads for want of that very meal.”
The local population were upset that Lord Lucan was taking large tracts of land around Castlebar and was raising stock. The local workhouse inmates were mostly aged, or children who were not capable of working to help support the workhouse. A number of young women, who declared themselves healthy and active, were assisted by the local Board of Guardians to immigrate.
The population of Castlebar before the Famine was declared to be 6,000 and by 1852 was stated to be between 3,000 and 4,000.
In a Handbook for Travellers in Ireland in 1878, John Murray wrote: “Castlebar is a good looking place, with all the buildings necessary to a small country town, viz. gaol, courthouse, and barracks, in addition to a shady and well-timbered mall, which is certainly a very pleasant adjunct.”