Remembering Castlebar and its people in 1834

WHEN an English writer named Inglis visited Castlebar in 1834, he found a rather distressing sight, writes Johnny Mee.

He said there was only one good street in the town but there were numerous narrow lanes and suburbs of mud cabins. The majority of houses in Castlebar at the time had thatched roofs with a kitchen and one bedroom. Those houses were often described as ‘prucks’, a word that probably comes from the Irish language. The last thatched house in Castlebar was occupied by Annie Stewart, Newantrim Street.

Castlebar at the time enjoyed a large share of the linen trade and over 100 looms were in use in the old linen hall, now the location for Castlebar Town Hall.

Some of the people living on Castlebar’s Main Street at the time were Ambrose Hanley, Matthew Gibbons, Bridget Shannon, Michael Cunniffe, John Hewson, William Meade, Sarah Golden, Henry Murphy, Hynes McAndrew (who later owned the Humbert House) and John Dudgeon.

William Meade, who lived in Main Street, Castlebar, in the late 1800s, is buried in the Old Cemetery, Westport Road. He must have been a fairly well off man as a large stone marks his final resting place. In the 1800s, a time of great poverty in Ireland, only the better off people could afford to have a stone over their grave.

Poteen was plentiful in Castlebar in the 1800s at 3/4d a gallon. The poteen trade was strong in many villages outside the town, particularly in the Ross, Crimlin, Turlough and Pontoon areas. A man named O’Hara boasted that his poteen was of the highest quality, the best in Mayo.

It is believed the red light district in Castlebar at the time was located at the rear of Newtown. It was usual for those ‘ladies of the night’ to follow regiments of the British army when they were transferred to different towns. Historians say those women were treated in a dastardly fashion. They were referred to as ‘Wrens’ and were forced to sleep out at night.

Inglis noted that work on the county jail on the Westport Road and the Military Barracks had recently been completed and as a consequence of this the level of unemployment was very high with heavy job losses. There were no redundancy payments in those years!

Lord Lucan owned large tracts of land in the Castlebar area in the 1800s and for many years after. He was regarded as a tolerably fair landlord by some people, but I am sure many Castlebar people would disagree with that assessment.

Shortly before Christmas 1862 a committee to provide fuel for the poor people of Castlebar was established and a sum of £180 was raised, a substantial amount in those days. The members of the committee were Rev. Mr. Stoney, Rector, Rev. Mr. McClelland, Venerable Archdeacon Browne, P.P., John Bole, Mr. Young, James Malley, Mr. Stritch. Resident Magistrate, John Dudgeon, Dr. Knott and Dr. McGreal.John Murphy was secretary of the committee.

The Bole family owned the Mayo Examiner newspaper which was published at their premises on Mountain View. The late Michael J. Egan told me that when he was a young boy he remembered coming across old pieces of type at the rear of his house.

The money raised by the committee made life a little more bearable for the poor people of the town over the Christmas.

John Dudgeon was proprietor of a pipe manufacturing business, located at the rear of what is now Elverys store. The Mr. Young, referred to above, was a relative of Susan Neely, who lived with her husband Alec and family at Gallows Hill for many years.

Many local people will be familiar with Dermot Neely, a regular visitor to Castlebar and a loyal supporter of the Mayo Peace Park. The Young family lived at Ellison Street, Castlebar, in the early 1900s.

It is hard to imagine what conditions were like in Castlebar at the time, there was no running water, sanitary facilities were non-existent and pigs and cattle roamed freely in the area. Education was poorly organised, there was no old age pension or children’s allowance, and very poor medical facilities.

Local people used the pumps located at a number of centres in Castlebar for their water supply, including Spencer Street (beside Tossie Kelly’s house), Castle Street (outside Flannellys butchers), Davitt’s Terrace, Newamtrim Street, Railway Terrace, Lucan Street and the junction of Rush Street and Linenhall Street, known as Catherine Bourke’s Corner, a popular meeting place for local people.

The pumps were gravity fed from a supply in the Burren area. The old pump at Newtown, close to Marsh House, is still standing, a relic of another era in Castlebar. It might be no harm if people reflected on those poor times and learn to appreciate the high standard of living they now enjoy.