How the AIB entered the Castlebar banking market
LOCAL HISTORY: BY ALAN KING
One of the most distinctive buildings in Castlebar is that occupied by the Allied Irish Bank, formerly the premises of the Munster & Leinster Bank, located in Main Street.
It’s a terraced four-bay, three storey, flat-roofed building, built in 1926 on a rectangular plan. Designed by Messrs. Beckett & Harrington, Dublin architects, its predecessor on site was known as the Connaught Warehouse.
This was purchased by the Munster & Leinster Bank for nearly £2,000, including the ground rent owed to the Earl of Lucan.
It was then demolished, and a new building was erected by Messrs. McNally & Co., Galway, at a cost of £6,500.
All the furnishings, including the counter, were of mahogany and the banking hall floor was fitted out with ornamental tiles.
The Munster & Leinster Bank originally came to Castlebar in 1922 and had purchased Cavendish House, Ellison Street, from Thomas H. Gillespie, owner of The Connaught Telegraph.
Due to increasing business, the bank looked around for bigger premises and decided to purchase the Connaught Warehouse building in Main Street.
The first manager was a Joseph Carroll who stayed until 1940 when he transferred to Dundalk.
The earliest known business on the site was a successful bakery operated by John Fitzmaurice in the late 1840s, despite there having been eight bakeries in the nearby Bridge Street.
Around the mid 1860s, the building was purchased by Luke Ward (1812-1895) and transformed into a large drapery premises known as the Connaught Warehouse.
A member of the Town Commissioners (town council of its day), he resided at the Green (Mall) with his wife Sarah.
One of their grandsons, William Duffy, perished as a crew member on the Titanic in 1912.
A son of his, the Rev. James A. Ward, was a curate based in Westport who died of typhus in 1872. Ward was also successful in supplying the Workhouse, Asylum and the Infirmary with blankets and other drapery items.
Upon his death in 1895, the business was sold to John Hynes, a native of Galway who worked for a number of years with Heverin’s of Ellison Street (Irish House).
His father-in-law, Michael C. Daly, the Town Clerk, caused a sensation in 1915 when he announced at a UDC meeting that he had resigned his position and was enlisting with the Connaught Rangers.
When John Hynes retired in 1913, he sold the business which included ten bedrooms, numerous stores and a large garden to John O’Boyle, who later lived at McHale Road.
He took an active part in the Republican movement and his house was raided numerous times by Crown forces.
He built up a flourishing business until its sale to the Munster & Leinster Bank.
The current premises opened to the public on Monday, December 20, 1926, and continues to provide banking services to the people of Castlebar to this day.