Mayo times past: Castlebar's Newantrim Street of the 1950s
By Tom Gillespie
I SPENT a lot of my youth in the 1950s and early '60s on Newantrim Street, or, as it is known locally, Shruffan, in Castlebar. My grandparents on my mother’s side, Willie and Sarah Fahey, lived there with their son Denny. Both Willie and Denny were blacksmiths by trade and they worked out of a soot-covered forge next to their two-storey house which was located where the entrance to SuperValu is now located. Their back garden ran back as far as Staball.
Back then the street was a hive of activity, particularly around the forge, with horses and asses arriving to be shod, or in Tommy Lawless and Carmel Hayes’ shops. Hayes’s was next door to Fahey’s and they raised chickens out the back.
Tommy Lawless’s shop was so well stocked that buckets and cans hung from the ceiling. Tommy carried everything from a needle to an anchor. It was an emporium for the finest of pipe tobacco and sides of bacon hung from the walls. As with Hayes’s, both were open all hours.
Next door to Lawless’s was a vacant site that ran back to Newline. Next door was the Browne residence. I lived in Marian Row and I usually took a shortcut through this site to get to Newantrim Street. Later Hubert McGarry built a large house on the Newline side of the site, a residence now occupied by Paddy and Nora McGrath.
The last remaining thatched house stood close to the junction of Newantrim Street and Linenhall Street.
Norrie’s pub was where The Ivy Towers (Welcome Inn Hotel) is. I was in it a couple of times with Denny Fahey. The porter came in barrels and it was dispensed into a jug and then into pint glasses.
If there was any spillage on the counter the black alcoholic liquid was so dense that the glass would stick to the counter.
Later, the late brothers Luke and Tom McHugh built the Welcome Inn Hotel on the site.
Families I remember on the street were the McGowans, Bourkes, Feeneys, Lavelles, Bridie Maloney, Murrays, Quinns, the Deveraux family, McDonnells, McHales, Fords, Prendegasts and the Blaine brothers.
Shruffan got its name from the river that flows under the street and spills into the town river at the rear of Rocky’s. The water from it is crystal clear. Before a housing estate was erected opposite the Sacred Heart Hospital there was a spring from the Shruffan river which was used extensively by householders.
However, after heavy rains some of the houses along Davitt’s Terrace would flood, much to the distress of the occupants.
Back in the late 1920s and early ’30s Newantrim Street was considered the slum area of the county town as is evident by the fact the majority of the ‘dwellings’ there were condemned.
Twenty-one families from that area alone made up the majority from any other street in the town who were allocated ‘cottages’ in the newly constructed 116-house MacHale Road, which was officially opened on New Year’s Day 1935.
Every Sunday during the fishing season I made my way to Fahey’s as Denny would take me fly-fishing on Lough Carra. He was as skilful an angler as he was a blacksmith. His favourite angling method was dapping - having a daddy longlegs and or grasshopper suspended on a tiny hook.
Denny wore a cap which he used at great skill to swat any passing butterfly or wasp which he would dap in the hope of getting a huge trout.
Likewise, in the shooting season the pot on Fahey’s range was always well stocked with pheasant, wild duck, snipe, woodcock or pigeon.
Some 46 years ago local historian Liam Egan wrote that the name Newantrim Street was still ‘not yet accepted by the people of the town’.
After the decline of the woollen trade in the 17th century and the rise of the linen trade in the 18th century in Castlebar, skilled labour was sourced from Ulster. Many of these people are thought to have come from Antrim.
During the 1790s sectarian aggression between Protestants and Catholics increased, leading the governor of Armagh to describe the events that were unfolding as nothing short of a ‘persecution'.
By the end of 1795, 800 Northern Catholic families had moved to Mayo and many to Castlebar.
The refugees were given refuge and employment in the linen trade and housed in Newantrim Street, as the locals referred to the new arrivals collectively as the ‘new Antrims’.
One of the oldest and most prominent buildings in the town, the Linenhall (town hall) was built in 1790 by the 2nd Earl of Lucan, Richard Bingham. After it was discovered that flax could be grown in the west of Ireland, landlords like Lucan brought in skilled workers from Ulster, where the linen trade was booming, and established the trade here.
The Linenhall became the central depot for the storing and selling of linen for all of Mayo.
The trade was hugely important as whole families were employed in the growing and harvesting of flax as well as weaving and making the cloths. The industry changed Castlebar from a poor town into a relatively prosperous one.
The town hall was famously used as a ballroom by General Humbert after his military victory in what became known as the Races of Castlebar. Later the building was given to the people of the town after the Great Famine when the linen trade died out.