Galway Tholsel c.1800
Rihla (The Journey) – was the short title of a 14th Century (1355 CE) book written in Fez by the Islamic legal scholar Ibn Jazayy al-Kalbi of Granada who recorded and then transcribed the dictated travelogue of the Tangerian, Ibn Battuta. The book’s full title was A Gift to Those who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Travelling and somehow the title of Ibn Jazayy's book captures the ethos of many of the city and country journeys I have been lucky to take in past years.
This Rihla is about a local exploration, the exploration of an evolution and a revolution told in pictures and maps and ‘bricks and mortar’; an evolution in a very intimate urban landscape of a civic institution from early medieval times until today and a brief overview, to accompany the images, of the revolution of the political landscape during that timeline.
Galway is a small city and in an hour or
so you can walk through 800 years of history touching the past and the future
in the same instant, coursing your fingers along the mortared joints of granite
and stone….and profit.
This is the particular story of the
Tholsel, the Town Hall of Galway city, and the history of its meandering
existence in both form and function as a nexus of the relationship between
those within its walls to those without.
Galway Tholsel Perambulation
1. Hall of Red Earl (Private Tholsel) 1300 Corporation Tholsel 1402
2. Customs House c.1300 3. Tholsel 1563 4. Tholsel 1700
5. Mainguard Gaol 1609 6. Blakes Castle Gaol 1674 7. County Courthouse 1815
8. Town Hall and Courthouse 1825 9. Site of County and City Gaols 1810
10. Galway Corporation 47 Dominick St 1940 11. County Hall 1933 12. City Hall 1988
13. Galway Town Commissioners Mayoralty House 1885
TOLLS
For five thousand years tolls have been
a feature of mercantile adventure and profit. From the baggage trains bringing
Lapis Lazuli from one small valley in present-day north-eastern Afghanistan
across the toll-controlled rivers and canals of Mesopotamia (paying a specific toll
tax called the “burden”) and the Frankincense trade from south-eastern Arabia (paying
tolls at every camel-halt from Ubar to Gaza) to faience and fumigate the deaths
of Pharaohs to the Value Added Tax of most of today’s economies merchants have
paid those tolls, calculating the cost into their profit margins.
EUROPE
The Greek word for a toll, telos means
both an “end” and “tax”.
A telonion was a Greek toll-house and
there was a well-established legal principal of exemption from custom duties
known as ateleia, an exemption that was later to feature strongly in the
medieval control of toll collection.
The later Roman teloneum derives directly
from the Greek and as soon as the opportunity for trade offered by the
expansion of the Roman empire under Caesar Augustus arose, many teloneum or
toll stations were established in designated customs jurisdictional areas, particularly
during the time of the Pax Romano between 70 and 190 ce. The main toloneum in
the larger provincial towns and cities (caput) and ports came under the control
of the procurator in the West or the comes commerciorum in the East and would
be housed in the preatorium building, which would also then house the combined
administrative and judicial functions with the collection of mercantile tolls. The
high Alpine passes had their own poll-stations called clusae.
The close proximity of the Roman empire
to both Celtic tribes such as the Belgae and the North Germanic tribes of
Jutes, Angles and Saxons in what is now Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein meant the
adoption of many Roman institutions of governance. In Saxon lands the teloneum evolved
into the Tol-sael, from Tol for toll and saele for hall.
Around 449ce the Jutes, Angles and Saxons
migrated into the vacuum created by the Romans retreating from Britain and Tolsaels
were established in the Saxon coastal and esturine wics or emporia ( Lundonwic,
Gippeswic-Ipswich, Eorforwic-York etc) to service and tax the merchants and
also to serve as judicial and administrative centres for the developing towns
by incorporating initially the folk-mootes but later the more formalised Hundred
and Shire courts.
In later Anglo-Norman England,
especially after the separation of Church and State functions of the courts
with the 1073 Writ of William I Concerning Spiritual and Temporal Courts the Tolsaels
became the Tolbuthes or later Tolbooths of Scotland and the Tolseys of England.
The most famous and long-lived of the Tolsey courts were those at Bristol
(confirmed by a Charter of Edward III in 1373) and Gloucester.
In 1325 Glastonbury had a hall for
holding tourns and courts, under which was a gaol for holding prisoners and
five shops paying an annual rent of 30 shillings and a little shop or stall
(tolsey) paying 6 pennies for receiving tolls at the time of fairs, a true
reflection of the evolved combined mercantile, judicial and gaol function of
the Tolsey.
IRELAND
Before Romanised Saxon law ( St Augustine of
Rome as a missionary had influenced the codification of King Aethelbert of
Kent’s Saxon laws about 600 ce by incorporating Justinian’s 530ce Corpus Juris
Civilis, the compilation of 1000 years of Roman Law) amalgamated into Anglo-Norman
customary and mercantile law reached and influenced Ireland in 1171 the law of
the land was known as Brehon or Judge-made law. The incorporation by the
Normans of this Brehonic customary law would have been made easier by a
codification that had occurred 600 years earlier.
The Annals of Ulster record that Irish
Brehonic Law was codified in 438ce when nine prominent men: the three brehons
(Chief-Druid Dubhtach Maccu Lugir, Rossa and Fergus); the three kings
(High-King Laoghaire, Dara of Ulster and Corc of Munster) and the three most
prominent Christians (Patrick, Benignus and Cairnech) studied the oral and
written traditions for three years to finally codify it as the Senchus Mor.
This codification did not include local or urradhus law or the criminal law.
Brehon law had a public hall in which
the bruigh-fir or Biadhtach lived. He was in addition to being a public officer
also a magistrate. It was he who would call the assembly of the clan called a
Tocomra for the election of a King or the cuirmtig for the purposes of
administering urradhus law. The incorporation of the urradhus law and the notion
of a law court into a specific hall such as the Tolsael would not therefore
have been alien to the Saxon-Norman administration that was coming.
With the arrival of the Vikings and
later Normans the Tolsael hall that combined mercantile, administrative,
judicial and gaoler functions became known in Ireland as the Tholsel.
The Tholsel on the corner of Nicholas St. (now Christchurch place) in Dublin was called the ‘new’ one in 1311 the original having been probably erected shortly after 1171 (Henry II had granted Dublin to the ‘men’ of Bristol in 1164) when the Welsh Norman invasion under Strongbow, The Earl of Pembroke took the city. Later in 1343 there was a specific charter of Edward III granting exemption from the portion of tolls due to the King so that the burghers could repair the Tholsel and in 1395 a Geradus Van Raes was appointed keeper of the Dublin Tholsel for life. He was granted the keep of both the upper and lower gaol in that tholsel indicating an expansion in the imprisonment requirements. Similar to later developments in Galway the 'upper keep' was reserved for debtors whereas the 'lower keep' was for felons and all other undesirables!
The Tholsel on the corner of Nicholas St. (now Christchurch place) in Dublin was called the ‘new’ one in 1311 the original having been probably erected shortly after 1171 (Henry II had granted Dublin to the ‘men’ of Bristol in 1164) when the Welsh Norman invasion under Strongbow, The Earl of Pembroke took the city. Later in 1343 there was a specific charter of Edward III granting exemption from the portion of tolls due to the King so that the burghers could repair the Tholsel and in 1395 a Geradus Van Raes was appointed keeper of the Dublin Tholsel for life. He was granted the keep of both the upper and lower gaol in that tholsel indicating an expansion in the imprisonment requirements. Similar to later developments in Galway the 'upper keep' was reserved for debtors whereas the 'lower keep' was for felons and all other undesirables!
Speed Map of Connaught 1610
GALWAY – GAILLIMH
Galway has always been a merchant city. Gaillimh the Irish for Galway is comprised of
Gaill the Irish for foreign or strange and (a)imh the old-usage plural noun suffix, in other words the place of the foreigners. This suggests the development of a trading place, very like a Saxon wic at the mouth of the river.
It would perhaps be fanciful to speculate and think
that back in the mists of time (c 1000bce) Galway had been a satellite trading-hub
of the Phoenicians of Gadir (Cadiz) and that the territory surrounding it had
gained its name from these merchant-seafarers such as Orbsen (known name of 'Sea-God' Manannan Mac Lir;
suggested as being a Phoenician trader based on the Isle of Man!) after whom
Lough Corrib was previously known. However it is more likely that the name derives
more from the activities of the dominant clan of the territory, the O’Halloran’s.
The O’Halloran surname originates about
450 ce from Ferghallach O’h-Allmhurain, son of Allmhuran, whose name meant “the
importer or merchant” especially from overseas or foreign lands. Ferghallach was the grand-son of Aongus and grand-nephew
of Duach Galach of the Hy-Neil dynasty and first Christian King of Connaught.
The O’Halloran’s were related to the O’Flahertys, O’Rourkes and O’Connors of
Connaught and their territory consisted of 24 townlands mainly on the east of
the Corrib River but extending along the shoreline towards Barna on the west
side of the river. The three main villages of the territory were Gaill(a)imh,
Clare and Roscam. Their main fortification was on the lands of present-day Barna
House overlooking the tidal sands of Rusheen Bay, lands that had been
transferred to the Lynch family in 1638 in lieu of a debt of £410 19s 8d owed
by Edmond O’Halloran of Barna castle.
A merchant of one of the 14 so-called city “Tribes” supplanting another of an ancient Tribe whose name meant “foreign merchant”!!
A merchant of one of the 14 so-called city “Tribes” supplanting another of an ancient Tribe whose name meant “foreign merchant”!!
GALWAY THOLSEL – EVOLUTION
In tracing the evolution of the form and
function of the Galway Tholsel one has to go back to the beginning of organised
administration in the city. For most of its history Galway was a fishing
village on the delta of a river that flowed from Lough Corrib to the sea. In
1124 Turlough O’Connor, King of Connaught from 1106-1156 and High-King of
Ireland from 1120 erected a castle called Dún Bhun na Gaillimhe (Fort at Mouth of
Galway River). This castle was destroyed by raids from Munster and rebuilt in
1132 and again in 1149. In 1171 at the time of the Norman invasion of Ireland
the castle and keep of Gaillimh was under the protection of the O’Flahertys to
which the O’Hallorans were a subject clan.
PRIVATE THOLSEL
In 1195 William de Burgo was granted
lands, by King John, in Limerick and Tipperary. He promptly married the
daughter of the O’Brien King of Munster and used the bitter enmity of the
O’Brien’s and O’Connor dynasty of Connaught to pursue speculative forays into
the province.
Richard Óg de Burgo
In 1225 King Henry III granted Richard Mór
de Burgo, William’s son, the whole of Connaught and in 1232 he took the town of
Galway, after a siege, and extended the existing O’Flaherty castle. That the
castle was to house both the judicial Court as well as the toll collection is
evident from the documented possessions of Avelina, the widow of Walter de
Burgo, son of Richard Mór and mother of Richard Óg de Burgo, in 1283. She
derived £11 per annum from the tolls of the town and a further £11 from the
‘prerequisites’ of the Hundreds Court held in the castle which meant these functions, as well as the administration were already well established by 1283. In essence this was a privately run Tholsel.
CORPORATION THOLSEL I – TOWN AND COUNTY OF THE TOWN 1300
Around 1300 a hall separate to the former
O’Flaherty castle was constructed by Richard Óg de Burgo, William’s grand-son, known
as the Red Earl. In 1303 the tolls or ‘new customs’ due from ‘merchant
strangers’ for all commodities imported or exported was 3 pence in the pound, a
tax of 1.25% and this was collected at the hall. There is very information on
how prisoners were accommodated but given that most justice was summary there
may not have been a huge need apart from a hole in the ground.
Hardiman's 1820 History Redrawing of 1651 Pictorial Map
Shortly after coming to the throne in
1361 Edward IV granted a murage charter to the town for five years to fund the
building of the town walls and detailed the customs and tolls to be collected.
For example a horse-load of fish for sale was subject to a penny tax and a
man-load to one farthing. In 1373 Galway became a Staple City, under the 1353
Statute of the Staple, which designated Galway as a port where goods could be
exported or imported and custom duties collected that would be binding on all
other Staple Ports in England and Ireland so that merchants could not be doubly
taxed at every point of entry for the same goods. This involved the attachment
of a Cocket or Customs House seal in the Tholsel by appointed customs agent.
This very convenient merchant privilege to Galway was withdrawn in 1377 for
unknown reasons after its initial three year grant; perhaps because the Galway
revenues were too small at that stage but more likely the city’s antagonism to
the merchants of another Staple Port, Limerick; an antagonism that was a
violation of the 1366 Statutes of Kilkenny aimed at “fair trade”.
Hall of the Red earl
The function of the hall, its customs
revenues and the feudal legal oversight by the de Burgos of the commercial life
of the town began to change in 1402 when Henry IV confirmed a general charter
and established the Corporation of Galway to run the city. It is at this point
that the hall of the Red Earl officially became the first Galway Corporation Tholsel or town-hall, where
the corporate control of administrative, mercantile, judicial and imprisonment
was conducted but particularly the collection of tolls or custom duties.
The County of the Town of Galway at this
stage meant the Liberties extending to about four miles outside of the city
walls.
A view of Galway by Thomas Phillips
At this time the Lynch family, who had
arrived in Ireland in 1185, and who were one of the 14 leading merchant
families of the city, began to dominate the political and commercial life of
Galway and it was almost as if they occupied the mayoralty by birth-right. In
1445 Alexander Lynch a merchant was appointed collector of customs duties and in
December 1484 when Richard III granted a new charter to the town, which
specifically disinherited the de Burgo family from any revenue or power in the
town, the first mayor, another member of the Lynch family Pierce Lynch was
elected.
In 1461 Edward IV had granted Galway the
power to mint its own coin but there is no evidence that this was ever done
under the Richard III’s charter. As Amanda Hartnett (see references at end) has
pointed out that from 1485
“the prime directive of the mayor and council of Galway was to protect the exclusivity of their status group.”
This hierarchial challenge even extended to the founding political family the de Burgo’s and in 1543 when Sir William de Burgh was created the Earl of Clanrickard by Henry VIII, the city council petitioned hard and ensured that the patent stated specifically that the Earl would henceforth not ‘claim any thing whatsoever’ in the town ‘forever’.
“the prime directive of the mayor and council of Galway was to protect the exclusivity of their status group.”
This hierarchial challenge even extended to the founding political family the de Burgo’s and in 1543 when Sir William de Burgh was created the Earl of Clanrickard by Henry VIII, the city council petitioned hard and ensured that the patent stated specifically that the Earl would henceforth not ‘claim any thing whatsoever’ in the town ‘forever’.
The de Burgo castle had been damaged in
a fire around 1500 and appears to have been pulled down but the Hall of the Red
Earl still functioned as the Tholsel courthouse and customs house and in 1524 a
peace treaty between Galway and Limerick over a commercial dispute was signed
there.
CORPORATION THOLSEL II 1557 – A LYNCHING
Around about the time of Henry VIII’s
charter to the city in 1545 the mercantile revenues and tolls collected were at
their peak. A decision was made by the Corporation to erect a new Tholsel and
in 1561 it is recorded that a James Óg Lynch, a mayor of the town in 1557 commissioned
at his expense, close to the Shambles, the east side of the new Tholsel and two
years later the building was completed by his relative Dominick Lynch. The
Tholsel was located at the intersection of what are now called Mainguard and
Lombard Streets and contained prison cells below, shops and a toll-booth on the
ground floor and the courthouse and corporation administration rooms on the
first floor.
1. Hall of Red Earl 2. Customs House 3. Tholsel 1563 4. Tholsel 1700
5. Mainguard Gaol 6. Blakes Castle Gaol 7. County Courthouse 1815
8. Town Hall and Courthouse 1825 9. Site of County and City Gaols 1810
10. 47 Dominick St 1940 11. County Hall 1933 12. City Hall 1988
Reflecting the intention of the city to
protect the commercial interests of its elite mercantile families the city went
to great pains to exclude the Gaelic exterior. This involved both a physical
and propaganda war putting a huge distance between the townsfolk and those
outside its walls. On the Western Gate, just down the street from where the
Tholsel was situated, a Blake mayor had in the 1550’s inscribed on a plaque,
“From the Ferocious O’Flaherty’s O Lord deliver us” to engender in the citizens
a sense of fear, to ensure their acquiescence in the increasing isolation from
the territory beyond. In addition to this “war on terror” the city authorities
also specifically marginalised the intellectual and legal Gaelic tradition
promulgating a 1561 by-law which stated that
“no Irish Judge or lawyer [of the Brehon tradition] shall plead in any man’s cause or matter within our court, for it [ the Brehon Law] agreeth not with the King’s laws nor yet with the Emperor’s [Roman Law] in many places”.
“no Irish Judge or lawyer [of the Brehon tradition] shall plead in any man’s cause or matter within our court, for it [ the Brehon Law] agreeth not with the King’s laws nor yet with the Emperor’s [Roman Law] in many places”.
The new Tholsel town courthouse appears
to have functioned primarily for the town ‘Hundreds court’ and in the
documentation of the period Tholsel is used both for the building and for a
description of the assemblies that were held there. Tolls were being collected
at each of the town gates and also in the custom house extension to the Hall of
the Red Earl, which was close to the port.
COUNTY THOLSELS I & II 1560 & 1610 –
DEPARTURES
In 1585 the province of Connaught was
formally divided into counties and by 1600 the County Assizes or what would
have once been called Shire Courts were being held alternatively between
Loughrea and Galway. In 1610, after 50 years occupying the Hall of the Red Earl
the court of the County of Galway transferred to the deserted Friary of St
Francis (the monks had been expelled in 1583 following Henry VIII’s dissolution
of the monasteries) on St Stephen’s Island at the northern edge (and outside of
the city boundaries) of the city’s walls. Following this departure by the
County to beyond the city walls the 1651 Pictorial Map of Galway the Hall of
the Red Earl is shown to be roofless and deserted.
The monks were to return to the nearby Abbey
church in 1660 (and have remained there since) but the County retained the
Friary for its Grand Jury sessions and administration. In 1686 the Grand Jury
of the County decided on Blake’s Castle as its prison. On the 5th
April 1687 a Grand Jury of the County convened by the Lord Deputy Stafford in
the St Francis friary found that the King had title to the County of Galway
(this was heavily influenced by the imprisonment and maltreatment of a previous
Grand Jury of the County who had found against the King’s rights in 1635) and
the following day the Corporation of the City of Galway met in the Tholsel and
confirmed the King’s rights to the town. The customs-house continued to occupy
most of the previous Hall of the Red Earl site.
CORPORATION THOLSEL III 1709 – STANDINGS
In May 1637 a decision was made by the
Corporation to erect a new Tholsel with court chambers and a ‘towne clarke’
office further up the main street close to the boundary of St Nicholas Church.
This involved buying and pulling down of the shops that occupied the site which
were owned by an Andrew Lynch. Lynch was granted the ‘petty duties’ or tolls on
certain merchandise coming into the city by way of compensation.
From the mid-1650s onwards there was significant confrontation between the Protestant and Catholic merchant-burgers of the city and the Catholics were prevented, by the “New Rules” of 1672 from becoming freemen. One of the difficulties however faced by the Protestant Mayor and Common Council with this disenfranchisement were the tolls or ‘petty duties’ granted to the Catholic Andrew Lynch by a previous Corporation. In 1703 an Act of Queen Anne ordered all Catholics to quit the town by the 25th March 1705. In January 2015 (old style) the Mayor Robert Blakney reported clearing the town of all Catholics apart from 20 merchants.
From the mid-1650s onwards there was significant confrontation between the Protestant and Catholic merchant-burgers of the city and the Catholics were prevented, by the “New Rules” of 1672 from becoming freemen. One of the difficulties however faced by the Protestant Mayor and Common Council with this disenfranchisement were the tolls or ‘petty duties’ granted to the Catholic Andrew Lynch by a previous Corporation. In 1703 an Act of Queen Anne ordered all Catholics to quit the town by the 25th March 1705. In January 2015 (old style) the Mayor Robert Blakney reported clearing the town of all Catholics apart from 20 merchants.
Back Wall of 1709 Tholsel viewed from St Nicholas Church Graveyard
The Common Council of the Corporation met mostly
at this point in the homes of the current Mayor or one of the Alderman and the
Tholsel was reserved for general assembly meetings or for court sessions. Although
a lot of building was done on the ‘new’ Tholsel in 1645 the surrender of the
town to the Cromwellian forces in 1652 effectively put a block on its
completion. That would take another 50 years and it was until 1709 that a
cupola holding the Tholsel bell topped out the building.
Clonmel Tholsel
(built 1674 and still in existence).
There is a line drawing of the Tholsel
in Hardiman’s history of the City and it is quite similar to the
still surviving 1674 Tholsel in Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, to a design supposed to
have been drawn by Christopher Wren.
The 1709-completed Tholsel in both name
and function was to have a sad but inevitable end however. The cupola was
removed in 1800 and the dilapidated building itself was pulled down in 1822. The
architectural remnants of the building were sold for £90 and carted away. The
removed archways still exist however as they were used to form the façade of
what is now the Bank of Ireland building on Eyre Square. The back wall of the
Tholsel is still extant however and can be seen from the graveyard of St
Nicholas Collegiate Church.
BOI Building Eyre Square
The Tholsel site remained vacant for
many years and came to be known as the ‘standings’ from the temporary vegetable
stalls erected there.
CORPORATION THOLSEL IV – High Street
In 1793 an Act of George III, no doubt influenced by the events of the French Revolution, recinded the ban on Catholics being elected to office as Freemen of Galway. Shortly after this there appeared to be three councils operating in Galway!! Common Council 1 of the Corporation which was a mixture of the "old" Protestants and the newly franchised Catholic freemen. Common Council 2 which consisted of the Catholic "Tribal" families and Common Council 3 which comprised the opposition Protestant "non-Tribal" families. Each council elected its own Mayor and town-clerk.
Between about 1800 and 1825 due to perilous state of the “old” Tholsel the Mayor and Town Commissioners met in a house on High Street, a short distance away.
Between about 1800 and 1825 due to perilous state of the “old” Tholsel the Mayor and Town Commissioners met in a house on High Street, a short distance away.
High Street Galway
I have not quite located which house on High Street exactly, but suspect it was in The Kings Head pub had previously been the town-house of the last Catholic mayor, Thomas Lynch fitzAmbrose before it was seized and used as the Administrative Headquarters by Col Wm Stubbers of the Cromwellian forces in 1654 when he dissolved the Corporation and declared himself Mayor. Stubbers was thought to have been the man responsible for beheading Charles I and the house was his reward.
CORPORATION THOLSEL V – THE “TOWN HALL AND
COURTHOUSE” 1825
In 1815 a new County Courthouse was
erected at the site of the Franciscan Friary, which had hosted the County
assizes since 1610. Following the destruction of the 1709 Tholsel, the City authorities
held their city assizes there but in April 1823 however further use of the
County courthouse by the City was refused, because the County felt that the city
authorities had not thought it prudent to erect a new building before pulling
the old Tholsel down and had assumed access to the County building.
1651 Pictorial Map of Galway
The city Corporation moved fast however
and by 1825 a new building called the Town Hall and Court House was erected,
directly opposite the County Courthouse and ironically on land that once had
been part of the County and not the City.
The refusal in April 1823 for the City
to use the County courthouse was to be the first shot in a radical change in
relationship between the previous dominant city and the county authorities.
1818 Logan Map of Galway
The City and its power were in decline.
The Galway Corporation, which had been granted its Charter in 1402 was
abolished in 1840 by the Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act, its functions
being taken over by the Board of the Galway Town Commissioners established by
the Galway Improvements Bill in 1836. This relegated its status to that of a borough
town.
In 1885 following the Supreme Court of
Judicature Act (Ireland) of 1877, which reorganised the administration of
justice in Ireland and made all inferior courts (city and county assizes,
hundreds-court etc) subject to the re-organisation the Town Commissioners, after
500 years of responsibility, divested the Tholsel ‘Town-Hall’ functions from its
judicial functions. All further court proceedings would take place in the
County Courthouse.
1840 OS Map of Galway
The courthouse provided some light
relief at times for the citizens. At the Petty Sessions held in July 1915 a
Bridget Hession of Cross Street was charged with “riotous and indecent
behaviour” that involved throwing a stone “weighing three or four pounds” at
her husband, who was a sailor home from naval duty in the Dardanelles. The
Chairman of the Sessions remarked that the sailor “was nearly as well off at
the Dardanelles. It is a poor thing escaping from a German submarine to be
killed by his wife.” Bridget was fined 5 shillings with costs.
In 1920 the British Army used the Town
Hall as a detention centre for IRA prisoners.
On the 18 October 1930 the County
Council, which had been ‘trustees’ of the Town Hall since 1898 and had allowed
its use for non-council meetings and boxing matches voted to accept the tender
of a P. Dooley to erect a “cinematograph box” in the Town Hall, a function
which was to last for 37 years. The Hardiman family ran until 1967 after which
it fell into disrepair.
In 1995 following a major refurbishment
by Galway Corporation (re-established 1937) the 1825 Town Hall & Courthouse
re-opened as a state-of the art medium-sized theatre.
CORPORATION THOLSELS VI, VII & VIII – City
v. County
Around 1885 the Town Commissioners moved
their administrative functions to Mayoralty House at the intersection of Cross
Street and Flood Street.
Mayoralty House Flood Street
(used circa 1890 for the Town Commissioners)
THE COUNTY DOMINATES
Further insult to the City of the Merchant Princes was to follow however in 1898 when the Local Government (Ireland) Act of that year disbanded the Board of Town Commissioners and created the Galway Urban District Council, which was merged with and became subordinate to Galway County Council:
Further insult to the City of the Merchant Princes was to follow however in 1898 when the Local Government (Ireland) Act of that year disbanded the Board of Town Commissioners and created the Galway Urban District Council, which was merged with and became subordinate to Galway County Council:
The ferocious O’Flaherty’s from the
county had finally come through the West Gate and taken back the city from the
merchant families who had ousted them from the fort of Dún Bhun na Gaillimhe 700
years before!
County Hall
On the 26th April 1930 the
County Council proposed moving its headquarters from the County Courthouse to
the site of the old County Infirmary on Prospect Hill by leasing the property
from the Minister for Local Government and Public Health and modifying it for
their needs. It obtained a loan to undertake the building works of £8,000 from
the National Bank ltd, Galway in August 1932 at a minimum interest of 4% for 15
years.
Atrium of County Hall incorporating old Infirmary Building
In
1999 the architects A&D Wejchert designed an upgrading and extension
of the County Hall building.
Persse House, 47 Dominick St.
(GALWAY CORPORATION 1940-1988)
The Galway Corporation regained its
former status as a borough with the privately sponsored Local Government
(Galway) Act of 1937 when meetings were still being held in the 1825 Town Hall.
It took over the former Dudley Persse townhouse (father of Lady Isabella
Augusta Persse Gregory of Coole fame) building at 47 Dominick St. in the early 1940s
and retained its civic offices there (some of the planning offices were on the
Fishmarket) until the Corporation commissioned and built a new City Hall on
College Rd. in 1988. The City Hall was further modified by Simon J. Kelly
architects in 2000-2002. The Persse house on Dominick St. became the home of
the Galway Arts Centre.
City Hall, College Rd.
In 1985 the Local Government
(Reorganisation) Act had separated the City and County again (S.I. No.
426/1985) and in 2002 Galway city Corporation formally became Galway City
Council with county borough status.
GALWAY GAOLS – CATHEDRALS OF
INCARCERATION
The City gaol originally existed as a
small room under the 1557 Tholsel but in 1578 Elizabeth I granted the
Corporation the power to establish a separate Gaol in the town. A site was
chosen up the street from the City Tholsel and completed about 1600. In 1603
Cormack and Henry McDermott were appointed keepers of the gaol for life.
The County of Galway originally had its
gaol in Loughrea but it fell into a severe sate of disrepair and the prisoners
were transferred to the City gaol on Mainguard street in 1674. In 1686 the
County assizes began to use Blake’s Castle close to their original courthouse
at the site of the Hall of the Red Earl.
In the 18th century
imprisonment for a myriad of crimes became the norm and the condition in most
gaols was appalling. The jails such as the City’s gaol on Mainguard street and
the County gaol in Blake’s Castle were used mainly for debtors but often these
were incarcerated with male convicts awaiting deportation or execution as well
as women jailed for prostitution and petty crimes. In addition sometimes
families lived with the prisoners in the unsegregated below-ground holes.
In 1764 Cesare di Beccaria wrote his
Essay on Crimes and Punishments, which stimulated the call for prison reform.
In 1786 the Irish Parliament (abolished in 1800 by the British Act of Union)
published a Prison Reform Bill and an Inspector-General of Prisons was
appointed. In addition John Howard a wealthy prison system reformist took it
upon himself to visit and report on as many places of incarceration in Britain,
Ireland and the Continent as he could.
Howard’s 1788 report on the Galway
Gaols, made for damning reading. He described the County gaol in Blakes Castle
as having two long rooms for convicts with no water or heat. The debtors cells
were on the first floor. He described the City gaol on Mainguard, which had at
the time 7 debtors and 12 felons incarcerated, as being “inadequate”,
“ill-constructed” and “wretched”.
Griffiths Valuation Map 1850s
In 1802 an Act of Parliament approved
the building of a new gaol for the County and this was built on Nun’s Island,
to a design by a Thomas Hardwicke based on the gaol in Gloucester, being
completed in December 1810. The prisoners in Blake’s Castle were transferred to
the new gaol and the manor-house returned to private ownership. It was restored
as a restaurant in the early 1990s.
In 1807 the City corporation followed the
County’s suit and in 1810 a new City Gaol was completed situated in close
proximity to the County Gaol on Nun’s Island. The cost of a bridge to the
island (built 1818) was shared between the City and the County with the City paying
5/6ths. The old gaol on Mainguard Street was pulled down at that stage to allow
for road widening.
On the 17 March 1823 the Connaught
Journal reported that the County of Galway was ‘perfectly free from every thing
like disturbance’. The Journal stated that awaiting trial, on the County and
Town Calendars, in the County Goal were 14 cases of murder, 1 of rape, 1 of
abduction, 1 of sheep-stealing, 8 of horse-stealing, 2 cow-stealing, 9 of house-robbery,
6 of highway-robbery, 1 forgery and 2 minor-offences. Awaiting trial in City
Gaol were 3 for coining, 1 for administering poison, 1 for swindling, and 1 for
stealing children – as distinct from stealing sheep, horses and cows in the
county!!
In 1939 the Galway Gaols were closed
down and ownership of approximately 4 acres of land and buildings transferred
first to the County Council and then on the 15 March 1941 to the Galway
Diocesan Trustees for a nominal sum of £10 on condition that the construction
of a proposed Cathedral would reach 12 feet in height by a certain date. By the
end of 1941 the buildings, apart from the gate-house and external wall, were
demolished and on the 27 March 1957 the foundation-stone of Galway Cathedral was
laid. The cathedral was dedicated in 1965.
FINALE – TELOS – I Think!
Returning to where I started this perambulation and how the the Greek word for a toll, telos means both an “end” and “tax”. Benjamin Franklin, quoting a line from
Daniel Defoe’s 1726 Political History of the Devil, made famous the idiom that
there is nothing more certain as death and taxes, the telos. In meandering through the
city, tracing the corporate and judicial locations of the last 800 years, one
feature, one location has remained constant, remained certain. The Customs
House on Flood Street remains where Richard Mór de Burgo established his toll
collecting office or telonion in 1232.
The Custom House telonion 1232 -2015
But surprise, surprise the story of toll-collection in Galway is not yet finished! It is
interesting to note that the current city boundary, the Town and the County of
the Town of Galway, almost exactly occupies the territory of the O’Halloran’s,
the descendants of Allmhuran, the merchant importer of the 5th
century, and founder of Gaillimh, the town of the merchants and there is a petition in at present to extend those boundaries to almost exactly imitate the original O'Halloran territory.
In January 2015 Alan Kelly the Minister
responsible for Local Government announced an independent statutory committee
to review the feasibility of merging, like Cork, Waterford and Limerick, the
City and County Councils in one corporate body. This is being done under the Putting
the People First mandate, which will be an exotic if marginally deceptive
return to the very origins of Galway’s history. I suspect the “merchants” are
already counting the Tolls in the Tholsel.
Further Reading.
Middleton N. Early Medieval port customs,
tolls and controls on foreign trade. Early Medieval Europe 2005 13, (4) 313-358
Tucker C. Anglo-Saxon Law: Its
Development and Impact on the English Legal System. USAFA Journal of Legal
Studies. 1991 2. 127-202
Hartnett AM. Legitimation and Dissent:
Colonialism, Consumption, and the search for distinction in Galway, Ireland,
1250-1691. PhD Thesis, University Of Chicago. 2010
Hardiman J. History of the Town and
County of the Town of Galway from the Earliest Period to the Present Time, 1820
http://www.advertiser.ie/galway/article/71454/take-a-walk-around-17th-century-galway
