Looking South West over Aillebaun Headland from Blakes (Gentian) Hill
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 dreams, and delusions and the deep blue sea.
DAYDREAMS AND WET SOCKS.
Returning home with the dogs across the sandy beach that runs off the Aillebaun
headland I found myself having to quicken my pace before the incoming sea prevented
me from crossing the river that cascades through the barna gap of Rusheen Bay, a river which can disappear very quickly
beneath a flooding tide. Despite my hurrying I still had to, once across the
river, remove my Wellington boots to empty out the water of a miscalculated
transit and sit on a rock to wring out my socks. From my sodden vantage point
the grey-blue waters of Galway Bay were still, as they had been for the previous
week, untroubled by Atlantic swell or squall and in the distance, to the
south-west, the purple shadows of the Aran Islands lay at anchor on the
horizon, gently lapping against the sky.
Imaginary Train coming in from proposed East Pier of
1911 Barna Deep-Water Transatlantic Port
As I day-dreamed on the notion of anchorage I realised that given a
different history, a different outcome of dreams, that instead of being perched
on a glacial discard, I could have been sitting on the hewn quayside of Barna’s
deep-water Transatlantic Port watching the bustle and groans of a busy modern
harbour winding down for the day. To my left a train would have been making its
way behind me with containers from the cargo terminal on Pier 1 while to my
right its companion engine would have been entering the tunnel beneath
Aillebaun brining tourists from the ocean liner docked at Pier 2 back from
their day in the city, in time for dinner.
Rusheen Bay
A chilling of the air brought me back to reality and the imaginary trains
suddenly derailed. The sun was setting fast and at this time of year the sunset
is sometimes sudden, brutal almost, the sky mutating from a brilliant amber to a
dirty grey in an instant: a rapid shift from daydreams to the stuff of nights. Beyond
Inis Meáin and the other Aran Islands on the horizon, are the depths of the
ocean, and in the chill of twilight I know that yet another storm will soon form,
and once again the waters and sky of Galway Bay will churn with its ferocity
and darkness.
As early as the 9th century Latin chroniclers and Arab
geographers began referring to the Atlantic Ocean beyond the Straits of
Gibraltar as the Mare Tenebrosum or Bahr al-Zulamat, both meaning “The Sea
of Darkness”. 1 As the Arab geographers would have it, where the
Atlantic was concerned, the “depth of darkness” below the ocean waves was
matched by the “depth of darkness” above those waves in the shape of billowing,
foreboding, storm-laden clouds coming rapidly over the horizon.
Whether it was 900 CE or 1900CE the Atlantic always seemed to have
associated with it a sense of adventure, but more often as not an equal
ignorance of its dangers…. and its vortex of shattered dreams.
DAYDREAMS AND GALWAY PORTS
In 1830 the Galway Docks and Canal Bill was passed with two aims in mind:
to establish and maintain a navigable canal between Lough Corrib and the sea,
and to improve and develop Galway Harbour to “facilitate and augment the Trade
of the Town and Neighbourhood.” The entire project was meant to have been the
responsibility of the Galway Harbour Commissioners but problems with managing both
the contract and the finance of the key inner harbour wet dock, caused a dispute
between the Harbour Commissioners and the Board of Works. The dock was not
completed until 1843 by which time the Board of Works had appointed a receiver
to collect the tolls instead of the Harbour Commissioners.
These problems with completing the inner dock also held up progressing
the canal element envisaged in the 1830 Bill. Work eventually began in 1848 on
the canal, which was ¾ mile long and whose construction included dredging the
Corrib, building a second wet dock at the Claddagh, five swivel bridges, two
quays and one very large lock. Managed entirely by the Board of Works, by that
time primarily as a famine relief scheme, the Eglinton Canal and its associated works were completed and
opened without much in the way of any fanfare in August 1852. 2
Claddagh Basin 1870
Terminus of Eglinton Canal
As early as 1830, Galway was identified as a possible location by the
Admiralty as a site for the main Packet Station connecting the British Isles
and North America, but any moves in this direction would not be possible unless
first, Galway was connected by rail to Holyhead on the East Coast and secondly,
development of the outer harbour as a safe refuge for ships took place. Despite
the completion of the Midland Great Western Railway into Galway,3
five months ahead of schedule by the contractor William Dargan on the 20th July
1851, progress on developing an outer harbour, suitable for handling the
transatlantic steamships, was constantly mired in vested-interest local,
national and British Isles politics, as thick as that of the mud that first had
to be dredged and as solid as the ship-breaking rocky bar or ledge right in
front of the new inner wet-dock gates which the contractor had failed to
remove.
Any development in these years had to be seen in the light of the
devastating effects of the Great Famine, caused by potato blight, between 1845
and 1852. In 1848 there were food riots in Galway. Between 1847 & 1848
11,000 people died in the city’s workhouse. In 1841 the population of Connaught
was approximately 1,418,859 but by 1851 it has been estimated that 239,529
(16.9%) men, women and children had died and 245,624 (17.3%) had emigrated. 4
As a consequence of the Famine the emigrant trade became a significant
part of Galway’s daily life and commerce. In 1851 alone 18,000 people from the
town and county left and between 1846-51, on just one of the emigrant routes
from Galway, 69 ships left for New York alone. A renewed effort was therefore
made to position Galway as a Transatlantic Port in the early 1850s. Much of
this effort pivoted on the personality and bravado of a Rev Peter Daly, who in
addition to being a parish priest was also one time Chairman of the Town
Commissioners, Chairman of the Harbour Commissioners, a board member of the
Midland Great Western Railway (MGWR)company and founder of the Royal Atlantic
Steam Navigation Company (The Galway Line) with J.O. Lever in 1858. 5
As part of his mercantile association with the Galway Line he proposed building
a new, and very elaborate, deep water Transatlantic Port off Furbo.
In 1852 the Rev Daly, as Chairman of the Galway Harbour Commissioners,
had also made submissions on behalf of the Harbour Commissioners to the
Admiralty Committee inquiring into the Suitability of Ports of Galway and
Shannon as Transatlantic Packet Station. This enquiry re-ignited the centuries
old – and still persisting if recent pronouncements on the building of a liner
port in either Foynes or Galway is noted – rivalry and mercantile jealousy
between Limerick and Galway when as early as 1377, the magistrates of Galway
were ordered not to extract customs duties from Limerick merchants, an
arrangement which was not operative in the reverse.6 The three Naval
officers commissioned to write a report for the committee felt that neither
Galway or the proposed ports on the Shannon estuary, with their current infrastructure,
were suitable as transatlantic ports but in November 1852 the Admiralty recommended Galway to the Board of Trade as
the packet station for transatlantic communication.7
Admiralty Pier Dover Built c1850s
A further report on the development of Galway Harbour as a Refuge
Harbour, was commissioned by the Admiralty in 1859, and three separate designs
were submitted for consideration. 8 A new Harbour Bill to finally
propel the development of an outer harbour incorporating the Mutton Island
causeway was passed in the Commons in 1861 but the clause looking to impose a
levy on the County of Galway to help pay for the development was rejected by
the House of Lords, despite the pleas of the Marquis of Clanricarde ( a deBurgo
descendent). The Board of Trade had approved the Galway Pier Junction Railway
Bill authorising the MGMR to build a branch line from Lough Atalia over the
Corrib and then down through the Claddagh to the Mutton Island causeway at Fair
Hill.
Building a Pier
As had been the case to date nothing really happened! The Rev Peter Daly
despite his industry was losing friends fast, at a religious, political, media,
landlord and mercantile level. Around the same time that the new Harbour Bill
languished, the main shipping line servicing the port and requiring a suitable
outer harbour to be built was in trouble. The Galway Line which had been
subsidised by the Royal Mail to the tune of £3,000 per annum to carry mail to
Newfoundland, became as Tim Collins has put it, “a heroic failure” due to
shipping disasters and scheduling deficits. Under pressure from the Cunard and
Inman Lines who started calling at Cork, and the development of transatlantic
cables, the Royal Mail contract for the direct Galway-North America service was
withdrawn in May 1861. In addition to this the Rev Peter Daly died in 1868 and
much of the local energy driving the development of an outer harbour
dissipated, or foundered like the Galway Line’s ship the Indian Empire on the
Margaretta shoal.
Approaching Galway Inner Dock 1872
In 1885 there was a further effort made to get the Harbour at Mutton
Island built but this time using convict labour. It was estimated that it would
take 450 convicts 20-25 years to complete the project. 9 Again in
1895 there was yet another attempt made but the projected cost had risen from
£155,000 (€21,266,000 in 2016 values) in 1852 (when the cost of laying down a railway line was £4011 [€553,000] per mile) to £670,000 (€79,560,600 ) in
1895.
DAYDREAMS AND BARNA TRANSATLANTIC DEEP-WATER PORT
After a decent interval to allow Davy Jones fully claim the restless soul
of the Rev. Peter Daly, spurred on by a pamphlet written by Richard J. Kelly, the owner of the Tuam Herald newspaper, a new evangelist contractor appeared on the scene,
ready to promote and develop a transatlantic deep-water port: Robert Shaw
Worthington.
Worthington was a Dublin-based railway construction contractor who first
came to attention as the contractor on Sallins-Blessington and
Blessington-Tullow connection for the Great Southern & Western Railway
Company, which were completed in 1885 and 1886 respectively, at the same time
that he completed the huge Robert Street Malt Store for the Guinness company.
He then went on to build the Cork and Muskerry Light Railway on time and on
budget in 1887-1888, the Loughrea & Atymon Light Railway for the Midland
and Great Western Railway Company(MGWRC) in 1890, and the Ballinrobe & Clarmorris Light Railway, again for the MGWRC in 1892.
In early 1891 Worthington was also contracted by the MGWRC to do the
preliminary surface work over the extensive boglands for the proposed Galway –
Clifden railway line, but he ran into conflict with both his workers, whom he
underpaid and who went on strike, and the MGWRC engineers. His foreman at the
time attributed the problem to the local Connemara men not being used to using
the short but wide “Navvie” shovel! In any event Worthington was not offered
the contract to build the railway proper and retreated for time back to Dublin.
However the even worse performance of Charles Braddock, who was awarded the
contract instead, managed to portray Worthington in a more favourable light and
in 1893 was contracted by the MGWRC to build the Achill extension of the
Westport line. This was completed in 1895.
With the completed Achill, Clifden and Galway Extensions
of the Midland & Great Western Railway Tourism began in the
West of Ireland. Poster c.1900
Worthington by this stage had developed grandiose ambitions, in trying to
match William Dargan, the doyen of the Irish Railway construction engineers. He
had developed a number of close personal and influential friendships with the likes
of the Prime Minister of Newfoundland Sir Edward Patrick Morris and the
barrister-owner of the Tuam Herald Richard J. Kelly. Both Morris and Kelly
strongly supported the development of a deep-water harbour in Galway to serve
in particular the shortest sail-time “Red-Route” across the North Atlantic to
Newfoundland. Armed with this support
and with start-up funding for a necessary Parliamentary Bill from the Chairman
of the Midland and Great Western Railway to the tune of £5,000
(€658,000) Robert Worthington returned to Galway in 1909 with a very solid proposal to
build and service a Transatlantic Port at Barna. He was welcomed with open
arms.
Galway's Deep Harbour Plans in Library of NUIG
Worthington was astute. He knew that the first item on the agenda, if a
Parliamentary Bill was to be successful, was to identify and get onside the
owners of the land that might be required, as well as the local mercantile
community. He formed the Galway Transatlantic Port Committee in 1910 and induced
the Bishop of Galway, Lord Killanin, the aforementioned Richard J. Kelly, and
Marcus Lynch of Barna, who was chairman of the Galway Harbour Commissioners, to
become part of that committee. The Committee also included Dublin and Galway
town commissioners as well as a representative from the MGWRC and was chaired
by Lord Killanin. The Committee went about submitting a required Bill for Parliament’s
consideration as well as contacting relevant bodies such as the county councils
in Ireland and the Prime Ministers of New Zealand and Newfoundland to get their
specific support for the proposal.10
The Committee also engaged the services of Arthur D. Hurtzig of the distinguished
engineering firm Baker & Hurtzig, who had, as engineering consultants, just
completed the Aswan Dam across the Nile. Hurtzig visited Galway in May 1911,
was met by Marcus Lynch and Col Courtney and subsequently submitted a design
proposal. Unfortunately the proposal appears to have stopped there. Despite
their efforts Parliamentary support for the scheme was not forthcoming, and having
been left on “the Table” for consideration it languished there for 2-3 years before
being finally abandoned when the Midland and Great Western Railway withdrew
their support in early 1913. Worthington was livid, and in a letter to the
MGWRC Board in July 1913, pleaded for financial help in supporting the
Parliamentary process and not the construction. He stated that he had the
construction costs of €1,500,000 (€200,000,000), pending Parliament passing the
Bill, available. 11
Although there is little documentation to back this contention I also suspect
the direct support of Marcus Lynch of Barna to the project was essential. In
1870 the Lynches of Barna owned 4,100 acres of land in Galway and by 1905 still
controlled most of the land where the servicing and building works area for the
projected port and west pier were to be located. Had the proposed port
proceeded it would have proved to have been an interesting set of negotiations to
free up the part of Lynch’s land required for the development.
In 1906 Marcus Lynch had leased the land to the east of Barna Woods to
Galway Golf Club – of which Lord Killanin was President and Colonel Courtney,
Captain – to establish their second home. The need for this arose when Sebastian
Nolan had evicted the Club from the original course that Nolan and Lt. Col
H.F.N. Jourdain of the Connaught Rangers had designed and built on Blake’s
(Gentian) Hill. 12 Nolan had bought the Blake’s Hill headland from
the Alliance Assurance Company of London in 1895 for about £680 (€99,176). The
Allied Assurance Company had been established in 1824 by Nathan Mayer
Rothschild, the English banking scion of the Rothschild family and had come to
control the mortgages on large amounts of land in Connaught.
The land required for the projected east pier of Barna Transatlantic Port
off Blake’s Hill would have required acquiring Sebastian Nolan’s former lands
from the Church. Nolan had died playing golf on the Hill in April 1907 and
probate of his estate of £40,469 12s (€5,405,400) was granted to the Most Rev
John Heally, the Archbishop of Tuam. No doubt the presence of the Bishop of
Galway on the Transatlantic Port Committee would have smoothed the “reasonable”
sale of the required lands. Worthington, and perhaps Marcus Lynch in the
background, seemed to have thought of every eventuality in their detailed
planning.
Despite his family’s history and previous wealth Lynch appeared to be in
serious economic straits by 1910 and would have welcomed the opportunity to
extract himself with the sale of his land to the proposed Transatlantic Port. However,
as with all other Galway Outer Harbour efforts over the previous 60 years the
Barna Transatlantic Port was not to be and by the time Lynch died in November
1916 the scheme had been completely shelved. Marcus Lynch left probate of his surprisingly
small estate of £2,048 16s 0d (€175,420) to his sister Margaret.
Robert Worthington was also left a good deal poorer by his involvement
but this did not deter him from marrying three times and fathering eight
children. He died in 1922 at the age of 80.
THE DREAM CONTINUES
Proposed Galway Port 2015
The 180 year-old dreams of a Transatlantic Port for Galway have not gone
away. 13 I have no doubt that any day soon Fr Peter Daly and Robert
Worthington in Rip Van-Winkle mode will arise and meet each other’s ghost! In
order to service the increasingly lucrative ocean liner tourism a plan has been
put in place by the Harbour Board and now all efforts are being made to get
national and European funding to get the project started. Interestingly as it
has been for nearly 700 years this aspiration has pitted mercantile Limerick
against Galway again, with Limerick vying for the same funds to develop an
ocean liner port at Foynes on the Shannon estuary.
Galway Inner Dock 2016
REFERENCES:
1.Lunde
P. Pillars of Hercules. 1992 Aramco World 43, 3
2.Woodman
K. ‘safe and commodious’ – The Annals of the Galway Harbour Commissioners
1830-1991, 2000, Galway Harbour Company
3.Hurley
MJ The Galway Train 2016 Lackagh Museum & Community Development
Association. Smashwords.com
4.Ó
Gráda C, O’Rourke KH Migration as disaster Relief: lessons from the Great Irish
Famine. 1997 European Review of Economic History, 1 (1): 3-25
5.Collins
T. Transatlantic Triumph and Heroic Failure: The Galway Line 2003 Collins
Press, Cork.
6.Hardiman
T. History of the Town and County of the Town of Galway. 1820 Folds & Sons,
Dublin, p.60
7.British
Parliamentary Papers HC1859 (257) Session I XVII
8.Report
to Admiralty by Capt. Washington R.N., Captain Vetch R.E. and Mr Barry Gibbons
C.E., on the Capabilities and Requirements of the Port and Harbour of Galway.
House of Commons. 2nd March 1859
9.Kelly
RJ. Galway as a Transatlantic Port. 1903 Pamphlet, McDougall & Brown,
Galway. p 24
10.Ocean
Mail Services, (Additional Papers), Houses of the General Assembly, Session II,
1912, New Zealand; Papers 256 & 257, p. 76
11.Worthington
RS, Galway as a Transatlantic Port, 1913 The Railway Times, p.80
12.Derham
RJ. Galway – Guano, Golf, and Gethsemane: June 26, 2015 Available at: http://deworde.blogspot.ie/2015/06/guano-golf-and-gethsemane-in-galway.html
13.http://www.galwayharbour.com/new_port/
