New book unpicks the mysteries of Salthill

Salthill. It’s familiar to anyone who lives in Galway, whether as somewhere to go for a walk and ‘kick the wall’, or as a place to visit during sunny summer days for the beaches, the ice-creams and the funfair. But as a new book by retired teacher and broadcaster Paul McGinley shows, there’s much more to this seaside resort than meets the eye. Salthill: A History, Part 1, tells how this once-rural hamlet on the outskirts of Galway developed into a seaside resort from the mid-1800s. Paul who was reared in Salthill and is fascinated by history, had observed that while rural parts of Ireland have a rich folklore tradition, passed on from generation to generation, the same wasn’t true of Salthill. He’d gone to school in the Bish where his teachers included the late Dónal Taheny, a well-known local historian who died in 2014 at the age of 95. “He had a great sense of the local and a real pride in Salthill,” recalls Paul. Dónal used to stress the importance of local history and it was through him that Paul first began to notice that Salthill’s lore didn’t stretch back through the generations as it does in other places. As he delved more deeply, that makes sense. “People move to Salthill and they say ‘I’m a blow-in’, but in a way, everyone is. It just depends on for how long,” Paul notes as he gives examples of families who are well known locally. Very few go back more than a few generations. Those who are well-established include the Stewarts of Stewart Construction, who can trace their paternal Salthill roots back to 1900 when James Stewart married Mary Ann Gill of Lower Salthill and two years later, set up the company that’s now so well-known. The Toft family of Tofts’ amusement were first recorded as having visited in 1883 – they were seasonal until 1941-2 when they settled permanently. Another well-known family established roots in 1933 when Frank Hallinan arrived. He became head of a group known as the Castlerea Consortium which bought a field known as the Monks’ Field and sold plots and houses there. The only stipulation for buyers was that they couldn’t open a butcher shop, as Frank owned one, across from Seapoint in the days before it became a ballroom, Paul explains. The Monks’ Field was so-called because it belonged to the Christian Brothers who owned the Salthill Industrial School – they farmed it, often causing annoyance to local farmers, whom they undercut on prices. After the Finan family opened Seapoint Ballroom in 1949, Frank Hallinan launched the Oslo Hotel, which had 13 bedrooms and registered it with the Irish Tourist Board. “Frank didn’t know then that Johnny Cash and June Carter would stay there,” says Paul referring to the legendary singers who toured Ireland in the early 1960s. Another man to make a lasting impression was Tom O’Connor who arrived to Salthill from Moylough in 1942, having sold a farm and other business interests, to invest in the premises now known as O’Connors’ Famous Pub. The Finans, who owned the Bon Bon as well as Seapoint, settled when Martin Finan married local woman, Mary Ellen Glancy in 1907. Paul traces all this history and more as he recalls his own youth. As someone who loved music, Salthill was heaven, mainly because of the Hangar, which opened in 1924 and ran for decades before being closed.