In front of the landmark which was Leader's Shop - the Irish Civil War Memorial with a Celtic-style Cross cut in Limestone, above a granite mount.
This Memorial is in three pieces now.
- The upper half, the Cross was a religious sculpture and the base used to be the bottom half of Lord Dunkellin statue which was positioned in Eyre Square, Galway.
- The middle section is made from salmon-coloured Granite, and without Lord Dunkellin on it, was inscribed with the names of local Castlegar men who lost their lives during the conflict. The West facing side is without inscription.
- The Base may look familiar in the following Post Card (new window) and here, alongside the Russian Canons. See a proposal for the very same base in 1930 - Library in new window
Years covered were 1916 to 1923, and it was unusual enough to have a Monument made from two totally different stone types. A railing is well maintained around the base of the Memorial.
Dunkellin's Statue was "dismantled" to put it mildly in 1922, and the bronze section that most signified the man and his Establishment has disappeared into the crevices of history. Whether we like it or not, a semblance to the current Establishment was born.
Coordinates; 53.295357, -9.014453 - Tuam Road (N17), Castlegar, County Galway.
See this today, on Google's Street View.
See FlashEarth Map in new window.
Castlegar, like many places, had a number of I.R.A. activists and some local houses were burned down by the Black and Tans. Some houses can still be seen today, as a number were re-built much bigger than their former structure - presumably a defiant as well as a sympathetiic gesture.
Update; See Tom Kenny's article on this subject. Includes an old photograph.
- Consider reading an Article involving some Castlegar Men at http://www.claregalway.ie/newcms/content/view/47/65/1/3/ (new window).
- Read an interesting Article entitled "Republican Family" (open in new window), which offers some detail on local Castlegar Families.
^ Some Black and Tans as they were known.
Related reading with references to Mc Hugh's pub, Holmes - presumably Holmes' Hill ( Divilly's in recent years - Yahoo map) from 1922 - http://places.galwaylibrary.ie/history/chapter112.html
