The Claddagh — Residents a Hospitable People — When the Ancient Race had a King — The Priest's Dilemma

The Galway Observer, February 15, 1930.

Galway without its unique, suburb the Claddagh would not be as interesting a place for a stranger to visit as it was for centuries, says a correspondent in the "Tuam Herald." It was a singularly strange and yet withal picturesque spot. The houses were evidently built in no regular order and a writer once described them as if they were thrown upon the scene from an immense pepper castor all in scattered, single, separate situations, no two, certainly no four in regular order and of the same style. But this apparent disorder was their attraction. Now we fear the bosom of civilization is to sweep over the old spot and all the new houses will be exactly the same, a deadly, dull, dreary dismal uniformity will take the place of the little cottages of the past, all apparently standing apart, and all, as it were, going their own way. There is nothing so unattractive as a street or town with houses all the same and no originality or singularity about them. The Claddagh has customs of its own, even a language of its own. It had up to recent times a king of its own and within only a hundred and fifty years did the king's writ from the Court House in Galway hear as it was run there. Yet it was law abiding and never a lawless place. The only offence ever known to be rife there was the taking occasionally of too much drink, but that never led to more than a few fatal accidents from drowning, while under the influence.

But British law as administered up in the Big Courthouse when the local J.P.'s were the licensing authority and lavishly scattered licenses all over the city is responsible for much trouble of late as regards drunkenness. Yet all said and done, the Claddagh for sobriety could vie with any village in Ireland. The people were highly moral and kindly hospitable and courteous to the stranger. Once a Jesuit priest, a Belgium, but an O'Kelly, came over from Belgium where he fancied he, like the Dublin man or woman, he knew Irish from the books, but the book Irish even to this day, as it never got in touch with the native speaker and the difficulty will never be got over.

So Father O'Kelly, who was staying at the Jesuits' House in Salthill, wished to go over to Ardfry to see a namesake, Mr. R. J. Kelly, K.C., then staying near there with his family. He went down to get the lie of the land from the Claddagh boys, spoke what he thought was Irish, and as he could not speak English he had to depend upon that. He eloquently and earnestly tried to express his wants but in vain. He could not be understood. At last a little boy who attended the school there and acted for the Dominican as clerk, serving Mass among other duties, spoke to the priest in Latin, in short time they understood each other and the Belgium priest got his desired information. Fancy finding Latin spoken in the Claddagh! Yet such was the case.

When Essex came over to establish the sway of Elizabeth in Ireland he wrote in one of his dispatches that the Irish chieftains he came across were ignorant. They could, he informed his Sovereign, only understood and speak Latin and Irish, and as he understood neither, he thought them ignorant. Queen Elizabeth, by the way, was an excellent Latin and Greek scholar and she sent a Gaelic fount of type to Ireland and could speak Irish, it was said.