Once there was a place in Killybegs town called Dodd’s Garden, but it disappeared long ago.  I asked around and found that Conor McBrearty knew where it was.  It was sited under the eastern end of the Tara Hotel, and extended from the today’s Hotel frontage seaward to the shore.  The outer or seaward part was known as ‘Dodd’s Rock’.

 At that time Captain Thomas Atteridge and his family occupied a large premises which ran the whole length of the site where the Tara Hotel now stands.  Elizabeth Atteridge, the Captain’s wife, died in September 1834, her husband having predeceased her.  She is buried in St John’s graveyard but her husband’s grave has not been found.

In his will, made in 1801, Captain Atteridge left his Main Street premises to his daughter Jane.  Jane Atteridge married a British Navy officer, Lieutenant John Dodd, who was stationed in Killybegs, and it is he whose name came to be associated with the Garden.  John and Jane had a family of at least two sons, one of which went into business in Ardara, and is buried in St John’s graveyard, Killybegs, and two daughters, Elizabeth and Mary.   In due course Mary Dodd married a Liverpool merchant and ship’s captain by the name of William Battersby, while Elizabeth married John McConnell of Rathmullan who became headmaster in the Murray Male School on the Donegal Road.

The Main Street premises and garden now became known as the Battersby property.

KILLYBEGS MARKET HOUSE

By the middle of the 19^th century most towns in Donegal had a Market House, where farm produce could be bought and sold indoors.  Some of these Market Houses can still be identified, such as in Ardara, (the Courthouse), Glenties (the purple building opposite the museum), Donegal (the Market House Restaurant), and so on.   Except that Killybegs had no Market House. This was always a mystery, until recent research revealed the reason.

The Murray Estate owned most of the eastern part of Killybegs town, and in about 1855 they decided to build a Market House.  The site they chose was Dodd’s Garden, or the Battersby property.   Because it was freehold property, the Estate had to purchase the Garden from the Battersbys. Mary and William Battersby were paid £200 for the site, and preparations for building commenced.  William Harte, the County surveyor, was hired to oversee the works, and he placed an advertisement seeking tenders.  George V. Wilson was the Murray landlord’s agent in the White House, Killybegs, and Harte would answer to him.

NOTICE TO BUILDERS. TENDERS will be received for the ERECTION of a MARKET-HOUSE at KILLYBEGS, according to Plans and Specifications to be seen at the Office of William Harte, Esq., C.E., Donegal, with whom Tenders, directed to G. V. Wilson, Esq., White House, Killybegs, are to be lodged on or before the 14th day of FEBRUARY [1857].  The Lowest Tender will not necessarily be accepted.

The appointed contractor soon began work, but on inspection by Harte, it was discovered that the foundations for the new House were faulty, not going down to the bedrock.  A row ensued, the parties fell out, with the result that the House never got built.  

 There is a gap of about 36 years in the records during which nothing has turned up in relation to the Garden and site.  Late in the 19^th century there was a report that Neil McLoone of the Royal Bay View Hotel, who resided where Sweet News is located, had some old buildings demolished because they were obstructing his view of the harbour. It is likely that the buildings he removed were on the Batttersby property.

In 1893 when the Railway came, an entrance was made at the east end of the Garden for access to the Station. This meant that a retaining wall was built on the right hand side of the entrance as travellers approached the Station.  It was against this wall that the country people left their bicycles while at Mass on Sundays.  Dozens of ‘industrial issue’ black Rudge and Raleigh bicycles were then fair game for the local boy racers as they engaged in some joyriding while the owners worried their beads.

There may have been some developments in the Garden during the 90 or so years up until about 1947, when it was lying derelict.  One of these developments was that a coffee stand was built within the site in 1897, but that will be the subject of a separate blog.

One piece of information in respect of the Garden appeared in 1929, at a meeting of the Ratepayers of Killybegs.  During a discussion on making the Diamond available for the herring curers during the May fishing

a heated discussion took place regarding the action of individuals being permitted to encroach on Dodd’s Garden for the purpose of building – a plot which had always been recognised as public property common to all.  

At that time a Vigilance Committee was in existence in the town, and, apparently this committee had responsibility for finding out who exactly owned the Garden. It appears that the existence of such a committee was a result of someone ‘encroaching’ on the plot.  Another committee had been set up to inquire into the delay in transferring the Diamond to Killybegs public ownership. Three members of that committee, County Councillor Brian Brady, Philip Campbell, and Jim Murrin, were also associated with the site in later years. The latter two were both public house owners. Ownership records have not been found for the Garden and site but it must be assumed that those gentlemen listed by the Valuation Office (see below) acquired the premises through fully proper and legal means, possibly from the Murray Estate trustees.

(Brian Brady was first elected to the 7^th Dail which sat in Leinster House on 9^th March 1932 – 90 years ago today. He was the second Killybegs-born TD to sit in Dail Eireann)

The Cinema

In the 1940s Dodd’s Garden was, according to the Valuation Office, in the ownership of four people: Johnny Cunningham (John Cunningham & Co grocery store); Charlie Murrin (an uncle of the late Joey), Brian Brady, T.D., and Jim Murrin, publican, and father of the late Brendan.

Killybegs folklore had it that these men had planned to erect a cinema on the site, but due to the shortage of materials during the War, the project did not proceed.  In the meantime, Joe McBrearty, father of Claire Tully and Conor McBrearty, fitted out a cinema in a building on his property fronting on to Chapel Lane, and the Ritz Cinema came into existence.

As to the part of the site to the westward, where the Pier Bar stood, the first person to run a public house there was Philip Campbell, (already mentioned) a native of Glen.  Philip ran a pub on Back Street since 1913, and he was granted a temporary spirit licence in 1939 to have a pub on the part of the site to the west of Dodd’s Garden.  His reason was that there was to be an AOH Demonstration in town on the 15^th August of that year, and Philip knew he would do better business on the Diamond than on Back Street.  The Justice, while granting the licence, ruled that the Back Street premises should be closed, and that the new pub’s opening hours must be from four o’clock until seven.  Philip died in 1950, and the Diamond pub was continued by his son, Michael Hugh.  It was occupied thereafter by a succession of publicans – how many people can name them, down to Johnny Paul McGuinness?  In recent years the McGuinness family demolished all the buildings on the site, and built today’s Tara Hotel, arguably the finest building erected in Killybegs, and a great asset to the town.