House No. 5.

House No. 5.

This house on Elmwood Terrace is now occupied by the Anderson family.  Some owners of the site on which it stands can be identified from the 1840s.

John Rogers of Keelogs, Inver (no relation of the Rogers family of the Bay View Hotel) is first up.  In 1842 he owned this site just east of where the Ulster Bank now stands.  John Rogers sold the plot to James Coane on 2^nd August of that year.  This is an extract from the agreement:

In consideration of £20 sterling paid [by James Coane] to John Rogers ….  ALL THAT AND THOSE that piece of Building Ground in the town of Killybegs containing in front 60 feet and in the rear 42 feet From front to rear 95 feet bounded on the East by the said John Rogers’s premises, on the West by Cornelius McGill’s premises, on the North by the Reverend Doctor Drummond’s premises and on the South by the Street.

James Coane was a brother of Roger who built Coane’s Hotel, now The Cope House.  Then, on 28^th February 1843, James sold the western half of the site to the Rev. Dr William Drummond, Parish Priest of Killybegs, for £10.  It remained vacant until Dr Drummond died in 1863, when, by his Will he left the site to Patrick McLaughlin of Castlemurray, St John’s Point.  McLaughlin was a wealthy and deeply devout person who was the occupier of many properties in Killybegs and Killaghtee.

The next reliable record comes as late as 1894 when William Houston, a Killybegs auctioneer, offered two houses for sale on Elmwood Terrace. This is the auction notice for House No. 5:

WM. HOUSTON, Auctioneer and Valuator, Killybegs. VALUABLE LEASEHOLD PROPERTY FOR SALE, BY PUBLIC AUCTION, IN THE TOWN OF KILLYBEGS, COUNTY DONEGAL. I HAVE received Instructions to SELL BY PUBLIC AUCTION, on TUESDAY, THE 4TH DECEMBER, 1894, at ONE o’clock on the Premises, in Two Lots, Those TWO NEW HOUSES, immediately opposite the Railway Station. Lot No. 1 –Large Two-storey DWELLING HOUSE, with commodious Shop and Nine spacious Rooms, with a Frontage of 42ft., and 60ft. in rere. A New Lease will be given for Ninety-nine Years, at the Annual Rent of £4 4s sterling.

The First Owner of the House

Dr Joseph W. Gallagher, a Glenties man, was appointed medical officer in Killybegs in August 1890.  He purchased house No. 5 when it came up in the above sale in 1894.  He was listed as living there in 1901 with his wife Janie, (nee Verschoyle), his two daughters and a son.  1904 was a tragic year for the Gallaghers- Janie died in February at age 38, and the doctor died of a heart attack in August.  He was attending a patient, Patrick Cunningham, in Tullid, when he died, probably of heart disease. He was just 42 years old.  

Joseph W. Gallagher II

The eldest son, Joseph W., joined the British Army as an infantryman, returned to Ireland and entered the insurance business.  He started with the Hibernian Insurance Company in 1921, and eventually rose to the position of managing director. Holding this position from 1945 to 1960, he became a prominent figure in the Dublin insurance sector.  He also served as President of the Insurance Institute of Ireland, and President of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce.  He was also a director of the Dublin Port and Docks Board, and a Governor of the Skin and Cancer Hospital, Hume Street.  He was a member of the Lansdowne and Monkstown Rugby Clubs.  He died in December 1974.

The Second Owner

Readers will remember Henry Judge who lived in house No. 4; he now purchased the Gallagher house from the trustees of Janie Gallagher’s estate in 1905. 

 Henry Judge. Photo courtesy of David Henry.

The first thing he did was to advertise it for letting.  It was he who put the name Elmwood on this house. Dr Gallagher had provided rooms in the premises for the local Medical Dispensary, and Judge promised the health authorities that he would continue to make them available.  However he changed his mind for some reason. When the provision of Dispensary facilities was then put out to tender, Patrick Quinn was awarded the contract.  He agreed to provide accommodation in Drumbeagh House at a rate of £10 per year, providing ‘depot, attendance, and fuel’.  Patrick Quinn was the grandfather of the late Miceal Quinn, electrical contractor, whose shop stood on the site of the present Cara Pharmacy.

The Third Owner

Henry Judge died in 1912, leaving Elmwood House to his niece Emma Henry, who was then married and living in Ballyederlan,  St John’s Point.  Emma continued to reside with her husband and family in the Point, only moving to Killybegs to House No. 4 in 1945. (See previous blog). She sold her two-story house and farm in Ballyederlan in 1959.  It seems that she never lived in House No. 5 on Elmwood Terrace, preferring to lease it to various commercial tenants, the house having been built with a shop window in front.   For the space of 54 years Mrs Henry let out this premises to various people, both private and commercial.

Millinery and Drapery shops were very popular in the early years of the 20^th century, and several such shops are listed in Killybegs, such as: The Gillespie sisters, the Cannon sisters, Josephine McLoone, the Leeson sisters, and others.  Josephine Leeson married Mick Rogers who lived in house No. 1, his house, so it is possible that she had her shop in Elmwood House when they first met.

It is probably too late to recover the full list of tenants, but several of them are known:

Customs Officer Prosecutes French Skippers

The widow Sarah Byrne kept a millinery shop there from 1911, being a sitting tenant when Emma Henry inherited the house.  Mrs Byrne’s son Thomas was a Customs officer who was stationed in Killybegs from 1910 until 1923.  He was the complainant in 1921 against the skippers of two French lobster boats, Marie des Anges, and Turenne, which were caught fishing in inshore waters.  The charge was that they fished in the neighbourhood of Killybegs, within the exclusive fishery limits of the British Isles.  They were arrested by HMS Newark of the Royal Navy.  The skippers were fined £5 each, with £5 costs, and their pots confiscated.   It is likely but not certain that the Customs and Excise Office was located in House No. 5.

Local barber and musician Connie Gallagher leased the shop part of the premises sometime in 1930, the legal agreement being drawn up by Mrs Henry herself.  He described himself as a hairdresser. He also sold sweets, and taught the fiddle to boys in the winter months.  He was paying £1 10 shillings per month for the shop, but the business failed, and he had to vacate the premises by 1^st January 1931.   Connie is remembered in the 1950s for his barber shop on the Back Street where young lads could get a haircut with a sheet of newspaper tucked in around the neck.

There is a gap in the occupancy at this point.

Guard Manning lived there in the 1930s.

Sergeant Frank Flood, G. S., was posted to Killybegs in the summer of 1935, and he lived on Elmwood Terrace with his wife Kathleen and their two daughters Alice and Catherine. 

James McLeod’s father, Neil, came to Killybegs in 1936 to advise James on the purchase of a seiner, and stayed in Elmwood House.

Mrs Kathleen Thornton ran her drapery shop there before she moved to Upper Main Street next to the Bank of Ireland.

Jack Nolan, cashier in the Ulster Bank, & family resided there in the 1950s.

Nora and James Gallagher ran a drapery business in the premises from about 1957 but they moved to Mountcharles in 1961.

Bridport-Gundry sold fishing gear from that shop in the 1960s, with Roger Hutchins as manager.

In August 1966 Emma Henry instructed auctioneers Boyle and McBrearty to offer Elmwood House for sale:

SALES BY BOYLE AND McBREARTY Town of Killybegs, Co. Donegal For Sale by Proposal, DWELLING HOUSE, SHOP, YARD, GARAGE, OUT-OFFICES. We are instructed by Mrs Emma K. Henry, to receive offers in writing for all that dwelling house, shop and premises, situated on the Main Street in the town of Killybegs.  The premises consist of a large shop and dwelling house, containing drawing room, dining room, kitchen with Rayburn cooker, scullery, etc. On the first floor there are four large bedrooms and three attic rooms, also bathroom and separate toilet.  Main water supply and electricity.  There are several door entrances to the shop and dwelling house and a gate entrance from the street to the yard at the rear, in which there is a good spring well. These premises are held in fee simple, free of rent, Poor Law Valuation £23, and are situated adjoining the Post Office in the centre of the town of Killybegs, overlooking the harbour and are ideally situated for any class of business as well as residence.  They are in excellent repair and ready for immediate occupation. Anyone interested should take this opportunity which seldom arises of purchasing an excellent premises in this progressive and business town with fishing and other industries, extensive harbour and beautiful scenery. Proposals will be received up to 5 p.m. on 9th September, in writing, to the Auctioneers. For further particulars, apply to Messrs. Reid and Sweeney, Solicitors, Ballyshannon, having carriage of sale. Boyle and McBrearty, Dunkineely.

The Fourth Owners

The premises were bought by Patsy and Maeve McGowan who operated a B & B business there for a time, before they moved to Donegal Road.   During their occupancy the house was made available to the Kilcar Pipe Band as an ‘away’ base when they came to play at the Regatta and Sports each year, according to Maeve, who might enlarge on this at some time.  Killybegs owes a great debt of gratitude to the members of this Band for their unfailing support down the years when there was nothing here to lead a parade.  Kilcar had a marching band since at least 1875, and no doubt it performed at Killybegs events from that time onwards. However lack of records means that the earliest date now found is 1934.  In that year the Kilcar Band was recorded as playing at the Regatta & Sports in Killybegs.  From then onwards they came willingly and gave their time and their music, receiving nothing in return but maybe a meal in the Coane’s Hotel, later the Cope House.   

House No. 5 was afterwards purchased by Rolf and Siv Anderson and remains in that family today.