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| WEST BRIDGE AND FATHER DALY'S CHAPEL, GALWAY. -The foregoing view comprehends the fine stone bridge over the picturesque river Corrib, in Galway town, and, on the left, a rather venerable looking ecclesiastical edifice, popularly called "Father Daly's Chapel." The Rev. Peter Daly- a very highly gifted priest, who had a decided turn for parctical patriotism, if not politics-created quite a stir in Anglo-Irish relations forty years ago, when, with John Orrell Lever, and other public-spirited capitalists, he succeeded in establishing a line of first class ocean steamers between Galway and New York. Everything promised prosperously until one fine day, in the summer of 1858, a great "liner" was run on the well-known rock that rises about midway in the capacious harbor by a pilot who was believed to be criminally careless, or worse. It was openly charged in the Dublin Nation, edited by the late Alexander M. Sullivan, M.P., at the time, that the vessel was deliberately wrecked for the benefit of Liverpool commerce, as that English port has ever been fiercely jealous of any attempt to erect Galway into the proportions of a rival. As the latter port is several hundred miles nearer America, and possesses a much better natural haven than Liverpool, the cause of jealousy, which has existed for centuries, is sufficiently obvious. The destruction of the Galway line, which followed the wreck, greatly mortified Father Daly, and without doubt, hastened his death. |
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