As suburban Galway sprawls ever outwards, many older communities are recognising the importance of researching and preserving their local history before it is lost forever.
One such group is the Renmore Residents' Association, which has published a book, Renmore and its Environs, An Historical Perspective, to mark its 40th anniversary.
Residence in Renmore since his teenage years and a consuming passion for local history make Norbert Sheerin the ideal person to research and write the book.
In its foreword, former mayor Michael Leahy writes: "Renmore and Ballyloughane have evolved from a quiet rural hamlet where cattle and crops occupied spaces which are now plush sitting rooms, and where the tranquility of the beach was broken only by the shriek of a seagull or the thud from the firing range at Dun Ui Mhaoiliosa."
Mr Sheerin traces back to 1880 when Renmore Barracks was built and became the regimental depot of the Connaught Rangers. Today it remains a central part of the community, with many of those who work there also living in the area.
In 1884 a pretty Roman-style garrison church was built, a much coveted venue for local weddings to this day.
Mr Sheerin provides copious detail on local Great Houses. The Merlin estate, now the site of a Western Health Board hospital, was renowned in its day for entertaining. Like all great houses it had its secrets and its ghosts, with the White Lady reputed to have haunted its corridors.
The story goes that Mary McManus, a housemaid, was leaning over a third-storey bannister watching a butler and chambermaid cavorting below when she lost her balance and fell to her death on the stone floor.
The book traces the arrival of the railways, which reached Galway via Renmore in 1851, heralding a modern era for the city. The 1813 Census of Galway recorded 35 houses occupied in Renmore, with most of the families involved in agriculture. The building of modern Renmore began in the early 1960s. Mr Sheerin describes Renmore as "a living, pulsating example of suburbia", but says it does not bear the hallmark of suburban monotony.
He explains: "The end result is that over 30 acres is retained, a rich resource for the current generation and a mirror into the past for those original residents to remember it as it once was. Such land can never be silenced. It has a past and a voice which, when listened to, resound through the corridors of time."
Renmore and Its Environs is available in major bookstores in Galway and local shops in Renmore.
