10/08/2026
Thomas Gill returns in 1958 on the S.S. Maasdam.
They say that one mark of a good researcher is the ability to resist being sidetracked. Sadly we never did master this and a recent example occurred while researching the transatlantic liners which called to Galway long ago.
The newspapers in 1958 highlighted an Aran Islander, Tom Gill from Cill Éinne, who arrived on the first post war transatlantic liner to call to Galway.
We came across Tom previously when we did a piece on some islanders marooned in Galway in 1953 and we also got to see a photo of Tom given to us by the family of his nephew Garda Pat Joe Gill.
Garda Gill famously discovered the blue shirt and black beret that pranksters had put on the Ó Conaire statue in Eyre Square in 1935. Eamon De Valera was due to unveil it that very day.
Tom had left as a 20 year old from Galway in 1907 on board the S.S. Corean. This was just a few years before the boat was scrapped in 1910.
A few years after the S.S. Corean was launched in 1881, she was one of eleven ships of the Allan line which brought emigrants to North America as part of the controversial assisted emigration scheme, organised by the great English Quaker, James Hack Tuke.
On May 10th 1884, the S.S. Corean anchored in Blacksod bay, Co Mayo where passengers were ferried out to her on the start of their journey to Quebec.
Just 23 years later in 1907, Tom Gill would travel from Galway to Boston on that very same ship. Two years earlier in 1905, Pat Mullen of Man of Aran fame travelled over from Galway on the same ship.
The newspaper report in 1958 mentions how important it was for Tom to enter Galway Bay on one of his many return journeys to Ireland.
Like many an emigrant from Ireland, the memory of seeing the islands and west coast of Ireland, fade in the distance would remain with them all their lives.
As the old song went,
“Dear Danny I’m taking the pen in me hand,
To tell you we’re just out of sight of the land,
In the grand Allan liner we’re sailing in style,
But we’re sailing away from the Emerald Isle.”
Tom would eventually retire in Galway, living at different times in both the Castle, American and Western hotels. Some still remember him taking up position outside Lynch’s Castle and greeting old friends as they passed by.
His trips home to Galway and Árainn were an occasion for great enjoyment and he is remembered as a generous man who enjoyed good company.
A lifelong bachelor, Tom died at the Regional Hospital in Galway in 1967 and is buried with his own people at Relig Chill Éinne.
Although Tom spent most of his adult life in the United States Army, the sea miles he managed were worthy of a sailor.
