The Connemara Bus Tour
A Journey through the Past
 The
original Connemara Bus was built on a Bedford lorry
chassis by Joe Fahy, a coach-builder on Foster Street
in Galway city. This 1932 Bedford OBW model was built
of fine hardwood and assembled with wood screws. Top
speed was known to be 37 miles per hour, but the owner/driver,
Andrew Ferguson, only exceeded 30 mph on one occasion
when he rushed a child from Oughterard to the Galway
city hospital.
A properly designed coach would not have
endured the 640,000 miles that Andrew drove through
the back roads of Connemara. For 32 years, Andrew brought
rural women to market at St. NicholasΠChurch in the
center of Galway city on Saturdays to sell their homegrown
and homemade items. He expanded their small world and
improved the quality of their daily lives by adding
to their livelihood. Andrew's bus soon became known
as "Bus Na mBhan" in Irish or "Bus of the Women" in
English.
His Omnibus license required that Andrew
have a conductor to help people on and off of the bus.
So, as young lads, his three oldest grandsons served
as his conductors. Most of the passengers were older
ladies who, almost without exception, wore shawls, long
flannel skirts that barely brushed the tops of their
black or brown lace-up boots. They carried baskets of
fresh hen eggs and duck eggs, fresh-baked soda bread,
homemade jams, and home-churned butter. They finished
off the top of their butter with their own fancy designs,
then wrapped it in cabbage leaves, put it in a bucket,
and dropped it down in the well to harden for the trip.
They brought hand-knit socks and sacks of live chickens
and ducks - all being carried to market. This provided
them with money to bring flour, sugar, tea and other
essentials home again with them.
Hugh Ryan was the conductor on his grandfather's
bus for five years, until all three retired in 1964.
Andrew, age 79; Hugh, age 12; and the Connemara Bus,
age 32.
In 1995, Hugh left his job with a computer
company and bought a 1949-OB Bedford bus quite like
his grandfather's original bus. It is the same colour,
same size, same chassis, and the same four-speed crash-gear
box, which you have to double clutch, then listen to
it growl and complain. The six-cylinder engine runs
on petrol. Top speed for Hugh's bus is 47 miles per
hour. It is the oldest operating bus in Ireland.
Hugh Ryan says, "I only got to work with
my grandfather for about five years before he retired,
but those were years I will always remember. He was
a wonderful man, and those who knew him considered him
to be a kind, gentle, caring man, as well as a good
friend and neighbour."
Today's Connemara Bus takes the tourists
on a four-hour trip back in time aboard the vintage
bus. Neither the bus nor the driver are in a big hurry.
Hugh jokingly tells his passengers, "When God made time,
He made lots of it and we plan to take all we need this
afternoon." He blends stories about his grandfather
with historical facts, describing Connemara as it was
70 years ago and through the years. He stops at out-of-the-way
places that the larger buses simply cannot take you,
and tells you stories of his family¼s past and a different
way of life than the one we know today.
One of his passengers was so moved by
her experience that she wrote a book about the tour.
The author of "The Connemara Bus: A Journey Through
the Past in Ireland" says, "A newer bus, a larger bus,
or a driver who lived elsewhere, could never let you
hear the heartbeat of Connemara as Hugh does. He warns
you about the faulty counting system of a young lad
counting out mayflies to the fishermen. He explains
the delicate procedure of how a young lad can skip school,
dodge the bailiff and not have to lie to his mother
about the day he spent salmon fishing. He is such an
integrated thread in the fabric of the countryside and
he weaves intricate designs for you to wrap around yourself
while he strokes your spirit with humour and gentleness.
Each busload of passengers returns to
different parts of the world, but each one will hold
the beauty of Connemara in their heart, along with their
new friendship with the Connemara Bus driver."
Ann Milholland Webb
December 2000
Visit the Connemara Bus site at http://www.connemarabus.com/
|
