Anvil Keystone Patrick Street Castlerea

An anvil motif carved on the keystone is found on top on the laneway arch indicating that a smith was resident and working from this location sometime in the past. A ‘smithy’ is depicted here in the ordinance survey of c1895 on the road that was called in those days New Line. The name and road were comparatively new additions to the town when the map was drawn up signalling that the smithy and his family could have arrived within their own generation, as urbanisation occurred.
The closest census returns for this period, that of 1901, list a couple of possibilities including a Francis Hayden and a John McCormack who were both working as smiths on this road and may have been the resident worker on this site.

Native Ireland