Brewery in Letterkenny??

donegal_man

I was talking to someone at lunch today and the subject turned to how little information there is displayed around Letterkenny about the history of the town and he said that there used to be an army barracks where the fire station is now and a brewery somewhere up the New Line Road.
Can anyone tell me more about this? I assume the barracks would have been pre independence. Nobody else had ever heard of a brewery in town. Although since we are mostly blow ins or youngsters that doesn't surprise me!
Pictures would be vastly appreciated
Thanks in advance

donegal_road

there was a barracks near where the fire station is now, the Orchard Bar area by the looks of it. Never heard about a brewery in Letterkenny. This is taken from the OSI map viewer.

GoldenGreen

I do half recall being told before there was one kinda beside where the county museum is on the high road. Now I don't fully recall if it was distillers or a bottling store. I also think I seen one of the bottles from there once when i was very young, you know the old old type of bottle I am on about a heavy ceramic type bottle that was cream in colour with a tan top, and think the name was C & A or maybe L & P. Sorry memory of what I was told and seen very vague, was a log time ago I was told.

Beanstalk

Isn't the old barracks where sprackburn is now? I think those flats on the left are possibly known as the old barracks? Could be wrong though.

Also, not sure about a brewery on new line road but there was definitely a bottling plant there where the garda station is and the old workhouse used to be. Lymax or somthing it was called. maybe there was a brewery nearby before that.

I've seen an old stout bottle with 'Thomas Mc Fadden Letterkenny' on it. A lot of this old pubs didn't brew their own beer, but bottled guinness themselves from kegs using their own bottles.

Senna

I think my brother has one of the old ceramic bottles with this label on it, I think he may just the label also, must have a look around the house for it.
You can buy the labels on ebay, not sure if they are genuine or not.
I think Thomas Mc Fadden Letterkenny was "Lymac"

donegal_man

thanks everyone for the information, I'll do a bit of research myself and post anything else I find out. I'm always interested the history of wherever I happen to find myself living

GetWithIt

http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,616813,911727,4,9

Click Historic Layers on the right and choose your topic. No sign of a brewery in the town.

donegal_man

GetWithIt wrote: »

http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,616813,911727,4,9

Click Historic Layers on the right and choose your topic. No sign of a brewery in the town.

Fascinating stuff there, you could spend hours playing with it.
Looks like there was never a brewery, just the bottling plant. I'm a bit tied up with work at the moment so haven't had a chance to look into the history of the army barracks, thinking of trying the Donegal Historical Society.

djDaithi

Lymac was just after the Garda Station, it's a derelict site now, just on the corner there as you go up New Line Road. The factory itself was built on the site of the old workhouse. I was a kid when they tumbled the factory and many unmarked graves and skeletons were found.