Poverty and Delapidation

The town since the occupation of Cromwell had never recovered its old prosperity and by 1762 it had only 14,000 inhabitants. The great walls with their fourteen towers and as many gates were crumbling away, but some of the old houses built of cut stone may be still seen.

Baths were only taken for reasons of health. Water, for all domestic purposes was drawn from the river, into which the throwing of garbage carried a fine of 2/6.

Wages were low. Professor Daniel Corkery in his Eoghan Ruadh O Suilleabhain quotes O Suilleabhain in one of his poems of the labourer who threatens to go to Galway a fat land where the daily wage was sixpence.