Dr Arthur Nicholas Whistler Colahan
1884 - 1952
COMPOSER OF THE IRISH SONG 'GALWAY BAY'
My links to Dr Arthur Colahan? He was my great-grandfather's nephew. My great-grandfather was John Colahan, born in 1836, from Galway in Ireland, who became a Surgeon-General in the British Army. He was posted to most of the British wars of the time. He met Eliza Newton Orr (known as Eno) in Rome, when he was fifty years old. Eno was studying music with Giovanni Sgambati, himself an ex-pupil of Liszt. Eno, her mother and sister were travelers from Australia. Clearly a talented pianist, Eno had made her debut as a concert pianist (on 24 November 1883) at the age of twenty-two in Ireland. The occasion was the University of Dublin’s Choral Society concert to open the musical season. It is said the hall was packed with notables, including Oscar Wilde.
John Colahan and Eno married in Malta in 1885. For the next ten years, they followed the path of the Surgeon-General’s work, first to Dublin and then to South Africa. In 1895, When John turned 60, they decided to return to Eno’s home in Australia. Moving to Melbourne’s St Kilda’s district, Eno and the two youngest children caught bronchial pneumonia. The babies recovered but Eno died. As the writer Garry Kinnane says : sixteen days of struggle, the slight and graceful, almost frail form of the Dublin concert hall had finally succumbed; she had six births in twelve years and was a mere thirty-seven. John Colahan stayed in Melbourne with the six children, helped by Eno’s mother and her sister, known as Aunt Mimi to the children. Thus begun the Colahan family in Melbourne, originating from Galway - and Eliza Newton Orr’s family from Stratford, County Wicklow.
The Colahans were distinctive characters, my father being very much one of them. Talkative, lively, funny - and always with tales to tell and embellish. My father was a modernist architect, a specialist in the design of hospitals. He loved the Australian bush, landscapes and creatures and has a Bush Heritage reserve named after him (John Colahan Griffin Reserve) in Central Victoria. His uncle was Colin Colahan, a well-known figurative and landscape tonalist painter in Melbourne, until he moved to London permanently - and in later life, to northern Italy, Colin was a superb portrait painter and notable early paintings were of of George Bernard Shaw. Colin was an official Australian war artist in Europe during the second world war. The Colahans are an interesting family that veers towards medicine as a profession but I was taken by Arthur's story where he distinguished himself with songs and well as a life as a doctor. Arthur Colahan has been compared to other creative medical men such as Arthur Conan Doyle and A.G. Cronin, who achieved more fame in artistic fields than in their chosen professions.
Arthur Colahan was the first child born to Sarah Whistler and Professor Nicholas Whistler Colahan in 1884. The family moved from Enniskillen to Galway as Dr Colahan took up a new post and they lived in a house on The Crescent and were looked after by three domestic staff, one of whom was a nurse. Arthur was known to have started schooling at ‘The Bish’, at age thirteen and perhaps we can take from this that his early years were spent in relative freedom, being tutored at home.
At school and university, Arthur was popular and his carefree nature and sociability were factors that prolonged his student days. His musical talent, inherited from both his parents, provided a further diversion from his medical studies, which emerged to be his greatest claim to fame as the composer of Galway Bay. It is said he was never happier than being at the piano, playing tunes for songs he had created. He remembered his songs by heart, not by writing them down and could always be called upon to entertain at parties.
A cousin of Arthur's (Capt. G.O'Gorman Quin) in 1967 fondly described his cousin Arthur as 'the longest c(h)ronic medical student of Galway University, although later a brilliant medical man'. Arthur was much happier at the piano strumming up songs and that is how he is remembered in Ireland and has global recognition for this.
As World War 1 loomed, Arthur’s carefree days were over. He had started his medical career as house surgeon in the County Infirmary on Prospect Hill, while holding a teaching role at the College. He and a young teacher, Mary Theresa Curley met and had a whirlwind romance, marrying soon after. Arthur became the Assistant Master at the Maternity and Gynecological Hospital in Holles Street.
In 1916, Arthur joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and he served in India where he provided medical care to British troops. Arthur relinquished his commission early in 1918 due to ill health contracted on active service. Professor Ó Cearbhaill writes Arthur was mustard gassed and was decommissioned in 1918 because of continual ill health caused by the gas poisoning. He adds that the health effects from poisoning could have been a factor in the breakdown of the marriage of Mary and Arthur.
Arthur moved to Leicester where he spent the rest of his medical career and life - over thirty years - having a successful medical practice. By the 1930s he was also working as a neurological specialist with the Ministry of Pensions for the police and prison services. He wrote a book called The Miracle of the Human Body, published by Oldhams in 1950. Leicester Council has a plaque on his home at 9 Prebend St, Leicester to give due recognition to his services to Leicester and honour him as a doctor and songwriter.
In 1947, Galway Bay was recorded by Hollywood star, Bing Crosby and the recording was included in the film The Quiet Man. It became the third best selling song in the world and took on a life of its own. Arthur’s friend, Dr John Lyons of Kilkelly, Co. Mayo, would say that he had never heard such a cry from an Irish heart wanting to come home as that uttered in Galway Bay which probably sums up why it became a well-loved song.
The song still resonates among the Irish at home and in their diaspora communities, all over the world. To see the scale of numbers of Irish overseas, one only has to look at the recent release of the first full census of independent Ireland. These almost 3 million records will be of great significance to Ireland’s population, and it states there is a global diaspora of some 80 million claiming Irish ancestry.
Towards the end of his life, Arthur knew of the success of Galway Bay. A story appeared in the Leicester Evening Mail in 1948 and says : Dr A. Colahan has turned his song-writing into a lucrative dollar-earning business. One of his compositions Galway Bay has recently jumped to the top of the best seller lists in England. Dr Colahan told our reporter that he had been composing songs for many years. Some of them had been broadcast on Irish radio but none had been published until the war. Yesterday he returned from Dublin where he had been to discuss arrangements for more of his songs.
Arthur Colahan’s contemporary relevance comes from creating a song that transcended its time. Galway Bay became more than music and became a symbol of Irish identity and memory. The Pogues have taken up the theme in their recent song ‘Fairytale of New York’ with the line and the boys of the NYPD choir are singing Galway Bay.. and the singer, Celtic Woman has a moving rendition of Galway Bay which she sings at concerts and there’s a clip on You-tube.
I want to express my thanks to the late Professor Diarmuid Ó Cearbhaill, of the Galway Archeological & Historical Society for the research he did in an article The Colahans - A Remarkable Galway Family (Vol 54 2002) bringing to life the culture of Galway and its surrounds and of the lives and movements of later nineteenth century doctors and professors. His focus on the family of the Colahans, and especially Dr Arthur Colahan, was particularly insightful.
Thanks also to Garry Kinnane for his book Colin Colahan : A Portrait.
And finally, our thanks and gratitude to Mayor Mike Cubbard and the Galway Councillors for creating a place of reflection on The Prom for Arthur Colahan, the creator of Galway Bay. No doubt this wonderful monument will, like Galway Bay continue to stand the test of time. We love the significance that it has to the Canada-Ireland 180 initiative to Remember, Reflect and Re-imagine.
By Sally Colahan Griffin May 2026