The Ennis Turkish Baths 1869 – 1878 

   Notes




  

Turkish Baths, Bray, Co Wicklow

The Ennis Turkish baths opened to the public in mid September 1870 at Millview on the present Mill Road. The baths remained as a going concern until February 1878. In that month the shareholders, on the recommendation of the company directors, voted to wind up the company, the Ennis Baths Company (Limited), which had lost money in every trading year except its first. Its closing marked the end of a typically Victorian experiment in mixing commerce and municipal public improvement, and was a costly failure for the company shareholders. In terms of the development of Ennis as a town, the construction and opening of the baths was contemporaneous with the building of St Columba’s Church on Bindon Street.

This article originally appeared in The Other Clare vol. 32 (2008) pp 12-17. Clare County Library is grateful to Peter Beirne for donating this article.