Galway in Days Gone By
Galway In Days Gone By
1914
Connemara Volunteers
Letterfrack, Galway was the scene of an imposing turn-out of a large number of the Connemara Volunteers on Sunday. As was announced last week, a conference of delegates from the various corps forming the Connemara Battalion was held, for the purpose of electing a delegate to the County Board, a commander of the Battalion, and the usual officers, and for a general discussion.
Delegates attended from the various corps, while the corps of Volunteers from Claddaghduff, Ballinakill, Tullycross, and Letterfrack marched in full strength. The Tullycross Volunteers arrived in Letterfrack at 3.30pm and they certainly made a fine show, wearing hats of the Boer pattern, while the Hibernian division, having their neat badges, were also conspicuous.
They were led by fife and drum band, and were met some half mile from Letterfrack by the corps from that village, and further on by the Ballinakill corps.
They marched in perfect order into Letterfrack, where the Claddaghduff Volunteers were already lined up. The Clifden Volunteers were prevented from being present by having to fulfil a previous engagement to attend at Ballyconneely on that day.
Bigamy on 7d a day
At the weekly meeting of Ballinasloe Board of Guardians, a man named Patrick Treacy, who had been admitted to the House during the week, was brought before the Board. The Master said he was in receipt of a pension of 7d. per day, and he paid 6d. for his maintenance in the House.
He had been at Limerick last year convicted for bigamy.
Mr. Parker: On 7d. a day? (laughter)
Master: He is like some gentlemen I know, who leave their first and second wives in the Workhouse, and they can do the gentleman outside (laughter).
Chairman: You need not pass your own town (laughter).
1939
Gallant rescue
Paddy Naughton, 18, Henry-street, Galway, former Connacht bantam boxing champion, was the hero of a thrilling sea drama on Sunday, when, at the risk of his own life, he saved Miss Mary Ruane, High-street, Galway, who was in imminent danger of being drowned when she got into difficulties while bathing at Grattan-road strand, Salthill.
Mr. Naughton was cycling home from Salthill when, passing by the Grattan-road junction near the Warwick Hotel, he heard cries for help coming from the strand. He dismounted and found a girl shouting hysterically and pointing and to the figure of a girl in the water.
Pausing only to divest himself of his coat, he dived into the water and after considerable difficulty succeeded in bringing the drowning girl to safety. Artificial respiration was administered to the girl by Garda Nalty, Salthill, who was quickly on the scene, and the girl was shortly afterwards able to walk home.
Dr Tubridy’s passing
It is no exaggeration to say that all Connemara was dumbfounded last week by the death of their popular representative, the late Dr. Sean Tubridy, T.D. It is not so much as a politician that Connemara will remember Dr. Tubridy, but as a painstaking conscientious doctor, the whole of whose charitable work for the poor of his native area will never be fully known.
We ourselves have known him to have sat up all night by the bedside of a patient in south Connemara when his fee for doing so was a ‘red ticket’. He saved the life of one of his beloved Connemarians, and that was all that mattered.
It was only one of thousands of similar good deeds in the all-to-short life of a great Connemara man.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
1923
Post office raids
A series of wholesale raids on unprotected Connemara sub-post offices are reported. Lettermore and Cashel offices were raided and robbed on Friday night.
Carraroe, Costello and Kilkerrin were also visited by armed men and any money and stamps available were taken. The sums abstracted from these offices vary from £20 to £30.
Telegraph and telephone instruments were broken wherever they were found, and in consequence, the people living in these remote areas on the western seaboard have been much inconvenienced.
Costello bridge was blown up on Friday night last, when most of the raids took place.
1948
Telephone service
In the course of his address to the annual meeting of the Galway No. 1 branch of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union on Sunday Mr.
Everett made a statement regarding the telephone service at Galway which is of great interest to the business community in particular.
He admitted that the delay during busy periods of the day on the Galway-Dublin trunk service amounts at times to about two hours, and that this has on occasions been exceeded owing to one or more of the three existing circuits being out of order.
Delay on busy periods on the lines connecting Dublin with Tuam, Loughrea, Athenry, Clifden and Claremorris was also admitted.
The fact of these days is only too familiar to telephone subscribers in the West. Repeated protests on the matter have been sent forward by the Corporation and the Chamber of Commerce of Galway among others, but hitherto there has been no tangible result.
The facilities now available might perhaps have been adequate twenty years ago, but they are insufficient, to put it mildly, for present-day requirements and business is very seriously handicapped in consequence.
During the war years there was not only a shortage of the equipment which would be needed for improved facilities, but such equipment as could be obtained was more urgently needed for security purposes. It seems however that the war-time difficulties are well on the way to disappearing and the minister was in a position to make some promise of improvement.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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1923
Food prices
The local committee appointed under the Free State Commission on Food Prices will hold its first public sitting in Galway next week.
The announcement should be received with general satisfaction in a town that, notwithstanding its natural advantages of lake and sea and fertile countryside, provides for its people little of the natural fruits of the earth except at prohibitive prices.
Mr. H. J. Reid, of 20, Dominick-street, Galway, is, as announced elsewhere, acting as secretary of the local committee. Those who desire to give evidence – and who does not desire to prove that life is a hard thing these days and that we could all be very well off if only the profiteer would have a heart? – should communicate with Mr. Reid at once.
Already, we understand, half-a-dozen citizens have expressed themselves willing and anxious to tell the committee how the problem of living affects them. We do sincerely hope that the cooperation of the people themselves will render it possible for the Galway committee to make the most exhaustive inquiries and to do effective work.
It should be remembered that it is our own committee appointed by our own Government – the Government not of the profiteer but of the plain man of Ireland – to do our work.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
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The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
1923
Staying on track
The Free State Government has been compelled temporarily to order the Irish railways to prepare a scheme for grouping for the simple and obvious reason that the Government has no funds to meet the deficit on railway working. And that even if a policy of nationalisation were agreed upon as the best thing for the nation, the Government is not in a financial position to acquire them, and that if rates and fares are to be reduced so that the country may prosper, working expenses must also undergo a drastic and immediate reduction.
The broad, general plan is that this should be effected by grouping the lines so that they should cooperate in working. This will inevitably mean reduced staffs and eliminated competition – but apparently needs must.
So far, the only scheme of grouping that has emerged is one that has aroused hostility in the Dublin Press. The outline of the scheme is to draw a line from Dublin to Galway and group the Irish railways into two sections, one north and one south of the line, was revealed at the annual meetings of the northern and southern companies this week.
Dublin fears the Great Northern, because Dublin is not able to stand in competition with the railway that has its headquarters in Belfast. That is the grim fact, and it has to be faced.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Judge to begin her address to the jury tomorrow in Portumna murder trial
Planning application to be lodged in May for Community Nursing Unit in Clifden
Mental Health event taking place tomorrow in Tuam
City council closing Salthill car parks from 5pm due to expected high tides
Closing speeches underway in Portumna murder trial
City seeks to annex Oranmore, Claregalway, Moycullen and Barna in boundary extension
Man awarded €142,000 over unprovoked attack in toilet of County Galway pub
Tech consultants open Galway hub
Volkswagen Vans Galway at Western Motors announced as Mobility Partner for Galway GAA
Woman convicted of harassing social media guru
