1925

Back to dark ages

We will do the Galway Co. Council members who voted against the Libraries Act and the striking of a rate of a halfpenny in the £, at Saturday’s meeting, did not fully consider the question at issue.

Libraries are the fountains of knowledge; they are, too often, alas the sole means of education for the people; they bring joy and solace to many a lonely soul; and they unlock for every seeker the wisdom of the ages.

Galway Co. Council is practically getting a present of a library, for the Carnegie Trust has already established ninety centres throughout the county, of which no fewer than twenty are in Connemara, where books are all too scarce and illiteracy all too prevalent.

When the scheme was established here on July 1, 1924, a deputation went before the Co. Council and undertook to run the centres free of cost until June of next year, provided that the Council would then take them over. The Co. Council gave its word that it would take them over provided the scheme were found to work satisfactorily in the interval.

It will cost the ratepayers one halfpenny in the £ (about £1,000) to finance and continue the scheme from June of next year — in other words, it will cost the man of average valuation about the price of a single bottle of stout in the year to keep twenty-two thousand books on any subject that may be selected in circulation throughout the year.

To reject the proposal would not be economy; it would be merely the negation of all progress, a return to the spirit of the dark ages.

1950

Fishing tourism

The time will come when good food alone will not attract tourists to this country, and the time will also come when good fishing will attract the tourist, remarked Mr. F. K. Mackey, chairman, Galway and Lough Corrib Anglers’ Association, at their monthly meeting in the Chamber of Commerce, Galway, on Friday.

The chairman was referring to the fact that the association had got no assistance from the Irish Tourist Association or the Irish Tourist Board.

Commenting on the election of Mr. E. A. Sweeney, Oughterard, to the presidency of the I.T.A., the chairman said that Mr Sweeney’s appointment was of particular interest to them as Mr. Sweeney had always realised the great value of fishery development. When a hotelier in Oughterard, he had made a strong effort to build a hatchery before the present one existed because he knew what the fishing meant to his hotel.

Pictured: ON THE TRAIL … Michael D Higgins at Dominick Street in Galway City where he was joined by actors Mick Lally and Gabriel Byrne on his General Election campaign in June 1989.