1925 

A new connection

Running North-East from Glenicmurrin, near Costello, to Oughterard, thirteen miles of a road have been made by the Irish Land Commission at a cost of £8,000.

For years, an agitation had gone on to have this connecting link between the coast road and Oughterard completed, and there is little doubt that the road is an important asset to fishing, touring, and, above all, to ordinary communication and transport.

In parts, however, it is too narrow to enable two vehicles to pass, for the reason that it has not been altogether completed. An additional sum of £1,000 would, it is estimated, complete the work, and we cannot understand why that money is not forthcoming.

It would appear to be the height of absurdity to bring a highway almost to the point of completion, and then to leave it there. Employment is sadly needed. Why not afford it by completing the Cloosh Road?

1950

Tackling emigration

The consequences of endemic emigration in the past from certain Western areas have been a cause of concern to the Government, and practical proposals are at present being considered with a view of coordinating a variety of measures for the development of the natural resources of these areas to the fullest possible extent.

These words of Mr. Liam Cosgrove, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, in reply to a Dáil question by Mr. M. F. Lydon, hints at some big scheme in the making for the Western seaboard.

Mr. Lydon had asked if the minister was aware of the high rate of emigration from Connemara – who is not? – and if the Minister would state “when the Government intends to provide work for the people of that area.” It was one of those Opposition questions which one could hardly expect to be taken seriously and I think that Mr. Lydon was told more than he had expected to learn.

Mr Cosgrove, who is acting for the Minister, who is ill, began his reply by saying: “I am not aware that the rate of emigration from Connemara shows any tendency to increase.”

That made some of us in the Press gallery, who have some knowledge of Connemara, curious.  How could emigration be on the increase after one hundred years of it, unless Connemara were to be evacuated.

Pictured 2004: Mayor, Councillor Catherine Connolly, braved the snow blizzard like conditions to run a lap of the track with Ronan Scully, GOAL’s West of Ireland manager, in the GOAL Mile at Dangan on Christmas Day 2004. Earlier the Mayor took the plunge in the icy water at Blackrock to support COPE’s Christmas Day Swim.