Galway in Days Gone By

Galway In Days Gone By

Published

7 years ago

February 18, 2016

Enda Cunningham

Main Street in Athenry in the early days of the last century.

1916

Appeal to farmers

In a powerful speech at yesterday’s Recruiting Conference at the Mansion House, Dublin, Mr. Redmond said they had raised from Ireland, counting the old regiments and the three new Irish Divisions, fifty-three battalions.

The towns of Ireland had done magnificently. The farmers, above all other men, had a special interest in the speedy end and victory of this war, and the idea of a Farmers’ Battalion was an admirable one.

Every day that had passed since the war commenced had convinced him more and more profoundly that the highest interest of Ireland, from the industrial, political, or from any other point of view, was the speedy and victorious ending of this war.

Women war workers

Mrs Joseph S. Young, hon. Secretary representing the Galway Ladies’ Committee, and Mrs. Donovan O’Sullivan, M.A. (sub-director of Connacht), attended a Conference called by Lady Wimborne at the Vice-regal Lodge, on the subject of desirability of co-ordinating and extending the activities already in progress amongst the women of Ireland for the ameloioration of the conditions which directly and indirectly are the outcome of the war.

The Conference was large attended by ladies who have taken prominent parts in war work throughout the country, and by representatives of the leading organisations of women workers, including the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Help Society, the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Families’ Association, the Central Committee on Women’s Employment, the Women’s National Health Association, and the Ulster Ladies’ Association.

Her Excellency said that the suggestion was that a Council of War Emergency Women Workers should be formed, to which all existing societies should be invited to send a representative, for an exchange of views without interference with the work.

1941

War hospitals

The County Home, Loughrea, and the Children’s Home, Tuam, will be used as emergency hospitals in case of hostilities breaking out in the country during the present war.

Docs without fuel

Galway County Council has decided to “demand” from the Minister for Supplies sufficient petrol to enable dispensary doctors to do their business.

The doctors, said Chairman Mr. J.J. Cunningham, had a grievance. The allowance of petrol to them was totally inadequate. In Connemara and in other parts of the county, the doctors had frequently to travel long distances to patients.

Petrol substitute?

The gravity of the situation created by the petrol shortage is daily becoming more evident. Its repercussions are far flung. The inconvenience to which the general public has been subjected, serious though it is, must be regarded as of less importance that the huge addition to the ranks of the unemployed caused by the reduction in the transport services and the threat of starvation which faces areas like Connemara.

Probably many will regard as fantastic the suggestion put forward by Alderman Miss Ashe at the meeting of the Homes and Home Assistance Committee in Tuam that we should make better use of the Shannon Scheme for our transport services. A little reflection, however, should show that it is a practical proposition worthy of serious consideration by all concerned.

We hear very little of the famous Drumm Battery nowadays, but the number of trains operated by it has been doubled recently and delivery vans driven by the Drumm batteries are to be seen in steadily-growing numbers on the streets of Dublin. How is it that the principle has not been applied to omnibuses?

Seaweed transport

While seaweed is available for sale in some districts, transport problems may make the market price in many areas prohibitive.

Galway County Council’s Finance Committee on Saturday decided to have money expended on a road near Oranmore to make it suitable for the carriage of seaweed from Galway Bay.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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Galway In Days Gone By

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Galway In Days Gone By

Galway in Days Gone By

Galway In Days Gone By

Published

3 days ago

November 24, 2022

Stephen Corrigan

A little girl celebrates Sarsfields’ success in the County Hurling Final in 1997.

1922

The ‘pay-nobodies’

The righteous wrath of members of Galway County Council very properly manifested itself against the “pay nobodies” at the meeting on Saturday last.

“I am quite satisfied,” declared Dr. Walsh, “that numbers of people who defend the policy of not paying rates are thoroughly dishonest.”

Mr. Kennedy said the policy to-day was to pay nobody and the people who were in debt themselves “wanted everybody else to be in the same position”.

Mr. Tierney invoked the dictum of the Irish Hierarchy in regard to the payment of just and lawful debts. Verily, “there are greater thieves than Cacus” – men who have such noble and patriotic notions that, to their mind, national freedom is synonymous with freedom from just and lawful obligations. It is time the people paid their rates and debts and gave up their outworn cant.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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Galway in Days Gone By

Galway In Days Gone By

Published

1 week ago

November 17, 2022

Stephen Corrigan

Oil-covered swans being rescued for cleaning from the water at the Claddagh following an oil spill into the River Corrib in March 2001. A spillage upstream reached the Claddagh Basin and dozens of swans had to be removed to a sanctuary for safe keeping. About 20 swans were so contaminated that they either died or had to be put down.

1922

Temperance club

A long-felt want in Galway has been supplied this week by the opening on Monday night of the temperance club in the Columban Hall.

The club, which will be carried on under the committee of the Pioneer Association, is not confined exclusively to pioneers, but will be open to persons who have a pledge against the use of alcoholic drinks.

There will be an entrance fee of 2s. and a nominal payment for members of 6d. a month will be required to pay expenses. It is intended to provide games, etc., on the premises and in the near future to organise concerts, debates, conversazione, etc.

Rev. Father Stapleton, director of the Pioneer Association, is interesting himself in the club, and those who know the kindly soggarth aroon’s organising capacity have no doubt as to the future success of the club.

Those desirous of joining should call at the hall any night during the week between the hours of 7 and 10.30 p.m.

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.

Galway in Days Gone By

Galway In Days Gone By

Published

2 weeks ago

November 10, 2022

Stephen Corrigan

Angela O'Keefe, Chairwoman of Music for Galway, pictured with a £16,000 Steinway grand piano just after it was delivered to University College Galway, ahead of its assembly in the Aula Maxima. Music for Galway fundraised to buy the piano which had to be transported from London after its purchase.

1922

Tackling drink

The International Congress on Prohibition sitting in Brussels reports that the liquor problem is substantially the same everywhere. In Ireland at present alcoholism has for us a tragic interest.

At no period in Irish history has there been so great a consumption of alcoholic liquors. Prohibition, even if it were practicable, would not solve the problem. America has taught us that lesson.

Scarcely a week passes that the American hospital registers do not record the death from alcoholic poisoning on a scale unprecedented before the country went “dry”.

The drink problem will never be successfully tackled in Ireland until such time as the public cooperate with the authorities in a rigid enforcement of the licensing laws and the drunkard is regarded as a pariah in a respectable community.

In this connection the announcement made at the last Galway parish court that persons found guilty of illicit distillation will be sent to jail without the option of a fine will be welcomed.

This is a step in the right direction and should act as a deterrent to people at present engaged in a traffic which is slowly poisoning the lives, in the moral as well as the physical sense, of large numbers of our people in outlying portions of the country.

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.