1924

Roads funding

County Cork is getting £100,000 of the Government’s road grant of £1,000,000. County Dublin is to receive £69,000. But County Galway, the second largest county in Ireland, and the poorest and most primitive in regard to the roads, is only to receive £45,500, and the most equally poor western county of Mayo is to be put off with £40,200.

We do know by what process of reasoning the Local Government Board Minister arrived at these sums, but we do know that if the amounts are not materially altered, a gross injustice will have been done to the western counties.

They were never worse than they are to-day. They need to be widened and drained almost throughout the entire county. Some of the by-roads in Connemara, which constitute the most important tourist roads, are little better than bridle paths.

Less than a score of broken bridges in County Galway have been permanently repaired; over fifty remain to be reconstructed.

The temporarily repaired bridges on the beautiful Louisburgh-Killeries road are a source of danger, and should be removed and replaced by proper structures without a moment’s unnecessary delay.

Apart from these considerations, which form conclusive evidence that counties Galway and Mayo need all the money for road repair that can be spared for them, we have the fact that there is more genuine unemployment and distress in the West than in any other part of Ireland, and the simplest and most effectual way to relieve it is by road work.

Pictured: Participants in a Feis at the Jesuit Hall, Galway, on January 16, 1972.