Galway in Days Gone By
Galway In Days Gone By
1918
Scandalous streets
Whilst the roads of Co. Galway have shown a very marked and welcome improvement in every direction, the condition of the streets within the borough boundary is truly scandalous.
At the Urban Council meeting yesterday, the Chairman (Mr. Young) questioned Mr. Binns in regard to the quarry, but beyond a vague statement about the railway there, difficulties of weighing etc., little information was vouchsafed.
The Chairman hoped a start would be made next week. The ratepayers are entitled to hope that some effort will be made – even though this is the wrong time of the year for road-making – to set their house in order.
The Council was persistently warned last winter that if something were not done, the borough roads would get into a starved condition, and that it would take hundreds of pounds to put them into decent repair again. Yet nothing was done, and to-day it is easier to cycle or drive down a Connemara boreen than through the principal streets of the city.
Distressing find
The dead body of a male infant was found on Tuesday at the foreshore, Salthill, by Constable Hanley, of that station. The body, which was wrapped in a white garment, and bore superficial marks of violence, was removed to the morgue. There was a mark as if a cord or string had been tied around its neck. Great violence must have been used in the tying of the cord to cause the wound in the chin. At the inquest, the opinion was formed that death was due to strangulation.
A woman was admitted to the workhouse hospital on Wednesday. In consequence of statements made by her, and information derived from other source, police patrols are on duty in close proximity to the workhouse since her admission.
1943
Shameful women drinkers
The Rev. P. Prendergast, D.D., St. Jarlath’s College, in an address to the Tuam Pioneer Total Abstinence Association at their half-yearly meeting, said that statistics show that the consumption of strong drink had been steadily on the increase for a number of years past.
The most alarming aspect of this increase was that it applied chiefly to young people and, most shameful of all, to women. The drink habit among women, like most of their habits, was governed largely by fashion.
There was a time when no respectable woman in this country would dream of taking a drink. The only women who were ever drunk were those of the itinerant class in the country or of the slums in big cities. But nowadays, alas, it had become the fashion for ladies (if indeed one could call them ladies) who consider themselves as belonging to the better classes, to take their cocktails to excess and that not merely in private, but at public functions such as dances and parties.
These women would probably despise a poor woman in a shawl who would go into a public house and take a bottle of stout. But she, at least, if her action was not very edifying, was straightforward and honest. She had no pretensions about herself and would probably readily admit that the drink was her ruination. This drinking among women was only one aspect of a wider movement among them to imitate men in all things. It was a pity that if they want to imitate men at all, they would not imitate their good qualities.
One factor which had greatly contributed to the increase in drinking was the increase in the number of dance halls, with the consequent increase in the drinking that had come to be associated with them.
This was so well known that there was no need for him to dwell on it. Nor was it necessary for him to point out the serious effects which the taking of drink was known to have on the morals and proper conduct associated with such halls.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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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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.
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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.
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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.
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.
Funeral details for the late Bishop Martin Drennan are released
Man in his 40s dies following road collision in Tuam
Gardaí in Galway operating with fewer patrol cars
Renters paying €12,000 more per annum in Galway City than ten years ago
Progress stalls on setting up Eating Disorder Community Health Team
ALDI’s new store in Mountbellew set to open next week
‘Tinder swindler’ blackmailed young Galway man over photos
Galway woman admits fraud over €1.65 million loan
Engineering company didn’t know Indians were illegal
Picture perfect property finished like a showhouse
