Galway in Days Gone By

Galway In Days Gone By

Published

3 years ago

July 26, 2018

Enda Cunningham

Members of the Dutch company Vis a Vis perform on their sunken campervan in a promotional scene from their survival comedy, Drift, in the Claddagh Basin for the Galway Arts Festival in July 1997. The comic spectacle was held at the Festival Big Top on a set imersed in a giant tank containing 57,000 gallons of water.

1918

Galway student sentenced

At Belfast Assizes, Thomas Derrig and Thos Kettrick, of Westport, were charged with demanding a military rifle by threats from a family named Ralph. The prisoners were found guilty, with a recommendation to leniency. Lord Justice Molony sentenced Derrig to five months’ imprisonment, without hard labour, in the second division. He was a young man who, apart from having been interned – a circumstance which didn’t influence his Lordship in fixing the sentence – had not previously been brought under the notice of the law.

As to the fact he was a student in Galway College one could not, as a police witness remarked, judge people’s obedience to the law by their education. But he had instincts of humanity, because he turned down the revolver raised by Kettrick towards the women.

That was why hard labour was not imposed. As regards Kettrick, who was undergoing a sentence of six months, with a further six months in default of bail, his lordship sentenced him to six months, with hard labour, because he raised a revolver to defenceless women.

Prisoner of war

The parents of Rifleman Alex Hendry, who reside at Bohermore, have received news that he is a prisoner of War in Germany. Rifleman Hendry, formerly a conductor on Galway Tram Co., at the age of eighteen years, joined the Hussars in March 1916, and was transferred to the Royal Irish Rifles, and sent to France in December 1916.

He fought at Messines and was in several engagements at Ypres and Cambrai. He was captured on 21st March, 1918 at St. Quintin. He states he is well treated.

The ‘flu

During the past few weeks, a large number of ‘flu cases were treated in the Co. Hospital, Galway. Among the victims to the epidemic were some members of the nursing staff. Two probationers who were on duty at the Union hospitals had to be recalled from that institution to cope with the extra work.

1943

Race Week bookings

The famous Galway Race Week always brought a tremendous influx to the Western capital, but this year it looks as if all previous records are going to be eclipsed. For weeks, Galway City and Salthill have been thronged with visitors to an unusual extent and the bookings for the famous sporting week have taxed the accommodation to the utmost, despite the residents’ extensive preparations based upon practical experiences in the past.

Hotel and restaurant proprietors and boarding house keepers have exerted themselves nobly to ensure that there will be no shortage of food supplies despite the emergency and the crowds of visitors from over the Border have expressed themselves as delighted with the catering.

Motors ban

The Minister for Supplies reminds owners of the strict prohibition on the use of motor vehicles for attendance at race meetings. Serious notice, says an announcement from the Department, including revocation of the permit in each case, will be take of the use of any motor vehicle travelling in connection with Galway Races.

Owners of hackney vehicles, in particular, are reminded of their obligation to ensure that their vehicles are not misused for this purpose.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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Galway in Days Gone By

Galway In Days Gone By

Published

5 days ago

February 25, 2021

Stephen Corrigan

Teatime on the Morrissey Farm in Clonshee, Ahascragh in June 1951. Pictured beside the mowing machine and horses Charlie and Bly is John Morrissey with six of his 12 children, Joseph, Seán, Eileen, Michael, Annie and Willie.

1921

Growing neglect

The meeting of the County Galway National Teachers’ Association merits the attention of a considerably wider body than that which may be said to have a professional interest in education.

These meetings, which are held primarily for purposes of organisation, have an absorbing interest and a vital concern for all who desire the future well-being of our young people.

Whilst conditions of employment must naturally be an important concern for primary teachers, Saturday’s meeting revealed the fact that their minds are exercised by the deplorable and growing neglect of primary education.

The statement of the outgoing chairman that out of seven hundred thousand school-going children, there are two hundred thousand absentees from the national schools every day; this compels immediate attention and demands effective action on the part of all whose duty it is to enforce attendance at school.

That means that nearly one-third of the pupils are absent from school daily. There could be no graver reflection on the parent, the public bodies and their school attendance committees and the spiritual directors than that thirty out of every one hundred pupils are absent from the schools every day.

“Do the people,” as the chairman asked, “realise the havoc such a state of things works amongst us as a nation? Is it any wonder that so many of our countrymen and countrywomen are condemned to a life of drudgery, bordering upon a condition of slavery, at home and abroad.”

In recent years we have heard much of the attractiveness of school programmes, but the obvious inference from this lamentable disclosure would appear to be that children dislike that “dry drudgery at the desk’s dead wood,” or that they are neither encouraged nor compelled by their parents or guides to thread the path of learning.

Whatever the cause, the fact is a national scandal.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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Galway in Days Gone By

Galway In Days Gone By

Published

2 weeks ago

February 18, 2021

Stephen Corrigan

Flooding in front of the Spanish Arch and Galway City Museum on November 11, 1977.

1921

What the public wants

Apart from the fact that to permit young children to remain up late in the heavy atmosphere of a picture theatre is detrimental to their health, there can be little objection to children seeing pictures – provided always they are the right kind of picture.

Recently, we have had a surplus of war propaganda pictures. The world is heartily sick of the game of killing and all its hideous trappings. We want to turn the young minds to the victories of peace, to the ways of high endeavour and moral greatness, to replace sordid meanness and intrigue with sterling honour and openness of the soul.

Stories of the crude justice of the Wild West are scarcely calculated to do this, any more than the hectic and neurotic ethical standard set up in silly serials may be supposed to direct the young idea along the paths that are best in life.

And we want happy, healthy laughter. The comedy pictures are perhaps the least objectionable. Bud Fisher stands alone, perhaps, in the great work he has done for humanity. But why should not filmmakers and scenario writers gather more from the old classical novels and the best stories from modern writers, from all that is noble and of good report, and less from the ugly things in life?

We suppose, as in the case of the yellow Press, so long as war and tragedy are “good selling lines” the film producers will “play them up”. In other words, they will give the public what it wants and therefore, what it deserves.

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

3 weeks ago

February 11, 2021

Stephen Corrigan

A dog joins in the action during and AIB League game between Galwegians and Bective Rangers at Crowley Park in 1998. Photo: Joe O'Shaughnessy.

1921

Money drying up

In calling the quarterly meeting of the Galway County Council for Wednesday next, February 16, the secretary makes the grave announcement that “if the rate is not struck it is unlikely that any further payments can be made to boards of guardians, district councils, asylum, or labourers – in other words, the machinery of local government in County Galway will have completely broken down”.

The statutory meetings of the proposals committee and council called for Wednesday, the 2nd inst., fell through for want of a quorum, this being the third occasion within two months in which the premier body of the county failed to hold a regularly-constituted meeting.

It is but fair to point out, however, that upon the last occasion, a bare quorum would have been available but for the arrest of the members on their way to the council chamber.

On the day following the last abortive attempts to hold a meeting recently, the secretary issued a letter in which he stated that he was requested by seven members who had attended “to impress upon all members whose services are still available” the necessity for attendance, “even at great inconvenience”.

The Council on Wednesday next will find itself faced with a heavy responsibility, but it is a responsibility that grows heavier for every day that those charged with it refuse to face.

House burning

On Sunday morning the dwelling-house of Mr. Mtn. Coyne, farmer, Kiltrogue, Claregalway, was burned to the ground.

Miss Coyne (sister of the owner), a servant boy, and three children of Mrs. Frank Hardiman, Galway (another sister), were the only occupants of the dwelling at the time.

They were suddenly awakened at about 1.30 a.m. by a loud knocking at the door. When the door was opened a party of men rushed in and ordered them out, adding that they were about to burn the house.

Partially dressed, the little household left, and the place was immediately set on fire. The occupants are since being sheltered by neighbours.

On the same night the dwelling-house of Mr. W. Mulroyan, Killtulla, Castlegar; the haggards of Thomas Fallon, Two-Mile-Ditch, Castlegar, and Luke Ryan, Castlegar, were also destroyed.

The burnings are variously stated to be a sequel to the Kilroe ambush and to the raiding of the Galway-Tuam mail car.

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.