Galway in Days Gone By

Published

5 years ago

August 2, 2018

1918

Senseless crimes
Everyone who desires to preserve the good name of a community and to maintain a right spirit in our people will do his utmost to root out of our midst those senseless criminal injuries that we have so frequently been called upon to condemn.
Even a professional criminal could stoop to no lower degradation than to steal out at night, actuated solely by the motives of malice, to destroy a neighbour’s property, or, more abhorrent still, to injure his dumb animals or endanger his own life or the lives of the members of his household.
At Ballinasloe on Saturday, the spiking of meadows was reported, while Galway Rural District Council received claims for compensation for the burning of thee ricks of turf at Spiddal and one at Knock – a particularly wanton form of incendiarism at a time when every sod of peat fuel that can be saved is needed in Ireland.

Upon an island
A dance, under the auspices of the local branch of Cumann na mBan, was not held, as stated, at St. Brendan’s National School, Loughrea, on Sunday, but on an island on the lake near the town, without the knowledge of the police.
According to rumour, a ladies’ camogie match was to take place at Loughrea on Sunday. Armed police were posted at various points adjacent to the hurling field, ostensibly for the purpose of preventing the match coming off without a permit. The players, however, did not put in an appearance.

Soldiers and sport
A detachment from Gort and a few extra police occupied Kinvara village on Sunday in anticipation of G.A.A. sports that were apparently to have been held without a permit. However, the town of the Auld Plaid Shawl was like a deserted village during the day, even the country folks from Mass giving it a wide berth, and no sports were held.

1943

Race crowd sets record
Despite the fact that transport difficulties have increased considerably during the intervening twelve months, the attendance at Galway Races this year has proved even better than last year’s – a remarkable tribute to the widespread fame and popularity of this great sporting fixture.
Galway and its seaside suburb of Salthill have been booked out for weeks, but the actual race days saw another big invasion from the surrounding counties and the G.S.R. rose to the occasion by extending the service to the city on Monday and Tuesday and the outward service on Thursday night and Friday morning.
Our reporter was informed at the racecourse on Friday morning that the attendance on the two days of the meeting was much better than last year and that under all the circumstances the Committee was very pleased with the patronage accorded to famous Ballybrit.
The increase in attendance this year and the entire dependence of racegoers on horse-drawn transport did not overtax the travel facilities available, for the number of vehicles plying for hire also had increased considerably and some of the jarvies had quiet mornings on Wednesday and Thursday. The most popular vehicle on the road seemed to be a great double-decker coach drawn by a pair of horses. This car took up to twenty passengers.
There seemed to be little or no cruelty to the animals during the hours of daylight at least, but many of the animals – evidently fresh from grass – sweated a good deal.
The vast majority of the drivers treated their animals extremely well. Particularly impressive was the fact that on arrival at Ballybrit, many drivers called at houses nearby to provide buckets of water for their horses and nose-bags were also provided by many.
Guards were on duty at all the cycle parks on the Racecourse to check every bicycle lodged for safe keeping during the day – and the number of cyclists on the road ran into four figures.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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Galway in Days Gone By

Galway In Days Gone By

Published

1 day ago

March 23, 2023

Stephen Corrigan

Young participants during the St Patrick’s Day Parade in Athenry on March 17, 1996.

1923

Optimistic outlook

The optimism of Mr. P. J. Boland was a refreshing thing at the inaugural meeting of the Galway Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday. He saw great good in Galway: it was a delightful place to live and in a place worth working for.

It possessed the elements of greater good in the future; a prideful local patriotism; a desire to see things better done here than elsewhere.

That was a factor that should be availed of but was not. Why? Because men talked and talked of what should be done, but had no organised driving force to translate their ideas into action. Hence the present effort to establish a Chamber of Commerce.

This optimism is a heartening thing, and it will be justified if the new members enter the Chamber of Commerce in the spirt shown by the chairman of the inaugural meeting.

When the Sligo Chamber was being inaugurated of the 29th December last, a Senator A. Jackson, D.L., who presided, pointed out that there was scarcely an important town in England, Wales or Ireland, and certainly not a seaport town that had not a Chamber of Commerce in existence for many years.

He pointed to the significant, but fairly well-established fact in the matter of projected legislation far more importance was paid to representations from Chambers of Commerce than to representations made by municipal bodies or harbour boards.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App

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Galway in Days Gone By

Galway In Days Gone By

Published

1 week ago

March 16, 2023

Stephen Corrigan

Spectators outside Athenry Church awaiting the St Patrick’s Day Parade

1923

Post office raids

A series of wholesale raids on unprotected Connemara sub-post offices are reported. Lettermore and Cashel offices were raided and robbed on Friday night.

Carraroe, Costello and Kilkerrin were also visited by armed men and any money and stamps available were taken. The sums abstracted from these offices vary from £20 to £30.

Telegraph and telephone instruments were broken wherever they were found, and in consequence, the people living in these remote areas on the western seaboard have been much inconvenienced.

Costello bridge was blown up on Friday night last, when most of the raids took place.

1948

Telephone service

In the course of his address to the annual meeting of the Galway No. 1 branch of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union on Sunday Mr.

Everett made a statement regarding the telephone service at Galway which is of great interest to the business community in particular.

He admitted that the delay during busy periods of the day on the Galway-Dublin trunk service amounts at times to about two hours, and that this has on occasions been exceeded owing to one or more of the three existing circuits being out of order.

Delay on busy periods on the lines connecting Dublin with Tuam, Loughrea, Athenry, Clifden and Claremorris was also admitted.

The fact of these days is only too familiar to telephone subscribers in the West. Repeated protests on the matter have been sent forward by the Corporation and the Chamber of Commerce of Galway among others, but hitherto there has been no tangible result.

The facilities now available might perhaps have been adequate twenty years ago, but they are insufficient, to put it mildly, for present-day requirements and business is very seriously handicapped in consequence.

During the war years there was not only a shortage of the equipment which would be needed for improved facilities, but such equipment as could be obtained was more urgently needed for security purposes. It seems however that the war-time difficulties are well on the way to disappearing and the minister was in a position to make some promise of improvement.

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

March 9, 2023

Stephen Corrigan

Young contestants taking part in the three-legged race during St Patrick’s Parish Sports at the Sportsground, College Road, on May 23, 1982.

1923

Food prices

The local committee appointed under the Free State Commission on Food Prices will hold its first public sitting in Galway next week.

The announcement should be received with general satisfaction in a town that, notwithstanding its natural advantages of lake and sea and fertile countryside, provides for its people little of the natural fruits of the earth except at prohibitive prices.

Mr. H. J. Reid, of 20, Dominick-street, Galway, is, as announced elsewhere, acting as secretary of the local committee. Those who desire to give evidence – and who does not desire to prove that life is a hard thing these days and that we could all be very well off if only the profiteer would have a heart? – should communicate with Mr. Reid at once.

Already, we understand, half-a-dozen citizens have expressed themselves willing and anxious to tell the committee how the problem of living affects them. We do sincerely hope that the cooperation of the people themselves will render it possible for the Galway committee to make the most exhaustive inquiries and to do effective work.

It should be remembered that it is our own committee appointed by our own Government – the Government not of the profiteer but of the plain man of Ireland – to do our work.

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.