Galway in Days Gone By

Galway In Days Gone By

Published

8 years ago

March 5, 2015

Enda Cunningham

A grandstand view at the Galway v Clare, Church and General National Hurling League game in Athenry on Sunday, April 13, 1997.

1915

Tale from the front

Lieutenant Lee, of the Royal Field Artillery,Galway in a letter from the front, gives a graphic description of the fighting, and tells pathetic stories of the scenes on the battlefield.

Lieutenant Lee is a son of Mr. J.W. Lee, of Newcastle, Galway, and a brother of Mr. George Lee, B.E., Assistant Co. Surveyor for the East Riding of County Galway.

His father, who served abroad as a Police Inspector, was mentioned in despatches for good work in connection with a colonial campaign.

“I am with a Howitzer Battery, and we have been in action ever since I joined it. It would be useless for me to attempt to describe all the weird things one sees here, and also the thrill of coming under fire for the first time.

“The unceasing rat-tat of bullets and machine guns, and the boom of big guns, one gets used to, but the sight of dead and dying is something that cannot soon be forgotten and always makes one sad and dejected.

“When I first acted as forward observing officer, and saw the terrible destruction of our guns; saw houses blown to atoms, men running for their very lives, while others lay dying and wounded, I used to feel quite sorry for our enemies, but then, when I witness the melancholy sight of the tiny crosses all round the place, marking the resting places of our own brave fellows, I used to feel cross with myself for such feelings.

“The German artillery has not been effective since I got here; they usually shell unfortunate little villages, and it is usually poor, harmless civilians that fall victims to their fire. I was coming through a little village some days ago that the enemy were shelling, and a shell fell right on the roof of a little cottage.

“I got my men to see if we could be of any assistance, and we discovered that the only occupant of the house had been a little boy of six years, who lay dead on the floor, with his poor head bleeding fearfully.

“Just then his mother returned, and the scene was awful. Her husband and son were in the army; her husband was killed and her son was wounded, believed to be a prisoner.

“As we heard this, I noticed one of our huge big gunners, who had gone through absolute hell since early in the war, turn awkwardly and draw his sleeve across his eyes.”

1940

Salthill a disgrace

“When the Galway Corporation have stopped expending money on the Salthill Park, it will have cost £2,200 and still it will never be really finished; it even stands a chance of being bombed some day in mistake for the sandpit of an ammunition works,” said Mr. T. Kenny, Salthill, at a meeting of the Salthill Development Committee.

Mr Walsh: The park as it is is a disgrace to Salthill and the residents should protest about it; there should be some seating accommodation in it.

Very Rev. P. Canon Davis, P.P., presiding: I think the best thing to do would be to send in the memorial protesting about the condition of the Park, which has been signed by so many people, to the Corporation. We could also send a deputation before the Corporation.

We’ll ask them to do up the back part of the park to make it suitable for an amusements show, and to put seats in as well.

Library books ban

In making the allegation at the monthly meeting of the Galway County Libraries Committee that theirs was the most imperialistic library in Ireland, Mr. C. Magennis said he could put forward many reasons for that statement.

He made the allegation during the course of a discussion on a motion calling on the committee not to stock any books containing insults to the German Reich Chancellor. He explained that he was neither Hitlerite nor Anglophile, and would move for the cutting out if anti-Chamberlain books were such stocked.

Mr. Magennis expressed the view that nothing should be done in this country to portray violent feelings one way or another as far as the warring nations were concerned.

An awful lot of books were written by British warmongers, scribblers and pen-pushers for the purpose of getting a certain amount of propaganda over on the Irish and other neutral peoples. Such books should get no place on the shelves of the library.

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

June 8, 2023

Stephen Corrigan

Crowds taking a dip in the sea and at the tidal pools in Salthill. Photo taken between 1957 and 1964.

1923

Cancer campaign

After tuberculosis, cancer takes the greatest toll on human life in these islands. A serous effort is about to be made in England to grapple with the disease and an appeal has been issued for £1,000,000 to be expended in research work.

Medical men are optimistic enough to hope that as a result of research it will be possible, sooner or later, to prevent and cure the disease.

In Ireland, outside Dublin, little has been done to help in the campaign against cancer. It is a peculiarity of some people that, in this matter of the cure and prevention of disease, they adopt an attitude of indifference. They accept preventable disease as something inevitable and with the resignation of the fatalist.

This attitude of mind and the utter disregard for the ordinary laws of sanitation made Ireland in the past a hotbed of disease. The man who shifted the spittoon fearing that he would soil it with a tobacco spit is still with us.

Enlightenment is, however, coming slowly but surely. In this fight against cancer, Ireland can join hands with the sister isle in the common cause of humanity. It is to be hoped, therefore, that the appeals made to hospital committees like those in Galway and other parts of Ireland for financial help will not fall on deaf ears.

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

June 1, 2023

Stephen Corrigan

A group of young people sitting on PJ Ruane's horse cart off New Road near the canal in Parkavara, Galway City in 1985.

1923 – The impact of war

It is just nine years since the news of the European War fell upon a Galway gathering to celebrate Race Week. The banks closed, international credit and stability rocked upon their foundations.

True, the waves of that terrible conflict broke harmlessly enough upon our shores; our farmers and our few manufacturers grew opulent by supplying John Bull with food and clothing for the war, a few of our towns benefited by a temporary, if fickle and untrustworthy, increase in trade.

But that evening in 1914 marked the beginning of a period during which the progress of ordinary business sense was impossible.

The intervening nine years have not been wasted years: they have been rich with gain to Ireland; they will yield greater wealth in the future if only all of us, putting personal vanities or the desire for political domination aside, will work for the honour and glory of Ireland, material as well as punctual.

One useful way in which this can be done immediately is by brightening our towns, making them put on a cheerful and attractive summer garb, keeping our streets and alleyways bright and clean. In Galway there is little encouragement to do this, for deserts of dust and limestone grit lie upon the streets and are the sport of every wind that blows.

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

May 18, 2023

Stephen Corrigan

Some of the attendance at the opening of the new school in Ballymacward on June 24, 1974.

1923

Gloom after war

The special correspondent of the “Independent”, who has been writing of the aftermath of civil war in the West, notes that a feeling of apathy, due to the uncertainty of events, exists amongst the sorely-tried people of Connemara; that politics are referred to only with disgust and that not more than fifty per cent. of the people would vote at a general election; that poverty and unemployment are rife, and there is a growing tendency towards emigration; and that there are bitter complaints of the huge impost of rates and taxes.

It is only too true that there is enough of material for the pessimist to brood over, and that a feeling of gloom permeates country towns. But it is a poor tribute to patriotism that has survived such horrors to encourage this gloom.

It is the duty of all of us to get this pessimism out of the national body and to rid ourselves of the notion that we have not enough Christianity and moral sense left to restore our people to cheerful and ordered progress and industry.

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.