Galway in Days Gone By

Galway In Days Gone By

Published

8 years ago

March 12, 2015

Enda Cunningham

A fire at Forthill Street off Merchants Road in Galway in 1967.

1915

Shocking crime denounced

These are the salient sentences from the Public Letter which the Most Rev. Dr. O’Dea, Lord Bishop of Galway, sent to the Rev. Father Walsh, Parish priest of Ballindereen, in condemnation of the agrarian crime by which John Kelly, aged 79, lost his life at midnight on February 25. The Letter was ready by Father Walsh at both Masses in Ballinderreen on Sunday.

“Any of your people who know the perpetrators of this horrible murder should at once hand their names to the police and give evidence against them in open Court.

“I repeat that I hold your parish responsible till they show that they are Christians, by protesting publicly the horror that their feel at such an outrage perpetrated in their midst.

“Till then, the parish of Ballinderreen will be a by-word and a disgrace; and if nothing else can bring them to a Christian sense, I hope the good people of neighbouring parishes will take them in hands by making them feel that they are the lepers and the outlaws of these dioceses. These, I feel, are strong works, but they are deliberately chosen as true and just.

“I thank God that I have only one parish of Ballinderreen. This parish alone has already made me answerable before God for two brutal murders in the few years since I have become Bishop of these dioceses.

“I say, according to the words of Christ in a like case, the people of Ballinderreen are worse off than these pagan blacks of darkest Africa, and it will go harder with them on the day of judgement.

“If anyone asks, ‘Why does the Bishop blacken the whole parish for the crimes of a few?’, I answer, ‘What have your people done to show their horror of those crimes?’.

“I need scarcely add that this letter is not meant in the smallest degree as a reflection upon you, the parish priest, for I know you have done all in your power to civilise and Christianise your people. Rather, I pity you from my heart, and sympathise with you; because I feel that if all my people were like yours, I should regard it as a disgrace to their Bishop.”

1940

Daring poteen raid

One of the most daring raids ever carried out by Gardai in Connemara led to the discovery at dawn on Friday of a poteen-still working at full pressure in a house, on: the island of lnisheire, Lettermullen.

A ten-gallon keg had already been filled with “the fire water”, and the still had been put to “run” on a second keg when the Gardai arrived.

The Gardai dismantled the still, destroyed a large fifty-gallon vat containing two tons of wash and a large quantity of malt, and captured a still, a still-arm and a twenty-one foot copper worm.

The total cost of this seizure which is the biggest made within thirteen years is estimated at £75 and is believed to be the first ever made in a private house. The raid was carried out by Sergeant Patrick Rafferty and Guards E. McSweeney, B. McSweeney and M. McMahon, of Lettermore.

Proceeding at first to Creapach Island some distance from the mainland, the raiding party rowed across the bay and landed at the back of the island of lnisheire unseen. Hearing shouts coming from the direction of a lighted house, Guards E. McSweeney and M. McMahon carried out reconnaissances before proceeding inland. Creeping cautiously across the uneven ground, the guards arrived at the house unknown to the revellers inside.

Making a dash into the house, they found some men and women carousing inside, but seeing nothing to arouse their suspicion, they went into the kitchen where they found a poteen-still on the kitchen fire working at full pressure.

Two men lay fast asleep on a bed nearby while a fifteen-year-old boy tended the still. One keg was found to contain ten gallons of poteen made from barley and oats and the still had been put to “run” on a second keg.

The Gardai then returned to their station with their haul, having covered a total of thirty miles in carrying out the biggest raid with the smallest number of men that Connemara has known – a severe blow to the illicit traffickers.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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Galway In Days Gone By

Galway in Days Gone By

Galway In Days Gone By

Published

1 day ago

March 30, 2023

Stephen Corrigan

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

1923

Capital of Connacht

Retail shopkeepers in County Galway towns complain very justly that they have to go to Dublin and cross-Channel for their goods, whereas in the all too few instances in which they can purchase in the county town at wholesale rates, they find they can do much better as to price and quite as good as to quality.

Has Galway ever considered what it would mean to the town if the wholesale trade were developed to any extent within its walls?

It would mean that instead of crowded streets on Saturdays and occasionally on Wednesdays, we should have eager, active businessmen thronging our thoroughfares every day of the six; that we should have streams of vehicles coming to and going from the city; that business would be stimulated, employment increased and prices reduced.

It would mean that shipping in our harbour would grow and expand, slowly and, perhaps even painfully, at first, that coastwise traffic would be developed, and that Galway would in course of time become in fact, as well as in the name, the capital of Connacht.

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

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

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 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.

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