Galway in Days Gone By

Galway In Days Gone By

Published

3 years ago

August 30, 2018

Enda Cunningham

Eyre Square on a Fair Day in the 1890s when the item of trade appears to have been hay. Note the tram on its way to Salthill to the right of the photo.

1918

Women attack barracks

Members of the Galway branch Cumann na mBan, numbering about thirty, who left the city on Sunday for the purpose of carrying out evolutions, had an exciting encounter with police near Barna.

They were met on the outward journey by Sergeant Linnane, Barna, who returned to his barracks, and proceeded with constables after them. The police met the party of ladies marching back.

They appeared to be under the command of Mr. Henry Shield, St. Francis-st., Galway, whose instructions were obeyed. On nearing Barna police barracks, Sergeant Linnane asked Mr. Shiels for his name. The latter refusing, Sergeant Linnane placed him under arrest.

It is stated that Mr. Shiels struck the sergeant in the face. The constables having come to the assistance of the sergeant, the ladies attempted to rescue Mr. Shiels. In the scuffle, the police received rough handling, and had their caps knocked off, but eventually succeeded in placing their capture in the barrack cell.

A fusillade of stone and bottle firing on the barracks was indulged by the ladies, whose demeanour became so violent that they only ceased when a revolver shot was discharged in the air by one of the policemen.

Mr. Shiels was taken by motor to Eglinton-st. on Sunday night, and detained there until Wednesday evening, when he was handed over to the military authorities. He is stated to hail from Belfast, and fought in the 1916 Rebellion, in which one of his arms was injured. He has been residing in Galway for some months.

1943

Connemara blow

It is very unfortunate that the Great Southern Railways Company should have chosen this particular moment to increase substantially its rates for the carriage of goods by road to Connemara. West Galway has suffered more than any other part of this State from the Emergency conditions and the Connemara area in particular never was less fitted to endure additional burdens.

Doubtless, the railway company is strictly within its rights in increasing the rates for road transport, but if ever there was a case for the non-enforcement of those rights, it exists just now in Connemara.

Almost daily emigration is taking heavy toll of the population and those that are left are finding it very hard, indeed, to keep body and soul together in these bitterly lean years.

Connemara’s fight against the increase G.S.R. charges reached another stage on Sunday when, at a public meeting in Clifden, a deputation was appointed to interview the Minister for Industry and commerce on the subject.

It is possible that Counsel’s advice may be taken with a view to testing the legality of the G.S.R. action in removing the Galway-Clifden track.

Art gallery project

Negotiations between the Committee of the proposed Galway Arts Gallery and the Corporation have come to an end. The Committee took strong exception to the conditions laid down by Mr. C.I. O’Flynn, County Manager, for the establishment of a Municipal Art Gallery.

They also complain of the “scant courtesy” shown to them in their negotiations with the Corporation.

Nevertheless, the project of an art gallery for Galway goes ahead, and we understand that the Committee has acquired an alternative to the Borough Council Chamber as a home for the pictures.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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Galway in Days Gone By

Galway In Days Gone By

Published

4 days ago

March 4, 2021

Stephen Corrigan

Runners pass the Maxol Garage during the Turloughmore Road Races on June 18, 1981.

1921

Ambush thwarted

Our North Galway correspondent writes: A report was widely circulated on Friday that an ambush party had collected at Gortaleam, a district midway between Dunmore and Glenamaddy.

Two accounts are given of how the report was made, one being that an aeroplane which happened to cross over that part of the country on Friday “spotted” the supposed ambushers and conveyed the intelligence to Galway that groups of men were observed collecting.

The other account, and the one which receives semi-official confirmation, says that an eye-witness of the ambush preparations conveyed the information to a party of police or to Dunmore.

On Saturday morning, forces of auxiliary police and military converged on the scene. It was learned subsequently that no traces of the reported ambushers were to be seen. No walls were knocked, and the roads in the district were not tampered with, although authorities suggest there is no doubt from the fact that the ground was trampled in the vicinity and that other evidences have come under their notice that an ambush was in course of preparation.

Gortaleam is a bleak, open district, and one could not be impressed with the place as being a likely selection for an ambush, although it is suggested the hilly district offered a clear view of the approach along the road and ample cover for retreat.

At a bend in the road stands Gortaleam national school, and a high hill rises up at the back, commanding a view of the surrounding country for a considerable distance. There is an old ruin on the other side of the road opposite the school. It was reported that “the school children were kept locked in by armed men,” but the teacher in charge, when interviewed, declined to make any statement about the matter.

Crown forces searched extensively through the neighbouring district on Saturday. Ever since Dunmore, Glenamaddy, Clonberne, Williamstown, and Kilkerrin have been visited by auxiliaries who searched and interrogated every man they came across. On Sunday, the people leaving the chapels in some of these places were surrounded and terrified.

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 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.

Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App

Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.

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Galway in Days Gone By

Galway In Days Gone By

Published

3 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.