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

3 days ago

September 16, 2021

Stephen Corrigan

President Eamon de Valera speaking at the opening of Coláiste Lurgan, Knock, Indreabhán, on August 4, 1968.

1921

Life in internment

A Gort man at Ballykinlar sends to the West and interesting account of the conditions in the internment camp, where so many men from our country are at present held prisoner without charge every having been preferred against them, without trial or conviction.

There are some disturbing features in his report, the cause of which might well be removed at this period when the Truce is being so well observed, when peace is in the air. For instance, he begins by the complaint that whilst the English papers are freely delivered, there is difficulty in getting their own papers.

“The camp,” he goes on, “is an improvement on the Earl’s Island death trap or the Town Hall poison den. There is a greater sense of security here than in either of those places. The food is inadequate, and doubtful of quality, as you may have seen by the Press. The men here have to put up a great fight against the ennui, which anyone acquainted with internment has experienced. Physical development classes and outdoor sports, football, handball and hurling, have kept their devotees fit and energetic, but the vitality is slowly and surely ebbing away.

“Exercises are being less violently participated in, brisk walks are being less frequently indulged in, and a general apathy and listlessness, hardly observable as yet, is, nevertheless, gradually setting in.

“The education board, which owes a lot to Mr. O’Connell, Duniry, to whom all students are deeply indebted, has been instrumental in endowing many of the boys with a liberal increase to their attainments (a description of the work would require a great deal of space), and has provided a much-needed antidote to the deterioration of the mind, which is so invariably associated with internment. The study of Gaelic has pride of place in the curriculum, and many students have made great headway. It is not unusual to find half-a-dozen in a hut almost at any hour carrying on a laboured conversation in Irish or debating some of the finer points in grammar. I believe one f the boys (none of them had a word of Irish coming in) passed for a fáinne at the recent examination.

“Hobbies in arts and crafts have an enormous sway, and a surprising amount of latent talent has been discovered and developed. Silver rings, chased, engraved and inset, have been made from silver coins, that, placed beside the finished works at Faller’s or Dillon’s, would not cause the designs to blush! Bones, more plentiful than meat at the cookhouse, have been manufactured into brooches of beautiful and distinctive design, which, I am sure, will be seen gracing the fair necks of favoured colleens later on.”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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Galway in Days Gone By

Galway In Days Gone By

Published

3 weeks ago

August 26, 2021

Stephen Corrigan

Some of the participants in the Kinvara Fancy Dress on June 11, 1967.

1921

Outdated laws

Ireland obtained her workhouses from the famine. They were erected to ameliorate a condition of things brought about by an alien government – a condition which historians unite in declaring could have been avoided.

On the 25th March, 1846, Tuam, Castlerea, Cahirciveen, and Clifden workhouses were opened, and a rate was struck on the Clifden union. The Tuam workhouse was contracted for July, 1840, at a cost of £7,600 for building and completion and £1,400 for fittings and contingencies.

It was made to accommodate 800 persons but in 1851 it housed no fewer than 2,881 paupers. Sheds had to be extemporised to afford a roof to those who had been stricken by the famine, and scenes of horror were enacted there during the period of the Black Death.

The workhouses also are a landmark of the fact that in these famine years Ireland’s population was reduced practically by half, and that so impoverished had the country become that it was unable any longer to maintain even the 4½ millions left without workhouses.

At present, on the eve of happier times, an effort is being made to reduce public expenditure and divert public monies into more profitable channels by amalgamating existing unions, and thus reducing their number.

Some have claimed that this is a question upon which the ratepayers ought to have been consulted and that in any drastic scheme of reform they should have a voice. None will dispute however that reform is absolutely necessary, and the sooner it comes the better.

The poor, no doubt, we shall always have with us, but when employment is revived throughout Ireland, and wages and the cost of living are reduced, we feel convinced that pauperism in this country will largely disappear and that public monies can thenceforth be utilised much more profitably than in maintaining an army of officials.

The neighbouring county of Mayo has drawn up an elaborate scheme of union amalgamation which the secretary of the county council has courteously forwarded to us. We hope to deal with this scheme fuller in our next issue.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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Galway in Days Gone By

Galway In Days Gone By

Published

1 month ago

August 19, 2021

Stephen Corrigan

Prizewinners Christina McCormac and Maria Walsh, both from Caltra, at the Ballygar Fancy Dress in August 1970.

1921

Emigration rising

The emigration statistics just published show that during 1920 emigrants from Ireland numbered 15,585, compared with 2,975 in 1918 – in other words, emigration last year had risen to about half of what it was in the years before the war.

6,044 men and 9,487 women left Ireland during 1920. But it was pointed out that unlike Great Britain there is no excess of women in this country.

In June 1920, it was estimated that the Irish population was 2,261,000 males and 2,209,999 females, a total of 4,4470,999, or an increase of 86,392 on the census year of 1911. The overwhelming majority of emigrants last year went to the United States.

Connacht supplied 3,801 of those who emigrated, but the greatest number of emigrants came from the county of Antrim, which, including the county borough of Belfast, contributed 1,893 people to swell the population and work for the prosperity of foreign countries.

Let us all sincerely hope that in the new Ireland that is to be, many of those who have been compelled to leave their country will be enabled to return and find bread and work at home.

Irish lessons

Irish Irelanders will be interested on hearing that the Irish classes are now being opened in Galway. Irish classes are being conducted from 11 to 2 p.m. at the Commercial Boat Club, and night classes form 8 to 10 p.m. in the Town Hall.

There is no necessity to impress on the young men and young women of Galway the desirability of their attending these classes. It has been said with truth that if we have no language, we have no country, and during the present “big push” for our freedom it behoves all those who are not acquainted with the language of our country to do their utmost to learn it.

A ceilidh mór will be held in the Town Hall on Saturday, August 20, and it is hoped that the attendance will be large. Irish dances are the real “thing”, but it is unfortunate that they are not as popular as they should be.

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.