Galway in Days Gone By

Galway In Days Gone By

Published

3 years ago

April 18, 2019

Our Reporter

The Renmore Volleyball team who lost out to Tuam in the Community Games Volleyball final in 1973: (kneeling from left) Geraldine Hosty, Mary Leonard, Mary Arrigan, Captain, Mary Monahan and Carmel Cox. Standing Jacintha Keane, Marie Heavey, Brid Dillon, Marion Sweeney, Joan Burke, Deirdre Mannion and Treasa Dooley.

1919

Five to a bed

It was reported from Corrandulla to Galway Guardians on Wednesday that Martin Lardner, his wife and five children were seriously ill from pneumonia. – Dr. Cusack, M.P., appeared before the board and said that he called at the house when he heard of the case.

The father and a baby were dying. The five children were lying in one bed, and it was necessary to climb over them to give them attention.

The nurse in attendance was doing her work fairly well. The people were very badly off.

Mr. Lardner: I was told that the mother was given up. – Dr. Cusack said he would visit the people again and would do all in his power for them.

The Relieving Officer was directed to get all the provisions necessary for the family’s relief.

Fuel price controls

Arising out of a communication received from the Fuel Controller regarding turf prices, Mr. O’Loughlin said they were having neither turf nor coal at present in Loughrea.

Mr. Greene said local coal merchants were charging at the rate of £4 10s. per ton for coal which was considered in excess of that fixed by the local authority.

In reply to a query, Mr. Connell said the Commissioners allowed a profit of 5s. on coal sold by the ton and 7s. 6d. per ton on coal retailed in cwts. – Mr. Greene said those prices were not observed. He thought the matter should be brought under the notice of the police.

Mr. O’Loughlin: As an urban authority we are bound to fix the price of turf.

1944

Disruption avoided

Not only will the postal service to and from Galway will escape the serious disruption which was expected to follow the drastic reduction in train services, but the new arrangements will provide a more speedy service on most days of the week.

The only set-back is that there will be no despatch on two days every week, but, on the other hand, there will be two deliveries of incoming mails on four days instead of one delivery every week day as heretofore.

The postal service for the country areas also has been reorganised to provide the best service possible under the circumstanes.

Street widening

Preparatory work for the widening of Bridge-street, Galway, and part of Lombard-street is now in progress.

The wall which runs from O’Brien’s Bridge to the ruined building opposite St. Nicholas’s Collegiate Church is now being torn down and a wall will be built further back from the present roadway.

The ruined building which was formerly a fish and chip shop in Lombard-street will be pulled down.

The whole work, which is being carried out by Mr. G. Lee, County Surveyor, is estimated to cost £1,162.

The sharp corner at the junction of Bridge-street and Lombard-street will go and its place will be taken by an easy turn.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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Galway in Days Gone By

Galway In Days Gone By

Published

11 hours ago

January 20, 2022

Stephen Corrigan

A scene from the Clifden Amateur Dramatic Society’s pantomime performance of Robin Hood held in the town’s parish hall on January 12, 1983.

1922

Sovereign rights

The right of opinion, especially in politics, is one conceded in all nations, but that right depends entirely on an unwritten code of honesty and honour that in forming his opinion every citizen makes use of honest intelligence and reason in guiding his judgement and is because a citizen is above lies and misrepresentation in matters affecting the national wellbeing and prosperity of his country.

On this date, January 15, 1922, every man in the West is (if not alien on Ireland’s soil or temporarily in residence) a Citizen of the Irish Free State, under the authority of the Provisional Government of Ireland. This Provisional Government consists of men chosen by the Irish people to represent them and by none others, and is to be in a few months replaced by one composed of those chosen by the Irish people.

Let us now, in endeavouring to point out certain dangers, bring home to the plain people the ordinary meanings of ordinary words.

Sovereign means supreme in power.

Supreme means highest and greatest.

Sovereign rights of the people mean the highest and greatest powers of the people. Now the highest powers are those born in, given to, inherited, owned by the people, to control fully the Government of the country, or in other words, Government of the people by the people.

These God-given rights of the people had been for ages denied the people not alone of Ireland, but of other countries, so the word republic came to signify these rights, and hence we turn up a dictionary printed and published in the U.S. and we read: “Republic – A nation or state governed by representatives elected by the citizens.”

Let me here point out that the Irish Free State now comes wholly and completely into that class, and no other, and that she has once again become, even unwelcomed by her own.

A thatcher at work on the roof of a house close to the Bishop’s Gate at Lower Salthill on March 4, 1966.

Restoring order

Now that the government of the country is passing into the hands of Irishmen, who will have control of all matters affecting the welfare of the old land, it is the duty of all classes and creeds to unite in their efforts to see that law and order will be efficiently enforced, and that there will not be any repetition of the recent looting of shops, which, owing to the frequency with which it occurred, could be regarded as nothing less than a scandal.

In conjunction with the R.I.C., the I.R. police of Galway have taken strong measures to cope with the “epidemic”, and in other ways are leaving noting undone to restore order.

In view of these circumstances, it is to be hoped that all right-meaning citizens and men of good-will, interested in the country’s welfare, will give every possible assistance in the preservation of order, which will reflect the fact that the nation is governed and controlled as a Christian community should be.

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

January 13, 2022

Stephen Corrigan

Some of the cast of the Renmore Panto in 1979/1980.

1922

Violent assault

At Loughrea Quarter Sessions, before his honour Judge Doyle, K.C., Mrs. Anne Lowry, Carhoon, Tynagh, claimed £100 compensation for the alleged kidnapping of her daughter, Julia Goonan (under age), by armed and disguised men, and for the cutting of her hair on the night of October 6 last. Mr. Mulcair, solr., appeared for the applicant.

Julia Goonan, examined by her solicitor, stated she was seventeen years of age, and the daughter of Mrs. Annie Lowry, who resided at Carhoon, in the Portumna district. Witness was at her service with a man named Patrick Harte, Athenry-road, Loughrea, for about six months.

On the night of the 6th October last, four disguised men came to Mr. Harte’s door and knocked. They were admitted by Mr. Harte and coming in around the kitchen asked if he had a girl in the house. He replied he had, and witness, who was in a room off the kitchen at the time, was preparing to go to bed.

“The men, who were looking about everywhere,” proceeded witness, “saw me in the room and they pulled me out. They took a shawl that was hanging on the door and wrapping it around me took me to a motor that was outside and put me into it. I saw another man standing beside the driver when I came out to the car. They then drove me up as far as Nonie Ryan’s house at the other end of the town and on arriving there, took out Nonie Ryan and put her into the motor.

“I noticed some men outside Ryan’s house when the car stopped. They then drove us away up the Ballinasloe road, and when we had gone about three miles they blindfolded us. One of the men gave me a few slaps across the face.”

To his honour: Witness did not know the men. They were masked and blackened.

Continuing, witness stated the men, who apparently went astray, drove them around the roads from twenty minutes to twelve on Wednesday night, October 6, until three o’clock on the following morning. At Knockbrack witness was ordered out of the car and taken away about twenty yards, still blindfolded. She was “hung up” by the hair by one of the men and another shaved her hair in to the bone.

His honour: Don’t girls “bob” their hair to make themselves look attractive? (laughter).

Witness: They do, your honour. – His honour: Did they “bob” your hair or cut it off altogether? – Witness: They cut it off altogether.

Mr. Mulcair: It is apparently growing now. When I saw her after the incident, she was very bare.

In further evidence, witness said the men told her wile in the motor they would take her to Athlone barracks and get two nice Black and Tans for herself and her companion. They subsequently stated they would take them to Ballinasloe barracks, and finally left them at her mother’s house in Carhoon in the morning.

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

December 30, 2021

Stephen Corrigan

Dancers in the Renmore Parish Pantomime, Jack and the Beanstalk, on December 10, 1979. This promotional photo of Anne Sandys, Susan Walsh, Carole Cawley, Mary Stankard, Gisela Junold and Rosalyn Keane, was published in the Tribune ahead of staging at the Jesuit Hall in the first week of January 1980.

1921

No port like home

We produce this message in full, because it contains its lesson for the people of Galway – a lesson which if not read swiftly and acted upon promptly may be lost and may lose for the home port the one feature around which a great city could be built in the year to come.

In the years of peace and progress which lie ahead, trade will be rapidly developed between Ireland and America, and a considerable stimulus will be given to passenger service. Galway is the nearest port to the United States and Canada.

Its claims in this connection are incontestable. Indeed, we believe that those claims are accepted by men like Mr. Arthur Griffith who knows the country thoroughly.

Money to develop the country will assuredly be available in the near future, and one of the first schemes of development is likely to be the opening up of our long-disused ports.

In the future there will be no hostile Liverpool trade interests to content against. We shall be free to develop our own resources in our own way. But theirs will be rival ports on the western coast. Cobh is consolidating its position.

The Galway Port has yet to be made. The people of Galway should see that its claims are kept well in the foreground, and the representatives of Galway in the new government should have all the facts in connection with Galway placed at their disposal.

Establishment robbed

Mr. Murty O’Leary’s grocery establishment, Wood-quay, was raided at about twelve o’clock on Saturday night by burglars when tobacco, cigarettes, polish and other goods, with £5 or £6 in notes and silver were taken away.

Mrs. O’Leary had gone to midnight Mass at the time, and the door was locked when she left. Mr. O’Leary was upstairs at the time the raiders entered, and when he heard some noise at the door a few minutes after his wife had left he did not suspect that anything was wrong.

How these burglars succeeded in getting in, considering that the door was locked, remains a mystery.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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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.