Galway in Days Gone By
Galway In Time Gone By – A browse through the archives of the Connacht Tribune
1913
Billposters’ dispute
At the weekly Petty Sessions, Sarah Joyce summoned Patrick Ryan for unlawfully throwing down a hoarding, her property, at High Street, on the night of September 23. A man named Martin Durane was also included in the summons.
Edward Joyce, a son of complainant, gave evidence of seeing Patrick Ryan and Martin Durane pulling down the hoarding. The damage sustained was estimated at 30s. Witness reported the matter to the police.
A hoarding at O’Brien’s Bridge had also been pulled down on the same night, as also a hoarding the property of Mr. Hardiman.
In cross-examination by Mr Nicolls, witness said he did not see a young man named McDonagh that night before the boards were taken down. He knew Patrick Ryan had been at sea for five months. Witness said there were three holdfasts missing. His mother had permission for the site of the hoarding from the owner, Mr. Blake of Ballyglunin.
Constable Connell said that the last witness had made a complaint to him that the boards were thrown down by Patk. Ryan, on the 23rd September. Replying to Mr. Nicolls, witness said he never heard that Ryan’s hoardings were thrown down.
The defendant, Patk. Ryan, said that he was at a wedding on the night the boards were thrown down. He had nothing to do with them, nor was he in High street that night.
Mrs. Ryan stated she brought her son from a wedding that night close on 12 o’clock, and he did not leave the house afterwards. A fine of 2s. 6d. was imposed, 6s. 6d. costs and 6s. compensation for damage to the boards.
1938
Hurricane hits trawl
When the sixty-ton trawler, ‘Girl Winnie’, belonging to the Western Ocean Fishing Co., set sail from Cleggan, Connemara on Tuesday evening, en route for London, her crew never dreamt that she was to weather one of the fiercest hurricane within the sixty years’ experience of her seventy-five years old skipper, and limp into Galway docks three days later with her bowsprit and top mast missing, and her sails torn to shreds.
“We were about thirty miles west of Loop Head tacking against a stiff ‘sou-wester’ when the hurricane broke upon us,” the skipper said.
“Our wireless set had gone out of order the day before, so we did not receive the gale warning broadcast that evening. We had noticed trawlers moving in towards the Aran Islands as we passed down, but we thought they were only going in to fish. But we realised what was wrong four or five hours later when the gale arose.
“It hit us like a flash. In the first few minutes a heavy sea crashed into our jib and our bowsprit snapped like a match and was swept alongside. The boat reared up like a frightened horse and as she lurched down into the trough of the wave our topmast snapped with the sudden jerk and broke just at the butt.”
The gale was now at its height blowing at about eighty miles per hour. Mountainous waves came crashing over the trawler’s decks, all hatches of which were battened down, and the crew were waist high in water as each clung on to the riggings with one hand and tried to use the other tying ropes and reefs.
When the storm abated towards morning, the trawler succeeded in reaching Galway, where she now lies in the docks undergoing repairs.
Local fishermen believe the gale was worse than the one which caused the disaster of 1927.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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.
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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.
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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.
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The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
1923
Food prices
The local committee appointed under the Free State Commission on Food Prices will hold its first public sitting in Galway next week.
The announcement should be received with general satisfaction in a town that, notwithstanding its natural advantages of lake and sea and fertile countryside, provides for its people little of the natural fruits of the earth except at prohibitive prices.
Mr. H. J. Reid, of 20, Dominick-street, Galway, is, as announced elsewhere, acting as secretary of the local committee. Those who desire to give evidence – and who does not desire to prove that life is a hard thing these days and that we could all be very well off if only the profiteer would have a heart? – should communicate with Mr. Reid at once.
Already, we understand, half-a-dozen citizens have expressed themselves willing and anxious to tell the committee how the problem of living affects them. We do sincerely hope that the cooperation of the people themselves will render it possible for the Galway committee to make the most exhaustive inquiries and to do effective work.
It should be remembered that it is our own committee appointed by our own Government – the Government not of the profiteer but of the plain man of Ireland – to do our work.
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.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. 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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