Galway in Days Gone By
Galway In Days Gone By
1916
Dangerous Docks
No year passes that a reporter is not despatched on at least a few occasions from these offices on a melancholy mission to the Docks. Some hapless wanderer, or some person on business-intent, has fallen in, and the waters have closed about him.
There is the inquest, and the vote of sympathy with the relatives; perchance a perfunctory recommendation that the Docks be better protected – a few tears and a funeral.
Thereafter, things are allowed to go on in the old careless way, as if “whatever is, is best” applied even to the means to be taken to preserve human life.
This week we have had the melancholy tale of a double tragedy. An aged sailor engaged in the work of protecting our coastlines and securing that we shall have food brought over the seas, and his little boy companion, who had scarce looked out over the threshold of life, have gone to their death.
The Coroner, speaking without expert knowledge, but with human feeling, made a passionate protest.
The Harbour Master replied that the Board of Trade was satisfied, and that the trade of the port would be impeded by hand-rails or life-protecting chains.
So was the Board of Trade satisfied before the Titanic took fifteen hundred souls to their doom, and proved that the facilities hitherto recognised for life-saving at sea were miserably inadequate.
Could not the Docks of Galway, like the Docks of Limerick, be enclosed? Some years ago Mr. James Purcell, of Meelick, walked into the basin at Wellesley Bridge and was drowned. The city rose in indignation; and for the last 20 years, no preventable tragedy has occurred.
Will Galway longer tolerate a careless ineptitude that is content to bask under official approval, and that accepts no inconvenience or cost to protect the lives of its citizens?
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” It is for the people to enforce their will, and insist upon the Harbour Commissioners finding the way.
1941
Blow to cattle trade
The position which I outlined in the Tribune some weeks ago in connection with the export of store cattle has now been officially announced. When cattle exports are resumed – and that may be longer delayed than had been generally expected – the British will not take from us young store animals.
They will, it appears, only take store cattle which are approximately two years old, or technically speaking, animals which have two teeth “set”.
They may even insist that, in addition to two teeth fully grown, two other teeth must have made an appearance. That would certainly mean the end of the young cattle export trade for the present.
Search for plots
Members of Galway Corporation who conducted a search for allotment land – they had received 650 applications for ‘plots’ – found many landowners in and around the city loath to part even temporarily with a square foot of soil.
They did not approach the golf club because, as the Town Clerk pointed out, it would be very expensive to relay the sod afterwards if they had succeeded in getting land there.
The Sports Ground – described by one solicitor as “the Lansdowne Road of Galway” – was not available because it was “almost continuously” in use for sports.
Petrol rationing
“It is very hard to know how the petrol ration is arrived at, because you will see people whose business is not important running around in private cars.”
This statement was made by the Secretary of the County Galway Committee of Agriculture at the monthly meeting.
The Secretary had reported that instructors employed by the Committee were complaining of the shortage of petrol. They were only getting what would be best described as a ridiculous allowance and they were forced to hire cars the rates for which had gone up to ninepence a mile.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
1923
Gloom after war
The special correspondent of the “Independent”, who has been writing of the aftermath of civil war in the West, notes that a feeling of apathy, due to the uncertainty of events, exists amongst the sorely-tried people of Connemara; that politics are referred to only with disgust and that not more than fifty per cent. of the people would vote at a general election; that poverty and unemployment are rife, and there is a growing tendency towards emigration; and that there are bitter complaints of the huge impost of rates and taxes.
It is only too true that there is enough of material for the pessimist to brood over, and that a feeling of gloom permeates country towns. But it is a poor tribute to patriotism that has survived such horrors to encourage this gloom.
It is the duty of all of us to get this pessimism out of the national body and to rid ourselves of the notion that we have not enough Christianity and moral sense left to restore our people to cheerful and ordered progress and industry.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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1923
Peace negotiations
As we go to press, An Dáil is discussing the Peace negotiations between the Government and Mr. de Valera. It was announced on Wednesday for the first time that such negotiations were begun following Mr. de Valera’s “cease fire” proclamation of April 27, and that by the 30th of the month Senators Andrew Jameson and James Douglas were asked by him to discuss proposals.
They said it was for the Government to discuss; they could only confer. Into the ensuring conferences the Government declined to enter personally, but on May 3 the senators placed before Mr. de Valera the Cabinet’s terms, which were that future issues should be decided by the majority vote of the elected representatives of the people, and that as a corollary and a preliminary to the release of prisoners, all lethal weapons should be in the custody and control of the Executive Government.
Mr. de Valera relied to this on May 7 with a document in which he agreed to majority rule and control of arms, but added that arms should be stored in a suitable building in each province under armed Republican guard until after the elections in September, that the oath should not be made a test in the councils of the nation, and that all political prisoners should be released immediately on the signing of this agreement.
“You have brought back to us,” wrote President Cosgrave, “not an acceptance of our conditions, but a long and wordy document inviting debate where none is possible”.
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.
1923
State of the parties
Speculation as to parties after the next Irish elections is exceedingly interesting, especially in view of the enlarged franchise.
In Dublin, the view appears to be held by a number of people that Labour will make a great bid for power.
Dublin, however, has a curiously insular habit of thought where matters that concern all Ireland and in which Ireland has a say are concerned. We hope this insularity will rapidly disappear under the new conditions.
The country as a whole is backing the Farmers’ Party, and has not the smallest doubt that it will be the strongest combination in the next Dáil, and that it will oust the purely political parties, the one because it has resorted to force, the other because it has been compelled to use force to supress force, and the Labour Party because Ireland feels that at the back of its policy lurks the danger of Communism.
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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