Archive News
December 20, 2012
Date Published: 19-Dec-2012
1912
Typhus outbreak
At Loughrea District Council, notification of an outbreak of typhus fever in a family at Crinnage, Craughwell, was received from Dr. Quinlan, who stated: “I ordered the patient to the fever hospital, and had the ambulance there, but the mother refused to let the child go.
“Since then the child has died. Two other children were ill some time ago, but no doctor was requisitioned. I have had the house cleaned up and lime-washed, and have served notice on the parents prohibiting the holding of a wake, and ordering immediate interment.”
Loughrea eviction
We understood that harsh evictions were a thing of the past in Loughrea, considering the fight made by the Town Tenants’ Association. Still, we had the very painful spectacle of witnessing a few days ago Mr. Shaw Tener and his understrappers with a protection posse carrying out in our midst the eviction of Widow Murphy from a yard and premises held by her and her late husband, Peter Murphy, for over seventeen years as an acquisition to her business premises, and not for non-payment of rent, but because, as is alleged, a neighbour made a proposal and offered a high rent behind the tenants’ back in consequence of which she was served with notice to quit.
1937
Tuam factory
A public meeting was held in the Town Hall, Tuam, on Friday evening to give further consideration to the proposal that a new factory which would give all year round employment should be got for the town.
Mr. John Burke, chairman, Town Board, presided, and there was a large attendance of shopkeepers and the general public. It was decided to make inquiries of English and Continental fancy hosiery and lace curtain factories for particulars as to that particular industry, which has been recommended as possibly suitable for this locality.
A proposition was also put forward at the meeting that representations be made to the Government to have the now disused flour mills at Shop-street, Tuam, reopened, and a sub-committee was appointed to prepare a case to put before the Minister for Industry and Commerce.
Some months ago ‘The Connacht Tribune’ drew attention to the loss that these flour mills were to Tuam, and on expert advice received it was pointed out that Tuam had a great opening for the restarting of these mills, as there was an urgent demand in the district for them, the local farmers having to go to other far distant places for getting corn milled.
Poor Christmas
With only a week to go before Christmas, Connemara has not yet captured the Yuletide atmosphere. The country people have not come into the towns and shopping centres to “buy the Christmas” and the shops themselves show little sign of the festive season so near at hand.
Nor does one hear any talk of the ‘American letter’ which used to be the sine qua non of happy Christmases in Connemara.
The postman’s bag is growing lighter each Christmas since the stoppage of emigration to the U.S.A. Times are hard over there too, and most of the letters coming back now have, as one old lady put it “an dha cainnt buailte ar a cheile”, for there is no cheque to separate them.
There has been very little employment in Connemara this winter. The amount of money allotted for relief schemes was much less than last year; so the few shillings ‘dole’ together with whatever little contribution the son or daughter in England can afford, is all that many Connemara families can count upon to provide this year’s Christmas dinner.
Farmers out the country have their beet and wheat cheques, but the Connemara ‘farmer’ knows nothing of such luxuries.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
People’s living conditions less than 100 years ago were frightening. We have come a long way. We talk about water charges today, but back then the local District Councils were erecting pumps for local communities and the lovely town of Mountbellew, according to Council minutes, had open sewers,” says Galway County Council archivist Patria McWalter.
Patria believes we “need to take pride in our history, and we should take the same pride in our historical records as we do in our built heritage”. When you see the wealth of material in her care, this belief makes sense.
She is in charge of caring for the rich collection of administrative records owned by Galway County Council and says “these records are as much part of our history as the Rock of Cashel is. They document our lives and our ancestors’ lives. And nobody can plan for the future unless you learn from the past, what worked and what didn’t”.
Archivists and librarians are often unfairly regarded as being dry, academic types, but that’s certainly not true of Patria. Her enthusiasm is infectious as she turns the pages of several minute books from Galway’s Rural District Councils, all of them at least 100 years old.
Part of her role involved cataloguing all the records of the Councils – Ballinasloe, Clifden, Galway, Gort, Loughrea, Mountbellew, Portumna and Tuam. These records mostly consisted of minutes of various meetings.
When she was cataloguing them she realised their worth to local historians and researchers, so she decided to compile a guide to their content. The result is For the Record: The Archives of Galway’s Rural District Councils, which will be a valuable asset to anybody with an interest in history.
Many representatives on these Councils were local personalities and several were arrested during the political upheaval of the era, she explains.
And, ushering in a new era in history, women were allowed to sit on these Rural District Councils – at the time they were not allowed to sit on County Councils.
All of this information is included in Patria’s introductory essay to the attractively produced A4 size guide, which gives a glimpse into how these Rural Councils operated and the way political thinking changed in Ireland during a short 26-year period. In the early 1900s, these Councils supported Home Rule, but by 1920, they were calling for full independence and refusing to recognise the British administration.
“I love the tone,” says Patria of the minutes from meetings. “The language was very emotive.”
That was certainly true of the Gort Rural District Council. At a meeting in 1907, following riots in Dublin at the premiere of JM Synge’s play, The Playboy of the Western World the councillors’ response was vehement. They recorded their decision to “protest most emphatically against the libellous comedy, The Playboy of the Western World, that was belched forth during the past week in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, under the fostering care of Lady Gregory and Mr Yeats. We congratulate the good people of Dublin in howling down the gross buffoonery and immoral suggestions that are scattered throughout this scandalous performance.
For more from the archives see this week’s Tribunes here
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
SLIGO 0-9
GALWAY 1-4
FRANK FARRAGHER IN ENNISCRONE
GALWAY’S first serious examination of the 2013 season rather disturbingly ended with a rating well below the 40% pass mark at the idyllic, if rather Siberian, seaside setting of Enniscrone on Sunday last.
The defeat cost Galway a place in the FBD League Final against Leitrim and also put a fair dent on their confidence shield for the bigger tests that lie ahead in February.
There was no fluke element in this success by an understrength Sligo side and by the time Leitrim referee, Frank Flynn, sounded the final whistle, there wasn’t a perished soul in the crowd of about 500 who could question the justice of the outcome.
It is only pre-season and last Sunday’s blast of dry polar winds did remind everyone that this is far from summer football, but make no mistake about it, the match did lay down some very worrying markers for Galway following a couple of victories over below par third level college teams.
Galway did start the game quite positively, leading by four points at the end of a first quarter when they missed as much more, but when Sligo stepped up the tempo of the game in the 10 minutes before half-time, the maroon resistance crumbled with frightening rapidity.
Some of the statistics of the match make for grim perusal. Over the course of the hour, Galway only scored two points from play and they went through a 52 minute period of the match, without raising a white flag – admittedly a late rally did bring them close to a draw but that would have been very rough justice on Sligo.
Sligo were backable at 9/4 coming into this match, the odds being stretched with the ‘missing list’ on Kevin Walsh’s team sheet – Adrian Marren, Stephen Coen, Tony Taylor, Ross Donovan, David Kelly, David Maye, Johnny Davey and Eamon O’Hara, were all marked absent for a variety of reasons.
Walsh has his Sligo side well schooled in the high intensity, close quarters type of football, and the harder Galway tried to go through the short game channels, the more the home side bottled them up.
Galway badly needed to find some variety in their attacking strategy and maybe there is a lot to be said for the traditional Meath style of giving long, quick ball to a full forward line with a big target man on the edge of the square – given Paul Conroy’s prowess close to goal last season, maybe it is time to ‘settle’ on a few basics.
Defensively, Galway were reasonably solid with Gary Sice at centre back probably their best player – he was one of the few men in maroon to deliver decent long ball deep into the attacking zone – while Finian Hanley, Conor Costello and Gary O’Donnell also kept things tight.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
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