Archive News
February 2, 2011
Date Published: {J}
1911
Attack outrage
A large and representative meeting of the parishioners was held on the chapel yard, Lackagh, on Sunday, the Rev. Father Heaney, P.P., presiding when the following resolution was unanimously adopted: –
“Resolved – That the cowardly attack perpetrated at Lisheenavalla on Wednesday night, endangering the inmates of an industrious home deserves the condemnation of every justly minded person, especially so when it becomes known that the Collins family offered the Kiltulla farm for sale four years ago to the C.D. Board, and offered within the past four weeks to abide by the arbitration of the M.P.s of North and South Galway.
“This farm (mainly demesne land and bog) was purchased in 1900 at a public auction. Its present owner in an industrious tenant whose residential holding and buildings are valued less than seven points. Adjoining the disputed farm are hundreds of Irish acres held by non-resident graziers, about whom there is not even a whisper.”
Cornstacks burned
What appears to have been a most wanton outrage occurred at Kinvara on Sunday night last, when three large stacks of corn, the property of Mr. Michael Corless, were burned to the ground. The affair is said to be malicious and it is altogether inexplicable in view of the fact that Mr. Corless is one of the most popular traders in the district. He has not, it is stated, taken sides in the political controversy that has been raging in the district for some time.
An ugly feature of the affair is that no attempt as made by the onlookers, says the correspondent, to save any of the corn.
Lackagh moonlighters
A daring gun raid was made at Lackagh on Tuesday night, January 24th, at about 8 o’clock, when a party of disguised moonlighters entered the house of a Mrs Greaney and there and then demanded a gun supposed to be kept in Greaney’s house. The gun was refused, whereupon the moonlighters proceeded to raid the house.
1936
Salthill Church
Canon Davis wishes to return sincere thanks for contributions received since last publication. There is an overdraft in the bank of £2,000, and another payment to contractor is already due. “I expect to have the Church completed by next June so as to be available for Holy Mass for our summer visitors. The furnishing of the Church will be a big item, and I therefore earnestly appeal to all who have not yet contributed to come to my assistance. Gifts of Chalices, Vestments, Altars, etc., in commemoration of deceased friends will be gratefully received.”
Child death
That death was due to shock and injuries from burns, which were accidental, was the verdict of the Coroner, Dr. Cusack, sitting without a jury at St. Brendan’s Terrace, Ballinasloe on a 12 year 8 month old boy. The mother of the child said the children were in bed upstairs when she left the house for a few minutes, the father having gone to work.
When she returned, she found the child screaming and his clothes alight. She pulled the clothes off him and rolled him in a sheet. He was then badly burned and died in a few hours. The child must have come downstairs while she was out, as she found some pieces of burned timber which he had pulled from the fire.
Dr. Daly, M.O., who was early on the scene, said the child had extensive burns to the face and body. He did all he could for him, but there was then little hope, and he reported the matter to the Guards.
Quay prospects
The hopes of people living on Turbot Island, who have long been agitating for the provision of a new quay on the north side of the sialdn, were raised during the week by a visit from an engineer who apparently took measurements of the present quay and the proposed site of the new one. The provision of a quay in Turbot will be a highly useful and desirable work. At present the accommodation provided for putting off or landing is inadequate and dangerous. In certain winds, there is an actual risk to life and limb.
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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