Archive News
February 22, 2012
Date Published: {J}
1912
Strikers row
At Ballinasloe Petty Sessions, Head-Constable O’Connor charged Patrick Moran with assaulting John McCormack. In reply to Head-Constable O’Connor, McCormack said he declined to prosecute.
He lived in River-street and worked for Mr Flanagan. He joined the “strikers” but didn’t go out with them, and continued to work up to the present. He was working on Saturday the 10th inst. When going up Society-street that night about 8 o’clock, he met young Connaughton that is working in Harpur’s.
He was speaking to him when Moran came up and gave him two blows between the eyes. It was with his left fist. The only reason he could give for the assault is that he didn’t go out on “strike”.
After consultation, defendant was fined 10s and costs or 7 days in gaol.
Daring burglary
At about 9 o’clock yesterday (Thursday) morning two persons were seen going up the principal streets of the city handcuffed, and in the charge of a posse of police. Between them the police carried a weighty wooden box. A crowd joined the procession, eager to know the contents.
Inside the barracks, the constabulary had reneged the duties of the Crown, and set up a delph shop on their own account. There they were all over the floor – solid delph; exquisite china ware, in dainty designs and in every variety.
The police, hearing that the extensive premises of Messrs. Fahy and Co., wholesale grocers and provision merchants, William-street, had been visited by a burglarious party overnight, became active, and Sergeant Daly arrested a number of parties. The four prisoners were detained in the barracks most of the day pending a formal remand.
1937
Court in a car
The District Justice presiding in a motor car to take evidence from an aged lady who could not walk upstairs to the courthouse, was the striking event in a case heard by Mr. W.P. Cahill, D.J., at Athenry District Court on Wednesday.
The Justice and the two solicitors engaged in the case, Mr. W.J.V. Comerford, solicitor, and Mr. Albert Cummins, solicitor, Athenry left the Courthouse and took their seats in a motor car in the garage downstairs, in which the old lady was waiting. Members of the public who attended the court took up positions around the car deeply interested in the unusual proceedings.
Narrow escape
A man from Charlestown County Mayo had a remarkable escape on Monday while he was leading his horse and cart across the railway line at Drimbane crossing, a train from Sligo struck the horse and car, killing the horse and wrecking the cart.
The man had just time to make a dash for safety and had scarcely got clear of the line when the crash occurred. He was unhurt.
It would appear he had forgotten the time the train passed. He had led the horse and cart on to the crossing, which leads from one field to another, when he saw the train approaching.
The train dragged the horse and cart for some distance before it was brought to a stop. After a short delay, it was able to proceed on its journey.
“Shocking condition”
What the secretary (Mr. C.I. O’Flynn) described as “the shocking condition” of some rate collections was discussed by Galway County Council at a special meeting. The secretary said that during the past week, £3,327 has been collected in rates, bringing the total collection to date to £99,298 or 54.5 per cent of the county warrants, as compared with a collection of 47.1 per cent up to the corresponding date of last year.
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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