Galway in Days Gone By
Galway In Days Gone By
1917
Galway’s crime figures
Addressing the Grand Jury at the Spring Assizes, Lord Justice Moloney said: Turning to the general state of your county, and taking the figures for the East Riding, I find the number of specially reported cases since the last Assizes is 9, compared with 10 for the corresponding period of last year – a decrease of one which is not very great.
As regards minor offences, so far as assaults are concerned, for the year ending 31st December, 1915, there were 69 convictions, and in 1916 the number was reduced to 57. So far as convictions for drunkenness are concerned, I am sure you will be glad to know there has been a steady and progressive decrease for a number of years. In 1913, there was 951 convictions; in 1914, the number had fallen to 836; in 1915, there was a still further fall to 822, and last year it reached the low water mark, so far as the East Riding of the county is concerned, in amounting only to 135. This is a matter, I am sure, which is a gratifying circumstance in the history of the East Riding.
Turning to the West Riding, the number of specially reported cases since the last Assizes is 21, as compared with 32 for the corresponding period of last year, which is a very large and a very satisfactory decrease. While there was a decrease, and a very satisfactory decrease, in all serious offences, there was a very considerable increase in the number of assaults. In 1915, there were 191 convictions for assault, and in 1916, that had risen to 255; and, of course, gentlemen of your experience will probably be able to assign the proper cause to that amount of increase.
It may be that you know the circumstances of what happened in the early part of last year, and how much the social disturbances that had occurred had to do with the increase in the number of assaults. But when you look at the convictions for drunkenness, as far as 1915 and 1916 are concerned, they are practically the same. In 1915 there were 1,388, which is the smallest number there has been for many years. In 1916, they had risen to 1,393.
I can only hope that the figures which are shown on the statistics represent the true state of the county, and that you are prosperous and peaceable, and that you are law-abiding in every true sense of the word.
1942
Emigration hits
Red Cross
Emigration, in addition to its many other ill-effects, is hampering recruiting for the Red Cross and other voluntary organisations which need the largest possible membership during the present crisis.
This was made clear by His Lordship, the Most Rev. Dr. Browne, Bishop of Galway, when he presented certificates to some 200 men and women of the Red Cross in the Aula Maxima of University College Galway. After he had spoken of Galway’s good effort in voluntary, unpaid work for the crisis, His Lordship declared that it would do much better were it not for the numbers which had migrated to England.
“They are being enticed away by recruiting agents. No country would allow its citizens to be recruited for a foreign army; I cannot understand how recruiting at second-hand is being allowed in this country,” he said.
Call to abolish dole
Abolish the dole and give the money thus saved to the farmers to enable them to pay the increased wages to agricultural labourers granted last week by the Agricultural Wages Board. This procedure was advocated strongly at the meeting of the Galway County Committee of Agriculture on Wednesday. The following resolutions were passed unanimously: (1) expressing the opinion that the Tillage Order was not being complied with in the County; (2) stating that the Committee took a very serious view of the loss caused to agriculture by emigration, and (3) suggesting that something should be done to improve the position of farmers, such as subsidising agricultural wages.
The Very Rev. P. Canon Moran, P.P., Chairman, declared that he had seen farmers’ sons working on the roads while their fathers had to hire tinkers to pull the beet.
No Race Week?
Galway may be without its famous ‘Race Week’ this year. Although nothing definite has been decided as yet, it is probable that the Race Committee will be asked to agree to the transfer of the meeting to another venue. Problems have been occasioned by the growing transport difficulties.
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.
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
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.
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
