Galway in Days Gone By
Galway In Days Gone By
1917
Plunkett manifesto burned
At the weekly meeting of the Portumna Board of Guardians on Saturday, a circular of Count Plunkett was read.
Chairman: He wants to have to parties in Ireland. He has nothing to do but sending those circulars through the country.
Clerk: He asks you to appoint members to the conference.
Chairman: A conference of factionists.
Mr. Carr: Burn it. We want no party but Redmond’s Party.
Mr. Morrissey: As Wm. O’Brien, in the good old days, said to Balfour’s proclamation: “Send it to blazes”.
Chairman: Plunkett and his Party will get no footing in Galway.
Mr Corr: Throw the circular into the fire.
The circular was then burned. Mr. Morrissey proposed, and Mr Joseph Carr seconded, a vote of confidence in the Irish Party.
Mr. Morrissey: When the Irish party was fighting Clanricarde and the landlords of Ireland, where was Count Plunkett? It was mainly through the efforts of the Irish Party that Clanricarde was expropriated (hear, hear). The resolution was unanimously passed.
Prisoners released
An enthusiastic reception was accorded the prisoners who arrived in Tuam, on Wednesday by the afternoon train, after 31 days’ imprisonment in Galway for the breaking up by ploughing of lands situated at Kilgeverin, and in the possession of Mr. J.D. Blake, Brooklawn, Tuam.
The following resolution was passed: “That we, the members of the Kilbannon, Milltown and Tuam branches of the United Irish League, welcome back to freedom our soldiers of the land war, and we heartily congratulate them on their spirit of Irish manliness and their determination to obtain the lands from which their forefathers were evicted and now in the possession of a middle man.”
1942
Drastic bus cuts
Drastic cuts in Galway City and Salthill ’bus services will come into operation on Monday next, 13th inst. New timetables for these routes and for a large area in the West operating to and from Galway were fixed at a meeting of officials held in Transport House yesterday which was attended by Mr. J.W. Rattray, manager of the Galway area.
The principal changes are as follows: the elimination of all country services on Sundays. In order to prolong the life of the tyres – and the vehicles – the speed of ‘buses on all routes will be reduced so that journeys will take longer in future. In Galway and Salthill there will be a less frequent service in the slack hours, but the peak-hour traffic will be continued.
Further cuts were foreshadowed by Mr. Lemass, Minister for Supplies, in a broadcast on Thursday night. He pointed out that the present inconveniences would last as long as the war – and possibly for years afterwards – and that conditions would probably get much worse before they got better.
Stressing the necessity for stopping all non-essential transport now, he said that the maintenance of transport facilities by road and rail for turf, wheat, beet and other traffics was essential to the avoidance of hardship, even famine.
Further curtailments of road services would be announced during the next few weeks. Practically all country Sunday services would cease. We could not avoid a shortage of transport, he said, but we could reduce it, and might be able, by strict economy now, to delay the day of complete stoppage.
Summer Time
“Double British Summer Time” began in Britain and Northern Ireland on Sunday, but the time in the Twenty-six Counties remains unchanged. British time is now two hours ahead of Greenwich.
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
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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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