Galway in Days Gone By
Galway In Days Gone By
1917
Annual TB report
The annual report of the Tuberculosis Medical Officer for Co. Galway for the year ending April 31 is deserving of more than passing notice. Dr. B. O’Beirne informs the Sanatorium Committee that the number of applications received for treatment was 316 – 73 more than last year.
Although there were new cases, it does not follow that the dread disease of consumption is on the increase amongst us. The accurate inference would appear to be that the search for infected cases has become more thorough, and that the people, having become more alive to the grave peril of infection, display a greater readiness to notify the responsible medical authority.
Nevertheless, the facts set out in the report are sufficiently grave to merit serious and careful consideration. For instance, Dr. O’Beirne sets out the number of cases reported from each Union during the year as follows: Galway (62); Clifden (41); Oughterard (35); Gort (28); Tuam (24); Ballinasloe (11); Glenamaddy (10); Mountbellew (10); Loughrea (5); Portumna (4).
It is still very prevalent in Co. Galway, the doctor warns us, and more active measures are necessary if its incidence is to be lessened. He declares that it can be cured and prevented.
“If properly attacked, it would, in my opinion, be as scarce in the county as typhoid fever is at the present day.”
It is hopeful, however, that even in remote Irish districts, the public authorities are at last beginning to realise that the health of a community is its most valuable asset.
Local casualty list
Lieut. J. Forde, son of Mrs. Forde, Wood Quay, has been reported as wounded and missing. He was home on leave from the front about twelve months ago. Pte. T. McDonagh, Presentation Road, attached to the Irish Rifles has been killed in action, and Pte. B. Naughton, Henry-street, has been wounded.
1942
Party politics low
No doubt the Fianna Fáil members of the Galway County Council are eminently satisfied with their performance at the newly-elected body on Wednesday. By a total disregard of fair play and the interests of ratepayers, they secured utterly disproportionate majorities on all the committees which were elected that day and reduced the elections to the level of a pitiful farce.
Mr. R.M. Burke, despite the fact that he headed the poll in the Tuam area with the second-highest number of first preference votes given to a candidate in any area of the county, failed to secure election to a single committee.
This was scurvy treatment of the only Labour representative on the new Council, a gentleman whose public career always has been characterised by honesty, decency and an unfailing sense of justice and fairness. Labour, we are sure, will remember this treatment of a representative of whom any party might well be proud – and will note also that groundlings who had difficulty in securing the quota were also boosted on to committees by ruthless “party” voting.
The blind partisanship of the political machine, of course, paid absolutely no attention to the pleas put forward by some of the best men on the Council that the “party” spirit should be left out of the committee elections. That would be too much to expect.
And, equally of course, the Farmers’ Party, Clann na Talmhain, had to be beaten at all costs, with the result, as Mr. Donnellan pointed out, that the representatives of 14,000 ratepayers have been denied adequate representation on these committees.
But, while it is easy to understand the attitude of Fianna Fáil representatives, it is not so easy to explain the curious voting of some members of other parties and the pusillanimity of one or two individuals. A little more support from quarters where Clann na Talmhan had every reason to expect it would have made a considerable difference in the situation to the advantage of the ratepayers as a whole.
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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