Galway In Days Gone By

1914

Connemara Volunteers

Letterfrack, Galway  was the scene of an imposing turn-out of a large number of the Connemara Volunteers on Sunday. As was announced last week, a conference of delegates from the various corps forming the Connemara Battalion was held, for the purpose of electing a delegate to the County Board, a commander of the Battalion, and the usual officers, and for a general discussion.

Delegates attended from the various corps, while the corps of Volunteers from Claddaghduff, Ballinakill, Tullycross, and Letterfrack marched in full strength. The Tullycross Volunteers arrived in Letterfrack at 3.30pm and they certainly made a fine show, wearing hats of the Boer pattern, while the Hibernian division, having their neat badges, were also conspicuous.

They were led by fife and drum band, and were met some half mile from Letterfrack by the corps from that village, and further on by the Ballinakill corps.

They marched in perfect order into Letterfrack, where the Claddaghduff Volunteers were already lined up. The Clifden Volunteers were prevented from being present by having to fulfil a previous engagement to attend at Ballyconneely on that day.

Bigamy on 7d a day

At the weekly meeting of Ballinasloe Board of Guardians, a man named Patrick Treacy, who had been admitted to the House during the week, was brought before the Board. The Master said he was in receipt of a pension of 7d. per day, and he paid 6d. for his maintenance in the House.

He had been at Limerick last year convicted for bigamy.

Mr. Parker: On 7d. a day? (laughter)

Master: He is like some gentlemen I know, who leave their first and second wives in the Workhouse, and they can do the gentleman outside (laughter).

Chairman: You need not pass your own town (laughter).

1939

Gallant rescue

Paddy Naughton, 18, Henry-street, Galway, former Connacht bantam boxing champion, was the hero of a thrilling sea drama on Sunday, when, at the risk of his own life, he saved Miss Mary Ruane, High-street, Galway, who was in imminent danger of being drowned when she got into difficulties while bathing at Grattan-road strand, Salthill.

Mr. Naughton was cycling home from Salthill when, passing by the Grattan-road junction near the Warwick Hotel, he heard cries for help coming from the strand. He dismounted and found a girl shouting hysterically and pointing and to the figure of a girl in the water.

Pausing only to divest himself of his coat, he dived into the water and after considerable difficulty succeeded in bringing the drowning girl to safety. Artificial respiration was administered to the girl by Garda Nalty, Salthill, who was quickly on the scene, and the girl was shortly afterwards able to walk home.

Dr Tubridy’s passing

It is no exaggeration to say that all Connemara was dumbfounded last week by the death of their popular representative, the late Dr. Sean Tubridy, T.D. It is not so much as a politician that Connemara will remember Dr. Tubridy, but as a painstaking conscientious doctor, the whole of whose charitable work for the poor of his native area will never be fully known.

We ourselves have known him to have sat up all night by the bedside of a patient in south Connemara when his fee for doing so was a ‘red ticket’. He saved the life of one of his beloved Connemarians, and that was all that mattered.

It was only one of thousands of similar good deeds in the all-to-short life of a great Connemara man.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.