Galway In Days Gone By

1915

A Christmas Call

It comes not from the trenches, not even from the actual war zone, this Christmas call that we have received just as we sit down to wish our readers all the joy and happiness that the season of Peace and Goodwill can bring.

It comes from a dismal prisoners’ camp in Limburg, and the writer is a County Galway man. There is a depth of pathos beneath the stilted and carefully censored lines of this post card sent across the “German ocean” with a wish to us for happy Christmas.

It is indeed painfully obvious that the writer himself cannot attain to the happiness that he wishes his countrymen reposing securely at home behind the screen of the British Navy.

In the early months of this year, when it was complained to us that, in the midst of a multiplicity of charities, the Irish prisoners of war were forgotten, we started a Fund, which immediately met with a ready response from our readers.

Through Private P. Kavanagh, of the Irish Guards, a prisoner of Limburg (Lahn), we sent several parcels of cigarettes and foodstuffs to the Irish, and more especially, to the Galway prisoners in that camp. These were duly and grateful acknowledged. Subsequently, when an effort was made to co-ordinate all the War Funds, and when we were assured that the Connacht prisoners in Germany would be carefully looked after, we ceased to appeal to the generosity of our readers.

To judge from the appeal that we have just received from the same grateful heart that told us of the joy there was amongst the Galway prisoners at Limburg upon the arrival of the ‘Tribune’ parcel, Private Kavanagh and his comrades have been neglected since we left it to the new organisation to do the work for which it has ample funds.

We believe that there is some oversight here, else that the goods have miscarried, for we know that the Prisoners’ of War Relief Fund has done, and is doing, splendid work.

In his post-card, Private Kavanagh expresses the hope that we got his last communication acknowledging our parcel, “as”, he adds, “it was very good, and we felt most thankful for it.”

He adds the wish that we shall send him “some more, as it would be, you know, very good here.” What a wealth of meaning there is beneath this sentence.

He also asks for the ‘Connacht Tribune’ every week; but we very much fear that the Prussian authorities would not sanction his literary tastes in this respect!

This simple post-card from an Irishman imprisoned in a strange land brings home to us the fact that this Christmas is unlike other Christmases we have known.

The shadow of a fierce world conflict, and the gloom of an all-pervading sorrow hang over the land. But the very goodwill that is trodden under foot in the heat of conflict, has, in the sigh of such a riot of blood, transfused the world anew.

1940

Christmas Eve fire

A block of three houses at St Antonio Terrace, Salthill, was threatened when a fire broke out in the home of Mr. Ferdinand Pichard, Galway representative of Associated Contractors, shortly after 8.30pm on Christmas Eve.

Fourteen lines of hose were quickly brought into action and the Brigade succeeded in confining the flames to the first storey of the house which was, however, extensively damaged.

Members of the Brigade climbed on to the roof and did heroic work, while others removed the furniture from the blazing building. The furniture in adjoining houses was also removed, but was replaced when it was seen that the danger had passed.

Holiday tragedy

Into the sport and gaiety of Christmas Eve in Galway stepped tragedy when, shortly after eight o’clock, Martin Forde, of Castlegar, a widowed farmer aged 68 years, was accidentally knocked down by a V8 taxi motor car, sustaining injuries which proved fatal.

Farm electrification

Strong pleas were made for power and peat development in the rural areas by western speakers in the Seanad last Wednesday. All senators from the country districts pressed for the extension of electric power to the farmyards.

Mrs. Helena Concannon, who opened the debate in that connection, made a very convincing case for the mechanisation of the farmers’ wives. She definitely wants to transfer to current some of the heavy work imposed on women in the farmyard and household.

Bombs as a hint

The fact that somebody has dropped a few bombs as Christmas presents in Dun Laoghaire and County Monaghan should convince even the most complacent persons among use that we are, as our leaders have assured us repeatedly, well within the war zone.

Only something approaching a miracle has preserved us up to the present from becoming actually involved in the conflict and spending our Christmastide in conditions similar to those of the war-ravaged countries.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.