Galway in Days Gone By
Galway In Days Gone By
1919
War rents
The war has bred manifold evils, not the least of them being insensate profiteering in all departments of life. A War Rents League has now been established with headquarters at 4, Duke-street, London, and it proposes to tackle the question of house “profiteering.”
The Premier has asked the League to give him a memorandum as to the extent of the practice, the idea being to bring profiteering in rents or in the sale of houses within the scope of the Act.
The Government have at last begun to see that it is absolutely essential that the cost of living should come down, and he put the proposition to Mr. Thomas at the railwaymen’s conference that wages must then also decrease.
Mr. Thomas admitted that in such an eventuality wages might be reviewed; and it is said that this gave the rank and file the impression that the Government was going to reduce wages and precipitated the strike.
At any rate, it is obvious that wages are a delusion and a snare so long as wholesale profiteering goes on.
Excessive price
With regard to the acceptance of the tender of Mr. Martin Ward to supply eggs for use in the workhouse during the ensuing half-year at 9s. 2d. per score, the Local Government Board wrote to the Loughrea Board of Guardians on Saturday stating that the price seemed excessive, and the Guardians should endeavour to procure eggs on more reasonable terms.
Mr. Earls: 9s. 2s. per score is very dear.
Mr. Cahill: That is for the winter months.
Chairman (Mr. M. Henchy): Couldn’t we get them cheaper?
Mr. Earls: 6s. 8d. per score is the correct price.
Chairman: Are we bound to consent to the contract price?
Mr. Connell: In my opinion, Mr. Ward would be as well pleased not to get the contract at all.
Mr. Cahill: You readvertised for eggs three years in succession, and the original tender was lower than the one accepted on each occasion.
Mr. Earls: They won’t be cheaper either.
Mr. Flannery: Let us be careful of a surcharge. If they were that price in Dublin I am sure the Local Government Board would not object.
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
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.
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