Galway In Days Gone By

1919

Tuam en fête

Tuam was en fete on Thursday and Friday nights when the majority of the people turned out to receive Messrs. M. Dwyer, T.C., Chairman, Tuam Guardians, and Mr. M. J. Hoey (who had been released from Derry jail). Elaborate preparations were made from Mr. Hoey’s reception and the town was one mass of illumination.

At the meeting in the Town Hall on Friday night, Mr. G. Guy, solr., said: We had the great pleasure a couple of nights ago of welcoming back an old patriot, Michael Dwyer (applause), but to-night is if anything a still more pleasing occasion because it is in the nature of a surprise.

Mr. Hoey has been released several months before his time. He has not been released through any clemency or kindness on the part of the Government, I needn’t telly you (applause). He has been released as the result of a hunger strike (applause) and simply because they were afraid he might die in their hands like Tom Ashe died (applause).

During the years Mr. Hoey was here in Tuam he was always known to be a respectable, well-conducted Irishman, but he committed the “crime” of taking an active interest in his country (applause).

For that “crime” he was sent to jail for twelve months, and not only was he sent to jail for twelve months but he got twelve months’ hard labour like any common scoundrel or rogue.

Mechanics’ strike

From an obscure quarrel between men and master, in which two motor mechanics, one motor driver and one cycle mechanic were involved, the dispute at Messrs. Bailey’s Motor and Cycle Works, Eyre-square, Galway, has been forced under public notice this week by a liberal display of placards on dead walls and even outgoing vans and lorries, and by a guard of pickets comprising of the disgruntled employees which marches to and fro opposite the shop and garage.

The placards, which are prominently displayed on the breasts of the pickets announce, “We demand a living wage” and “Strike still on at Bailey’s Motor and Cycle Works, Eyre-square, Galway.”

The increased activity on the part of the men was heralded by the visit to Galway of Mr. Liam Slattery, the Organiser of the Irish Automobile Drivers’ and Mechanics’ Union, who declared at Tuam on Thursday, as reported on Page 7, that the conditions under which motor men in that town worked were “enough to make anarchists, let alone trades unionists of them.”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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