Galway in Days Gone By
Galway In Days Gone By
1919
Postal delays
Sir – Since early in November the postal authorities have inaugurated “Daylight working of posts,” with the result that we do not get our mails delivered until the morning following their reception at Oughterard Post Office.
Mails reach that office at about 12.40 mid-day, and the post-men (with one exception, the village deliverer) are not despatched until 8 a.m. the following day. This is a great hardship to rural residents, and, personally, I have missed five important meetings through not having received my letters in time.
I live four miles from the local post office, and as I cannot always send in for my mails, I – as well as my neighbours – have to wait for them.
Why are we paying a staff of postmen here if we have to call for and carry our mails? I trust the authorities will remedy affairs at once, and before Christmas, otherwise we shall have “to get questions asked in Parliament.”
I may add that the local post-master is at all times most obliging. These instructions proceed from headquarters.
“A rural resident.”
Oughterard, December 6, 1919.
Farmers’ organisation
The pages of the “Tribune” from week to week afford ample testimony to the progress that is being made throughout the west of Ireland by farmers’ organisations. At the last meeting in Loughrea a suggestion was put forward that, if generally adopted in Ireland, will give these organisations new power and significance.
The proposal that they should be registered under the Trades’ Disputes’ Act was referred to the Farmers’ Union. One gratifying feature about these gatherings is that they afford a common platform whereon all classes of Irishmen can meet and discuss business of mutual concern.
Sir H. Grattan Bellew, who has contributed so much to the industrial life of the district in which he lives, played a very valuable part at the Loughrea meeting. We hope to see men like him playing a greater part in the life of our common country in the future.
Pay and conditions
“In one place in Galway a lot of boys are employed who work sixty-seven hours a week,” said Mr. Seamus O’Brien, organiser, at a meeting of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union in the Town Hall, Galway, on Monday night.
Telling of his visit to this factory, Mr. O’Brien said that the manager admitted to him he had girls working for 10s. a week. Mr. O’Brien asked him would he want his own daughter to work for 10s. a week and support herself. “That was a different question,” Mr. O’Brien commented, “but he gave and evasive answer.”
“This fellow happened to sack a lad belonging to the union. He gave several reasons for it. It was not because he belonged to the union or anything like that. It was because the boy was too hard of a worker, I suppose.” There was laughter at Mr. O’Brien’s sarcasm.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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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.
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Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
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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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