Galway In Days Gone By

1920

Dairy decline

The extended report of the evidence given before the Commission appointed “to enquire into the causes of, and suggest remedies for, the decline of dairying in Ireland,” should be carefully studied.

Prior to the war, a Milk Commission took evidence at Galway and throughout Ireland and Great Britain, but the outbreak of hostilities so altered the situation that a review of the position has now become essential.

The decline of dairying is obviously due to the fact that the Department of Agriculture permitted milch cows to be exported from Ireland in considerable numbers during the last four years.

In the result, the people living in our towns were reduced to a state of semi-starvation. This condition of things was effectively countered in Galway by the successful establishment of a milk depot.

But the expedient was not sufficient to meet the clamant need. The conflict of opinion between the advocates of the milk depot system and the advocates of increasing the ordinary means of supply does not, in the least, detract from the value of a policy that meets the immediate needs of the public and of the poor, while a better way is being sought to regulate on an economic basis the normal means of supply and demand.

Clifden Castle

The judgement in the now famous Clifden Castle land case has been awaited with the most intense interest not merely by the people of Connemara but by all classes throughout the country.  Monsignor McAlpine, who had no interest in the matter save that of the poor tenants who are his parishioners, has lost.

A Chancery Judge has decided in favour of Mr. Joyce and given an injunction with costs, that he is not further to be interfered with in his possession of the Eyre Castle and estate. We may be sure that this decision will be challenged on appeal. But the one fact that emerges is that all this trouble was brought about by the culpable neglect of the Congested Districts Board in delaying for five years the rescue of the Clifden congests.

In 1913-’14 the trustees of the estate were negotiating for the sale of the Castle and lands to the Board for the express purpose of relieving congestion. In 1917 Mr. Joyce got into communication with the auctioneers, and speedily completed the purchase.

He subsequently agreed to sell to the trustees for the tenants upon receiving £20 on his bargain; but Judge Powell has determined that his agreement was made under duress, and cannot stand. Stripped of all the rhetoric that tended to cloud rather than clarify the issues, those are the undisputed facts.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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