Galway In Days Gone By

1920

Counting in the dark

A correspondent from Ballinasloe district sends us a letter which we deem of sufficient importance to be dealt with editorially.

He says that the report in our last issue that a candidate for election and the representatives of the Press were denied admission to the counting of the votes is a serious matter that should not be lost sight of.

Proportional Representation was new and intricate machine. The purposes for which it was imposed on Ireland were suspect by a great mass of the people. However admirable the system might be in itself, its utility had to be proved, and was in the process of proof at the municipal elections.

In the circumstances, it was of the very utmost importance that everything should be done “openly and above board,” and that, as far as was permissible, the public should be shown the working of the machinery.

We do not, however, go to the length of concurring with our correspondent’s assertions that “P.R. is so intricate that the voting papers could easily be changed form one person to another, if the candidates or their agents had not free access to examine all the papers after each count.”

Of course, anything is possible, but the extreme possibility our correspondent postulates is altogether unlikely – even given the sinister intentions on the part of the Returning Officer and his staff.

Derelict harbour

The ancient borough of Galway has no representative in the Imperial Parliament, and the servants of the “Mother of Parliaments” have wreaked their own sweet will upon Galway Harbour. Concurrently with the announcement that Mr. Robert Worthington has withdrawn the Galway (Barna) Piers and Harbours Bill comes the news that our docks are derelict.

Merchandise-laden argosies from Spain once sailed proudly into this port, which was accounted the third in Europe. Unhappily, under alien rule hundreds and thousands of Irishmen and women also sailed west from Galway, and the population of the old capital dwindled to a mere shadow of what it was. Now the docks are closed. If something does not “turn up” within a month, the dock gates will be thrown open that the tides may ebb and flow as they will.

It is one more sad evidence of faded greatness, one more tragedy of the curse of alien rule. Surely, the citizens will bestir themselves without a moment’s delay.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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