Galway in Days Gone By
Galway In Days Gone By
1920
Get on or get out
It is refreshing to turn from the screeching headlines of our metropolitan Press to the isolated local efforts that are being made to get on with the real work of the Irish nation.
A meeting will be held in the Town Hall, Galway, at eight o’clock on Monday evening next for the purpose of forming an industrial association, and making arrangements for the holding of an industrial exhibition in the City.
May we say at the outset that we hope every class and section of the community will attend, not to criticise or sneer, or to give vent to these prejudices that form such a clog on the wheel of progress in our provincial life, but to take earnest counsel together and see if something cannot be done to put new life into our Western towns?
Twelve years ago, four years after the movement had been started in Cork that resulted in permanent benefit to Irish trade by the establishment of the Irish Trade Mark, a great exhibition and industrial conference was held in Galway.
The event was a notable success from the business, social and cultural aspect. If greater good did not come from it, the fault is to be found in local apathy and local divisions, which failed to grasp the splendid opportunity offered, and to extend the activities and broaden the scope of the Industrial Development Association in our midst.
To-day the need for some such effort is more than ever evident. It is said that the cities and towns, like individuals, become worn out: they reach a stage when all their progress becomes arrested, when as it were, they seem only to move backwards.
To stand on any point of vantage in Galway and view the surroundings is to be afforded tragic and melancholy evidence of the evil days upon which we have fallen.
All round about is a sea of dilapidated buildings, of derelict factories and worn-out roofs. It is, in very truth, a city of ruins.
The few redeeming features of modern effort pass almost unnoticed in pervading atmosphere of decay.
Former glories form a fitting study for the archaeologist, a saddening retrospect for the progressive business mind.
Yet water-power flows down to a glistening far-flung bay, with almost undreamt of possibilities. If steady hands and willing hearts were once found to arrest decay, all might be well in a very few years.
The very effort at progress is ennobling. It breathes a new spirit of enterprise, it restores confidence, it ensures expansion. The law of the physical world to-day is to “get on or get out”.
Surely, the citizens of Galway desire the old town to get on; and for that reason they will lend their whole-hearted assistance to any well-meant effort that is made to establish an industrial association that will not merely avail of every opportunity towards progress that comes our way bit that will seek out new opportunities and make the utmost use of them.
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.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
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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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