Galway in Days Gone By
Galway In Days Gone By
1920
Lighten the burden
We have frequently stated that if Labour seriously tackled the question of reducing the cost of living, it could lighten the burden of the poor and the middle class considerably within a very few months.
Moreover, it would have entered upon a thoroughly sane and intelligible policy, by which it would earn the gratitude and support of every class in the community with the sole exception of the profiteers.
Recently an enormous accession of women voters have been added to the register. When this class proceeds to “pull its weight,” it will be seen that it will be all in favour of those who can reduce the costs and anxieties of running the home, and leave a reasonable margin out of the wage or salary earner’s purse to provide the ordinary amenities of life.
At present, the costs of living do not merely keep pace with ever-increasing wages: they constantly outpace wages. In the result thousands of housewives have gone through a period of anxiety which, to those who know little of home worries and a slender purse, are scarcely credible.
Labour has recently shown what it can do in this matter; and however we may criticise the somewhat crude methods employed in certain instances, we cannot fail to appreciate the potentialities of the movement to reduce the cost of living to a reasonable level in Ireland.
It is true that the National Executive of the Irish Farmers’ Union has denied “the right of any section of the community to assume the function of government,” but it is equally true that whilst bacon and butter were being shipped to England, they could not be purchased in the country where they are produced, except at famine prices that placed them out of the reach of any but the most wealthy.
As a result of the conferences forced by the attitude of Labour in placing an embargo on imports, thirty per cent of the bacon already on hands is to be ear-marked for Irish consumption, and for the future the shippers of live pigs are warned that if the proportion of the 17 ½ per cent. permitted to be exported is exceeded, they run the risk that the embargo on live pigs will be re-imposed.
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.
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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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