Galway in Days Gone By
Galway In Days Gone By
1920
Racing optimism
On page six we give the entries for the two principal events at the Galway meeting of 1920. These and the figures we published a week ago indicate that the meeting will outrival all previous records.
Ballybrit has been gaining fame from year to year. Six years ago, it was held under the shadow of the outbreak of the greatest war the world has known. The morrow was uncertain, the first money panic had begun, and students of affairs looked out upon a clouded horizon.
But Galway “carried on” bravely, and the famous week rant its course. Already there is gloomy speculation as to this year’s fixture, but there is an old axiom that “it is time enough, etc.”
The Cassandras love to indulge in gloomy prophecy, but the Race Committee is taking the sensible view, and proceeding with the preliminaries on a scale commensurate with the importance that will attach to this year’s event.
If the worst comes to the worst, and the railways bring us no passengers, the owners will find a way, and the sport-loving West will recognise that difficulties were made to be overcome.
The resources of a sporting people cannot be exhausted. “What did we do before James Watt made it possible to travel by steam?” asked an insuppressible optimist.
Bookeen siege
Rescued in the nick of time, seven policemen who had withstood a continuous siege lasting over two hours, escaped from the burning police barracks at Bookeen, County Galway, in the early hours of Friday morning.
The little garrison on the roadside station, about a mile from the main highway between Athenry and Loughrea, and six miles from the former town, numbered nine men, but one was absent in hospital on Thursday night and the other away.
The barracks was fortified in the usual way. It stood in a remote part of County Galway, the only other important building in the neighbourhood being a country church.
On Thursday night the customary preparations were being made for attack, trees being felled to blockade the approaching roads, and walls being built across them.
About midnight the station was attacked by rifle and revolver fire, and an attempt was made to blow it up and set it on fire.
The seven policemen stood to arms and replied with vigour, hurling hand grenades in the direction from which the fire of their invisible assailants came, but they were hampered by their surroundings and could not make an effective defence.
Meanwhile, Verey lights were sent up for help, and these with the sound of the high explosive rockets and the detonation of the bombs, made a deafening din.
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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