Galway in Days Gone By
Galway In Days Gone By
1921
Clocks falling back
Summer Time, as designed by statute of the British House of Commons, will end at 3 a.m. on the morning of Monday next, October 3. Thus, whilst the people sleep, time will be arrested, the clock will be thrown back an hour.
Time will, of course, move on its inexorable way quite irrespective of how man may mark its passage. Where the Summer Time has been kept, however, the hands of clocks and watches will be put back an hour on the Sunday night.
From the mechanical point of view, it is safer to put them forward eleven hours, or to stop them for an hour, as it is not good for the clocks or watches that the hands should be moved backwards.
In the county districts Summer Time was scarcely kept at all. The farmer was against it for two reasons: under Summer Time the world was not “aired” at the hour he or his hands would customarily start work, and he found that his workmen began by Winter Time but always stopped according to Summer Time!
Thus he lost a clear two hours. But there can be no doubt that in the towns and to all who work long hours in office, factory or shop, the institution of long summer evenings was a blessing; nor was the saving in artificial light to be despised.
Indeed, Summer Time brings more light to humanity, and enables us to live at smaller cost – facts which we hope the Irish legislature will not lose sight of next summer.
1946
Motorists stranded
Many motorists in Connemara were “caught napping” during the week-end when all the petrol pumps in the area went suddenly dry. Cars which set out on long journeys in the hope of replenishing petrol supplies en route were unable to return to their bases, and motorists stranded on the roadside were quite a common spectacle on Sunday.
For a long time past, motorists complain bitterly of the practice of some garage owners in reserving petrol supplies “for customers only.” Customers are those who lodge their coupons with the garage owner at the beginning of the month. This means that the garage owner’s licensed petrol pump becomes merely a storage tank for the convenience of a limited number of local motorists.
If the system is not illegal it ought to be so, and it certainly calls for investigation by the Department of Supplies.
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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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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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.
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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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