Galway In Days Gone By

1916

60 panes smashed

Between midnight on Saturday and 6a.m. on Sunday morning, an outrage of a very regrettable character occurred at Bushypark, about two and a half miles from Galway. Sixty panes of glass were broken in the front of Bushypark National School, and the windows at the back and gable end were also smashed. Some of the stones hurled into the building, especially from the back, weighed many pounds and smashed the ashes and the furniture inside.

The motive has reference to the appointment of a teacher to succeed the late Mr. Patrick Concannon of Dangan, who died some six months ago, after having been for years Principal of the School.

Mr. Concannon’s son, Mr. T. Concannon, is said to be qualified for the post rendered vacant by the death of his father, and though the appointment did not go to him, there is a strong feeling in the district that it should have.

The first of these people, Mr. McNiffe, never took up duty at all, owing to the feeling of the people; the second, Mr Waters, took the position only for three weeks; while the third, the gentleman who now fills it, Mr. O’Byrne, late of Moycullen National School, has been only teaching for three weeks.

The police are investigating the outrage.

1941

Pongo and gangster pictures

“There are an enormous number of youngsters who would do anything and everything to get into these Pongo places,” remarked Mr. J.S. Young at the monthly meeting of the Galway Corporation, when asking the Corporation to call on all urban authorities in the country to press for the enactment of a law making pongo illegal.

“This Pongo,” added Mr. Young, “is a shame and a disgrace. I know people who go to these games and lose money that they cannot afford to lose.

Mr. Faller thought that a motion calling for the suppression of Pongo should be supplemented by another dealing with the pictures.

He had been told, he said, that the amount of juvenile crime in Galway at the moment was deplorable and it was due not so much to Pongo as to gangster pictures.

When the Corporation were issuing cinema licences in future, they should see to that matter. If any member of the Corporation wanted to know what was happening, he could go down and ask the police.

Mr. Carrick said that he attended the pictures frequently and he never saw anything to excite him.

Mr. Healy: You are not a juvenile.

Mr. Carrick: I do not see why the cinemas should be curtailed in any way.

Mr. T. Cooke: thought that this was a matter for parents to attend to. They could keep their children away from these pictures.

Mr. Faller: It is up to these licensing authority.

It was agreed to send a resolution to other urban authorities calling for the suppression of Pongo.

Mr. T. Cooke remarked that Pongo was a form of ‘House’, which was an illegal game.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.