Galway In Days Gone By

1916

Naked and cold patients

At the meeting of Ballinasloe Asylum Committee, the report of the lunacy inspectors on the recent inspection of the institution was read. It stated that patients in some of the male and female divisions were found huddled together, practically naked, in a cold ward, lying on straw, and the conditions of things was scandalous.

They did not think that in any civilised country such a condition existed as they found in the wards visited. The patients were in a most deplorable condition. It was hard to realise that poor creatures who could neither speak or act for themselves would be left in such a manner.

Mr Millar: Who is responsible for this awful state of affairs?

The Clerk said that Dr. Kirwan had asked him to point out to the Committee that it was impossible to have patients done up in the form the inspectors required, as these patients were exceedingly bad, and the heading apparatus would be put in as soon as possible after the war.

Dr English: I am very sorry to have to admit that the report is true, and that things are as they found them. I was not aware that the patients were treated in the position stated and as has been reported, and I had no reason to believe that the patients were treated in such a manner.

I want to make it perfectly plain, clear, and above board, that if they were in the condition they were found in. I know nothing about it, and that my attention was never drawn to it.

Lloyd George’s ignorance

The amazing ignorance recently displayed by Mr. Lloyd George in the matter of coal-raising in Ireland affords a significant commentary on the interest which English Cabinet Ministers devote to the internal affairs of John Bull’s other island.

He confessed in his reply to the representative Irish deputation that interviewed him regarding the making of munitions in this country that he did not know that any coal was raised in Ireland.

1941

Huge turf scheme

A call to private turbary owners, turf societies, commercial organisations and every other available agency to co-operate in the production of turf on a scale never before contemplated, was issued by Mr. Hugo Flinn, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, when he addressed the Galway County Council on Saturday on what he described as a work of real and urgent national necessity.

Unless over 6,000,000 tons of turf were cut this season, he said, there would be cold hearths and empty grates next winter. He guaranteed that every sod of turf of reasonable quality would find a market.

Airman’s body found

On Tuesday morning, the headless body of an airman was washed up on the strand near Oranmore, a discovery which was immediately reported to the local Gardaí.

Dressed in a shirt, collar and tie, a torn pullover, pants and two pairs of socks, the body was that of a sergeant and would appear to have been in the water for several weeks.

Mr. Michael J. Allen, solicitor, Coroner for West Galway, viewed the remains in the afternoon and decided that, under the new regulations, no inquest would be held.

On Tuesday night, the remains were coffined and interred in the Oranmore Catholic Cemetery. It is thought that the dead soldier was one of a crew of the R.A.F. bomber which recently crashed in Galway Bay.

High death toll

For two days after the bombing of Belfast on Tuesday night, special trains continued to arrive in Dublin laden with refugees from the stricken city. Thousands of men, women and children rendered homeless by the raid found sanctuary and every possible help in the Irish capital. In some cases, mothers carried dead babies in their arms.

The dreadful visitation has brought mourning to more than one home in Galway City and County.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.