Galway in Days Gone By
Galway In Days Gone By
1922
A blot on civilisation
Under an efficient Home Government responsible to the Irish people the disgrace of Lettermullen and Gorumna would never have been permitted to remain a blot on our humanity during all these years.
An administration that attempted to apply futile palliatives and to tinker with a problem that demanded an immediate and radical remedy would be compelled to root out this plague spot by an indignant people. For notwithstanding the suavities and excuses of old departmental heads, despite the minor remedies applied by the well-meaning officials in the Congested Districts Board, the condition of the people on these islands and the barren inhospitable mainland of Carraroe is a scandal and a reproach in a nation where there is an abundance of the ordinary necessities of life.
We agree with Mr. P. O’Maille that there must be a root-and-branch reform. When children are growing more emaciated every day for lack of sufficient food, when their parents are suffering from actual want, the people must see to it that prompt measures are taken to alleviate the immediate distress. The Gaelic League and private subscribers have already taken measures towards this end.
We believe the Provisional Government will, as a result of the reports of their inspectors, send a free grant of seeds for the spring sowing. But demoralising charity must be ended as soon as possible.
The people of these islands are self-respecting, if poor. They must also be made self-supporting; their self-respect must not be utterly undermined.
A first responsibility of the Irish Government is to provide bread and work for them, and to cut clean away from the tinkering methods employed by British Government Departments in the past.
Shelter belts of trees would give colour and life to the neighbourhood. They would provide work, and enable carpentry and cabinet-making industries to be built up in the future. But until the district becomes a self-supporting one – if, indeed, it can ever be made to support such a large population – migration, under the direct control of the Home Government, must be undertaken.
As at present, it is a plague spot that must not be permitted to remain. It would be a disgrace to a free Ireland that bodies of her citizens should be compelled to live in an agricultural community on the bread of charity.
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.
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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.
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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.
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