Galway In Days Gone By

1922

Collins interview

Mr. Michael Collins told Mr. John Steele of the “Chicago Tribune” in an interview to which the romantic interest of the head of a new State attaches that he had just returned from the country where he had spent the week-end reading John Mitchell’s account of the American Revolution and the years following.

This might pass, he said, for a history of the present days in Ireland – “there are the same divisions, the same disorders, the same rebellious elements. America won thorough. So shall we.”

Following this optimistic note, the head of the Provisional Government told Mr. Steele that if Mr. de Valera and his followers refuse to cooperate to end the campaign of anarchy, then he is prepared to fight.

But it will not be civil war. It will be simply a police measure. “If this peace effort fails,” he is reported to have said, “then there will be no other. Every avenue of co-operation will have been explored, and we shall have to take strong action to restore order in the country. It is not an easy problem; for a revolutionary Government, in the nature of things, must take some account of motives. There is a lot of plain looting, robbery and violence going on.

“That is common criminality and must be punished. Also, there is a certain amount of commandeering from what, after all, is a patriotic, if misguided motive. That, too, must be stopped; but it requires a different method. Then there is the question of disarmament. There are too many guns in the country – uncontrolled guns, I mean – and they’ve got to be got in. a gun is a dangerous thing for a young man to have. Some day he may use it in a quarrel over a girl, or over a shilling, or over a word. That is one of the problems the revolutionary Government has got to solve, and is determined to solve, but it cannot be done in a day or two.”

He added that Irish people had the right to vote at an election, even if they voted wrongly.

Second bite of apple

The residence of Captain Gardiner, Lismanny, was raided by armed men on Saturday night and a Ford car taken.

It is stated that when visited some time ago, the car could not be taken away as it was out of order and the raiders had to content themselves by taking the wheels.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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