Galway In Days Gone By

1916

Reflecting on the Rising

We are now at a sufficient distance from the dreadful events that took place in Dublin during Easter Week to view them dispassionately, to appraise the aims, motives and methods of those who were mainly concerned in them, and to consider their possible consequences on the future of Ireland.

The outbreak, no matter how regrettable it was, or how ridiculous its issue from the point of view of the chief actors, must be dealt with fairly by the critic.

Much blood has been shed, many precious lives have been lost and owing to shell-firing, a vast amount of valuable property has been destroyed. The cause that would justify all this needs to be a great and noble one, of the highest that the nation can put before itself.

What then, was the aim of the insurgents? We are not defending them, but trying to see the trend of events from their standpoint. It will not do, where evidence is not forthcoming, to ascribe to them sinister purposes, and say that they were out for an orgy of blood and plunder. We must rather look to the studied expression of their hopes and aims as set forth in the document proclaiming an Irish Republic.

Such were their principles, principles for which, as events have proved, they were prepared to lay down their lives. Can we say that their aims were sordid and unworthy, and that the men who professed them deserve unhonoured graves?

Prisoners’ train

Today (Friday) at 1 o’clock, 189 more of the prisoners taken in the County of Galway will be sent to Dublin by special train. These, with the 200 despatched on Saturday, make almost 400 arrests since the Rising.

1941

Brighter city plan

A scheme providing for the further development of the Salthill and Munster Lane Parks, the linking up of O’Brien’s Bridge and the Salmon Weir Bridge by a pathway over the existing embankment that runs between the river and the canal, the repair of the bathing pool at Salthill and the provision of extra seating on the Salthill promenade, has been prepared by Mr. P.J. O’Flaherty, B.E., temporary Borough Surveyor, and is to be sent to the local Government Department for approval as suitable unemployment relief works.

More bad meat

Reporting to the Galway Corporation on a visit of inspection to the abattoir, Dr. C.F. McConn, Assistant County Medical Officer of Health, stated that conditions there were most unsatisfactory from a public health standpoint.

Rather than itemise the numerous defects at present, he urged the Corporation to expedite the erection of a new abattoir where satisfactory conditions and facilities could be provided.

A report was forwarded from Mr. McDermott-Kelly, Veterinary Inspector, on the result of nine visits of inspection during April. Some food which he considered unfit for human food was seized on two occasions and given to the caretaker for destruction

Bad civic spirit

A very bad civic spirit was shown all through Galway Corporation’s campaign for the acquisition of land for allotments, in the opinion of Mr. Wm. Faller, expressed at a special meeting of the Corporation on Monday.

“People who had land to spare would have come forward and volunteered to give it if they had the interests of the poor and workless at heart,” he declared.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.