Galway In Days Gone By

1915

The Kaiser’s Head

At Athenry Petty Sessions, keen interest was manifested in the hearing of the prosecution under the Defences of the Realm regulations against Stephen Jordan, Athenry, Secretary, Galway County Board, G.A.A., for using statements alleged to be in contravention of the said regulations.

Constable Statham deposed he was present at a cinematograph entertainment in Athenry Town Hall on the 12th June. At the end of the programme certain pictures were shown. One was that of the German Emperor’s head in a barrel with that of a lion outside, and underneath the inscription “Get out and get under.”

Jordan said: “Cut it off; what age man are you?, and something to the effect that he had enough of it. When the pictures of the burning of the Church of Louvain and the bombardment of Reins Cathedral appeared, the cinematograph operator, in describing it, said that the favourite pastime of the German army was the blowing up of religious houses. In reply to him, Jordan said they would blow up more.

Witness said when the pictures of the Connaught Rangers and the Munster Fusiliers on the march to Mons were shown, the operator said that the odds against them were 50 to 1. Jordan asked, “What about their coming back?”

When the Turkish troops advancing in the Dardanelles were shown, they were cheered by Jordan and his party.

The picture of the German Emperor was loudly cheered by Jordan and the party with him. When the picture of King George boarding a battleship appeared, there was an objectionable noise made by someone in the audience. He could not say if Jordan was one of that party.

Jordan was convicted and sentenced to one month’s imprisonment with hard labour.

1940

Survivors in Galway

Happy to have their feet planted again on firm earth, but anxious about the fate of their companions from whose boats and rafts they had become separated, twenty-five sailors, some of the survivors from two ships sunk by submarine action in the North Atlantic, were landed at Galway docks on Monday morning from the Norwegian ship, Varegg (Capt. Rolf Iverson).

They were part of two ships’ crews totalling about 120 men. One crew of eighty-seven included eighteen Europeans and sixty-nine Lascars. The other crew had numbered thirty-three.

Twelve Britons on the first ship sunk experienced a double torpedoing in less than four days. After their ship went down with heavy loss of life, they were rescued by another, which itself was torpedoed a few days later.

Creamery bombed

A bomber aircraft of German nationality flew over the area of Campile, Ballymitty, Bannow and Duncormick, County Wexford between 2 o’clock and 3 o’clock yesterday afternoon. Bombs were dropped at each of these points and the Co-oparative Creamery at Campile was wrecked. Three girls, Kathleen and Mary Ellen Kent, sisters, of Terrerath and Kathleen Hurley, Garryduff, were killed and one injured by falling masonry. The Éire Government has lodged a protest in Berlin.

English lie

Holiday resorts in the West of Ireland have given the lie vigorously to an alleged Sunday paper printed in England which told its readers this week that the holiday season in this country was a complete failure.

Hotel-keepers and others interested in the tourist traffic were represented as weeping salt tears because of the absence of holidaymakers from other countries and the failure of the Irish people to take their places.

The Irish people, readers were told, were spending their holidays in their back gardens and feeling peeved because they could not cross the Channel or explore the Continent as in previous years.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.