Galway in Days Gone By
Galway In Days Gone By
1915
Terror of the District
At the City Petty Sessions, Mary Anne Halloran summoned Anne Grehan, Munster Lane, for abusive language, and sought to have her bound to the peace. A young girl named McDermot, of the same street, had a similar summons against the defendant.
Mary Anne Halloran swore she is in the employment of Mr. Griffin, baker. Defendant lives next door to her. On the date in question she called her filthy names and made charges against her.
Ellen McDermot also gave evidence that defendant called her names, because she keeps company with last witness. She followed witness through the town and abused her.
Sergt. Golding gave evidence of the character of the defendant, whose conduct, he said was very bad. She has four or five youngsters, and her husband is at the front.
Mr. Daly: She is the terror of the district. Some of these people think they should excite the sympathy of the Court because their husbands are at the front.
Defendant was bound to the peace for 12 months herself in £5, and two sureties of £2 10s. Each, and in default a month in jail.
Attempted murder
Joseph Kearns, a young farmer’s son, aged 25, residing at Ballyhugh, Gort, was fired at on last Friday night, when the thumb and finger of his hand were blow off, and the second finger badly shattered.
Young Kearns had been in at the merry-go-rounds in Gort that night, and, accompanied by a young newsboy named Wm. Balincher, was returning home. While in the act of lighting a cigarette, and while the light from the match reflected his face, the shot was fired. The thumb and finger were holding the cigarette.
The motive for the undoubted attempt to murder is stated to be attributable to feminine jealousy.
No doubt the attempt on the man’s life was deliberate, and the sneaking would-be murderer behind the ditch has done his best to disgrace the county.
1940
Tourism boom
The Easter tourist traffic in Connemara was rather good on the whole and exceptionally good in some parts. Mr. Noel Huggard, proprietor of the Ashford Castle hotel, told our correspondent that he was compelled to decline over two hundred advance bookings.
Parking problems
With the coming of the tourist season the vexed question of parking again arises. The parking in Galway City has been described by an authority as “the worst in Ireland”, and any remedy to deal with it should find favour generally.
The regulations as they effect the difficulty in Dublin have not met with the wholehearted approval of the public. Motorists have, more or less, always enjoyed freedom of parking almost anywhere they pleases so long as they did not cause an obstruction to the public thoroughfare, and it was not to be expected, therefore, that they would all take to the idea of having to put their cards away somewhere less central or convenient.
Although no ideal parking place in Galway has suggested itself, there are a number of places which might be made available, and whichever places are decided upon their location, having regard to the size of the city, could not be so much out of the way that they would seriously inconvenience anyone.
Migration impact
Twenty families, comprising over sixty people, will be migrated on Friday from the Cloughbrack and Clobur areas to new farms in County Meath.
Our correspondent was informed in Clonbur that this large-scale migration will seriously damage the trading of the little town. Business men pointed out that the families who are leaving the district were all very good, industrious and thrifty and never owed a shilling in any of the shops.
They made a lot of ready money on sheep rearing and on wool. No later than last week, one wool buyer alone paid out £500 for wool at the Clonbur market.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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.
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.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
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.
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.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
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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