Galway in Days Gone By
Galway In Days Gone By
1914
Bulldog claim fails
At the Quarter Sessions before His Honor Judge Doyle, K.C., James McPhilbin, Bowling Green, Galway through his father Michael McPhilbin, sued Mr. Martin Newell, Market-street, for £50 damages for injuries alleged to have been received through defendant’s bulldog biting him.
James McPhilbin deposed that on the 11th August last he, with other boys, was playing at the Shambles barracks, when the ball went over the wall and into the defendant’s yard. Witness went in for the ball, and when he was coming over the wall, and in the act of standing on a window sill, the bulldog jumped up and caught him by the heel of the boot first.
Witness was then knocked, and the dog caught him in the calf of the leg. The dog did not let him go for about ten minutes, at the end of which time a boy in the employment of the defendant released him. Witness was nearly a month in the infirmary.
Mr Newell said that on several occasions he caught the plaintiff and his brother-in-law in the yard, and on one occasion he caught plaintiff in his hen-house.
On another occasion a stone came through the sky-light, and he found plaintiff and other boys concealed. About 20 panes of glass had been broken in his windows. He kept fowl and the dog in the barrack yard and barred up the back door of it, so as to prevent trespass.
His Honor said, in his opinion, the action had failed. Mr. Newell was entitled to keep fowl in the yard, and also the dog, which his Honor believed was a quiet one, otherwise Mr. Newell would have taken steps to keep it confined. He was satisfied that the boy was a trespasser on the occasion, and he dismissed the action.
1939
Havoc and terror
Residents of Clifden, Connemara, were startled from their slumbers at 7.30 on Monday morning when a thunderstorm of an intensity never before experienced broke over the town. Blinding flashes of lightning were almost simultaneous with deafening peals of thunder. Children screamed hysterically, and a number of women fainted. The storm lasted for over twenty minutes.
A flash of lightning struck the spire of the Clifden Protestant Church, ripped part of the masonry, burned up eaves and water drains, and completely destroyed the lightning conductor.
Immediately afterwards, another flash struck the house of Thomas MacWilliams, about fifty yards from the church, smashing all the indows and wrecking the bathroom. Mr. MacWilliams, who was eating his breakfast at the time, was flung across the diningroom by the explosion.
Apart from shock, he was unhurt. Other members of the family were in a house nearby and a woman was cooking her husband’s breakfast when a flash came down the chimney, and she was knocked unconscious.
The Railway Hotel, Clifden, was also struck, but only slight damage was done. The fuse-box in the Clifden Post Office was blown from its sockets and telephone communications in West Connemara was dislocated.
The electric lighting system in the town was put out of action and all wireless sets connected with it were damaged.
Port of Galway
The citizens of Galway will learn with quiet satisfaction and gratitude the report of the acting resident engineer which was made to the meeting of the Harbour Board on Tuesday last. Mr. McCullough stated that the entire work would be completed about the midsummer of next year.
Already the entrance channel has been in a great measure finished and the rock outside the entrance to the dock has been cleared. Soon the dock gates, all the material for which has already been delivered, will be erected and the dock itself will be completed.
Thus we see the approaching completion of an effort for which Galway has striven for almost two generations – an effort designed to compete out outlet to the sea and this to give to the port of Galway the place which the geographical position of the Capital of Connacht deserves.
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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