Galway in Days Gone By
Galway In Days Gone By
1915
Asleep in charge
At the monthly meeting of the Committee of Management of the Ballinasloe District Asylum, Galway Dr. Kirwan said he regretted to have to bring to their attention the case of two attendants on a night when it was reported a patient was missing.
“I went over to the new hospital to look for him, and when I tried to get in I found there was something wrong with the lock. I shouted up, but got no reply. I then went in through the front of the window, and when I came to the suicide ward, I found the two men in charge dead asleep in two arm-chairs before a big fire. Their names are Campbell and Dolan.
“I remained looking at them for some time, and then went towards them. Campbell woke up and pretended to be reading a newspaper. I had to shake the other man before I could wake him. It is disgraceful that such a thing should occur.
“In this ward, there is a patient who attempted to commit suicide on six different occasions. Campbell has an excellent record for 18 years, but the other man was brought up on a very grave charge before, and has not a good record.”
Campbell said he was not asleep on the occasion and felt the doctor at the door. He didn’t hear a knock at the door. A patient was supposed to have escaped, and he could recognise his voice from the doctor’s. That was the reason the doctor was not answered. He certainly was not asleep.
Dolan said he was dozing for about five minutes, but was not dead asleep. Campbell was about five minutes back after doing the rounds.
It was ordered that Campbell be fined 10s, and that Dolan be changed from night duty to day duty, which means a reduction of £5 a year in his salary.
1940
Hunger striker dies
News reached Headford on Tuesday morning that Tony D’Arcy, of that town, had died at St Bricin’s military hospital, Dublin, at 5am, after fifty-one days’ hunger strike.
He was arrested in Dublin in a raid on a house on February 17 and was sentenced by the Special Criminal Court on March 17 to three months’ imprisonment for refusing to give his name and address and also for refusing to account for his movements.
Large crowds followed the body of the dead hunger-striker as it was borne in his own hearse from St Bricin’s Hospital, Dublin, to the Carmelite Church, Whitefriar-st. The coffin, draped in the tricolour, was taken from the mortuary chapel and placed in the hearse in the presence of a small group of relatives and friends.
Thence it passed through the grounds, while military police, soldiers and gardai, at intervals, stood at the salute.
Poor collection rates
Mr. C.I. O Floinn, County Secretary, told the Galway County Council’s finance committee at a meeting in the County Buildings, Galway, that the Council’s credit bank balance was now £40,355, as compared with a credit balance of £31,137 on the corresponding date of last year.
The rate collection of £7,296 last week had brought the collection to date to 83.6 per cent of the warrants, while the collection on the corresponding date of last year was 84.2 per cent.
Mr. Michael Quinn remarked that an 83.6 per cent collection was bad, and Mr. Nestor held that there was no excuse now for poor collections considering that the fairs were good.
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.
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
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.
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
