Galway in Days Gone By
Galway In Days Gone By
1915
Tale from the front
Lieutenant Lee, of the Royal Field Artillery,Galway in a letter from the front, gives a graphic description of the fighting, and tells pathetic stories of the scenes on the battlefield.
Lieutenant Lee is a son of Mr. J.W. Lee, of Newcastle, Galway, and a brother of Mr. George Lee, B.E., Assistant Co. Surveyor for the East Riding of County Galway.
His father, who served abroad as a Police Inspector, was mentioned in despatches for good work in connection with a colonial campaign.
“I am with a Howitzer Battery, and we have been in action ever since I joined it. It would be useless for me to attempt to describe all the weird things one sees here, and also the thrill of coming under fire for the first time.
“The unceasing rat-tat of bullets and machine guns, and the boom of big guns, one gets used to, but the sight of dead and dying is something that cannot soon be forgotten and always makes one sad and dejected.
“When I first acted as forward observing officer, and saw the terrible destruction of our guns; saw houses blown to atoms, men running for their very lives, while others lay dying and wounded, I used to feel quite sorry for our enemies, but then, when I witness the melancholy sight of the tiny crosses all round the place, marking the resting places of our own brave fellows, I used to feel cross with myself for such feelings.
“The German artillery has not been effective since I got here; they usually shell unfortunate little villages, and it is usually poor, harmless civilians that fall victims to their fire. I was coming through a little village some days ago that the enemy were shelling, and a shell fell right on the roof of a little cottage.
“I got my men to see if we could be of any assistance, and we discovered that the only occupant of the house had been a little boy of six years, who lay dead on the floor, with his poor head bleeding fearfully.
“Just then his mother returned, and the scene was awful. Her husband and son were in the army; her husband was killed and her son was wounded, believed to be a prisoner.
“As we heard this, I noticed one of our huge big gunners, who had gone through absolute hell since early in the war, turn awkwardly and draw his sleeve across his eyes.”
1940
Salthill a disgrace
“When the Galway Corporation have stopped expending money on the Salthill Park, it will have cost £2,200 and still it will never be really finished; it even stands a chance of being bombed some day in mistake for the sandpit of an ammunition works,” said Mr. T. Kenny, Salthill, at a meeting of the Salthill Development Committee.
Mr Walsh: The park as it is is a disgrace to Salthill and the residents should protest about it; there should be some seating accommodation in it.
Very Rev. P. Canon Davis, P.P., presiding: I think the best thing to do would be to send in the memorial protesting about the condition of the Park, which has been signed by so many people, to the Corporation. We could also send a deputation before the Corporation.
We’ll ask them to do up the back part of the park to make it suitable for an amusements show, and to put seats in as well.
Library books ban
In making the allegation at the monthly meeting of the Galway County Libraries Committee that theirs was the most imperialistic library in Ireland, Mr. C. Magennis said he could put forward many reasons for that statement.
He made the allegation during the course of a discussion on a motion calling on the committee not to stock any books containing insults to the German Reich Chancellor. He explained that he was neither Hitlerite nor Anglophile, and would move for the cutting out if anti-Chamberlain books were such stocked.
Mr. Magennis expressed the view that nothing should be done in this country to portray violent feelings one way or another as far as the warring nations were concerned.
An awful lot of books were written by British warmongers, scribblers and pen-pushers for the purpose of getting a certain amount of propaganda over on the Irish and other neutral peoples. Such books should get no place on the shelves of the library.
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.
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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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