Galway In Days Gone By

1915

Lusitania sunk

“We are not fighting men, but reptiles – cunning, treacherous and envenomed.” So commented a popular illustrated paper on Monday in demanding that, after the devilish feat of sinking the Lusitania, with its human freight of innocent victims, the Germans should be tried as common criminals.

Up to Monday, 1,452 souls, practically all composed of innocent non-combatants, have, off the peaceful shores of Ireland, been sacrificed to German frightfulness.

Although the first torpedo was sufficient to finish the great vessel, which cost a million and a half, the savages fired another, and yet another torpedo in order to complete her destruction instantaneously, and ensure that she would not be able to make for shore.

The assassin blow was so sudden that escape was well nigh impossible, and the liner, getting a bad list, only one section of her lifeboats could be launched. Within practically 20 minutes, the palatial boat, from which no comfort or convenience that ingenuity could suggest or man’s hand prepare was absent, was at the bottom of 60 fathoms of water.

Down with her, imprisoned, went hundreds upon hundreds of innocent victims, and we are told by survivors that the submarine came to the surface for a moment in order to give its foul murderers an opportunity of gloating over the struggles of hundreds of others in the seething wages. And the only result is red raw murder, for the material loss, as the Cunard Co. Tell us, is fully covered by insurance.

Naturally, the whole civilised world shudders at the black deed, and a cry for vengeance has gone up. Not one nation attempts to defend the assassin who, by this crowning crime, outrivals the most atrocious act of savages known to history.

Even a section of the German people cannot find support for the barbarous act, though the Huns generally proclaim it as “a new triumph for Germany’s naval policy”.

1940

Idle unemployed

At a meeting of Ballinasloe Urban Council, the town clerk said it was deplorable that five unemployed men who were offered plots refused to take them. The plots were free – only a nominal sum of 1s. per year being charged.

Implements, seeds and manures as well as spraying material and expert advice on the cultivation and care of the plots were also free.

The chairman, Mr. M. Connolly, said there were no excuses whatever for these idle young men in refusing these plots.

Coal shortage

The effects of shortage of coal and other necessities since the outbreak of war have been instanced by letters read from the contractors to Ballinasloe mental hospital, who requested management to cancel their contracts owing to the difficulties in continuing supplies.

Extra supplies of turf will be cut and saved to counteract any shortage of supplies of coal for the coming season. The committee of management have their own turbary and have their own labour and transport services in the hospital.

Clash in West Galway

There are a number of members of the Fine Gael party who do not like the decision of the leaders not to contest the Galway election. Their attitude is that nothing can be gained in any direction by not fighting Fianna Fáil.

Foreign games ban

The ban imposed on St. Joseph’s College, Ballinasloe, by the Galway County Education Committee has been removed. Originally the Galway County Council, parent body of the committee, banned St. Joseph’s from participation in the county scholarships scheme on the grounds that rugby was played there, but recently a scholarship to that school was allowed and the committee, seeing that the principle was not being adhered to, felt that the name of St. Joseph’s should be included in the list of approved schools for scholarship purposes.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.