Galway In Days Gone By

1919

Unlawful assembly

A Special Court was held on Saturday at Eglinton-street barracks, Galway, before Mr. J. B. K. Hill, R.M., at which Patrick Coyne, Michael Joyce, and MI. Brown were charged with unlawful assembly at Cornamona on the 16th December, 1918. – Captain James J. Duffy, D.I. Oughterard, prosecuted, and Mr.  L. E. O’Dea, solr., Galway, defended.

Miss Ferney E. O’ Sullivan, residing with her mother in the Post Office, Cornamona, stated that on polling day, at about 8.15 on that night, she saw a crowd of 80 coming from the direction of the polling booth towards Cornamona.

When the crowd came opposite our house, she continued, Patk. Coyne, of Carrick West, who was leading, shouted: “Halt; right turn; Up Padraic! And to hell with the Redmondites.”

Pk. Lowry, Cornamona, came to our gate and shouted, to h– with the Government.”

Let him (meaning my brother, Charles) come out now, and we’ll tear him asunder, the bloody —-,”

Patk. Joyce, Cornamona, carried a lighted torch with which he attempted to set fire to some straw, my mother’s property. He also tried to set fire to a bush in our garden.

Michael Joyce, shouting wildly, called on us to come out, and he would tear us asunder, saying: “To h–  with anyone that would side with the Government.”

1. Brown boohed and shouted into the house in a threatening manner. The crowd marched up and down by our house several times, threatening us, and a stone was thrown with great force into the house by some person in the crowd.

We were very much afraid, and my mother asked my brother Charles to fire a revolver shot in the air to frighten the crowd, and he did so.

There were afterwards more boohing and shouting, and cries that they would murder us if we came out.

Mr. O’Dea said his clients were at a disadvantage, not having time to get witnesses, as they had been arrested and brought in by motor car from Cornamona.

Mr. Hill decided to adjourn the case and the three prisoners were allowed out on bail to appear at the next court.

1944

Impossible to bake

Explanation is now forthcoming of the difficulty in home baking with the new flour to which reference has been made in this paper on several occasions. It has become, in fact, virtually impossible to bake with it.

A pot oven cake, in which the usual ingredients, including bread soda, have been used, has a queer trick of becoming smaller rather than larger in the oven, very much to the amazement of the housewife.

We have been conducting enquiries into this phenomenon and now learn from a very authoritive source that there is a marked shortage of acids in the new flour and that the use of bread soda, which is alkaline, only makes matters worse.

For the present, therefore, bread soda should not be used.

The housewife should be certain also that the milk used is fully soured and if Cream-of-Tartar or other highly acid material can be obtained, it should go far towards solving the problem.

The Research Bureau and the Department of Supplies are endeavouring to find ways and means of overcoming the problem and hope to find a solution.

Vandalism is rife

While on the one hand the preparation of plans is about to be undertaken to indicate how a “city beautiful” may emerge from the Galway of to-day, on the other, a wave of vandalism is destroying all that has been done in recent years to make the city a more pleasant place, and is depriving the people of amenities which have been provided at considerable expense to the rate-payers.

A sprit of destruction and theft of public property is rife in Galway, according to a report which has been submitted by Mr. J. S. Carroll, B.A.I., Borough Surveyor, to Mr. C. I. O’Flynn, Co. Manager.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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