Galway In Days Gone By

1919

Path to pure marriage

Speaking at the Cathedral, Tuam, on Sunday last, his Grace, Most Rev. Dr. Gilmartin appealed very strongly to the people to attend the May devotions in these times of gravest danger to faith and morals.

A distinguished French author once wrote that the maidens of Ireland were the most beautiful in the world because they were the purest.

It was Mary, Queen of May, kept Ireland purest of the pure. She was Queen of purity, and (pointing to the Statue of the Mother and the child) Queen of noble motherhood. In her footsteps lay the path to pure marriage.

“And yet to-day,” said his Grace, speaking with much feeling, “no sooner will a band of soldiers arrive in a town than some few girls will cast themselves on their path. Whatever soldiers may be as men, our concern is not with them here. But, mind this, the path upon which these girls walk leads not to holy marriage and noble motherhood. Oh, then, let the fathers and mothers come, let the children come, let the youths and maidens come here every evening in May to the reception of the Queen of Purity, the Patroness of Holy Marriage, the model of noble motherhood, that these unhappy things may not be.”

Land unrest

In the early hours of Monday morning, D.I. McDonagh, R.I.C., and a large force of police assempled on the lands of Gurrankyle and Lickerrig, near Riverville, and seized upon a number of trespassing cattle which were subsequently impounded at Loughrea..

The Gurrankyle farm, comprising 218 acres, was formerly held on the eleven months’ system from Mr. Joseph Walker, Terenure, Dublin, and recently purchased by Mrs. Emily Atkins, Glebe, Martin and John Whelan and Malachy Raftery, Creggaturlough.

The purchase of this farm by these parties is strongly resented in the district where the people have been agitating for a division of those lands in the interests of the small farmers adjoining for some time.

Rangers’ colours

The Colours of the 2nd Battalion Connaught Rangers, who at present compose parts of the army of occupation on the Rhine, were taken to Galway on Wednesday under an escort commanded by Capt. Payne.

A guard of honour from Renmore Barracks met them at the railway station, and the Colours were deposited in the officers’ mess room at Renmore.

Addressing the men, Colonel Chamier congratulated them on their safe return, and spoke of the valour and bravery shown by the Connaught Rangers during the war.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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