Galway In Time Gone By – A browse through the archives of the Connacht Tribune

1913

Beating a donkey

At the Children’s Court, a young lad, the son of a Newcastle farmer, was prosecuted by Mr. Heard, D.I., with unlawfully ill-treating a donkey on the 4th inst.

Mrs. Shewell, wife of Capt. Shewell, Governor of Galway Jail, was the principal witness for the prosecution. She deposed seeing the boy furiously beating a donkey, which he was driving on the 4th September, thereby causing the animal great pain and drawing blood from its side; its tail was also cut.

When she went to where the defendant lived at Newcastle, she found the donkey still under the cart. The animal was in a very bad condition, and looked starved and very thin.

The youthful defendant was allowed out on his own recognisances, his father, who appeared for him, to be responsible for his good behaviour.

Reward for latrine theft

The Town Steward reported that on the morning of 17th inst. one of the money slots on the latrine at Salthill had been broken and a sum of money taken. He recommended that a higher entrance gate be erected, as the present one is too small.

Chairman: I suppose no one knows how much money was taken?

Town Steward: From what I took from it last Saturday, I should say there would be about 4s or 5s taken.

Mr. Moloney: That gate was ordered from the very beginning to be taken down as it was too small.

Mr. Faller suggested that a gate similar to those removable ones in front of shops be erected. It could be put in place every night. He also proposed that a reward of £1 be offered for information that would lead to the discovery of the guilty party.

1938

Chip shop gutted

Galway experienced its second fire within ten days on Sunday night, when a fish and chip shop, the property of Martin Flaherty, Church-street, Galway, was gutted.

The fire began with dramatic suddenness. Mrs. Flaherty, wife of the proprietor, and two assistants were serving customers when, it appears, the flue caught fire and in less time that it takes to tell a sheet of flame enveloped the huge range.

Customers left their suppers unfinished and rushed from the shop terror stricken. Some of the more plucky ones stayed to help to quell the flames, but their efforts were of no avail.

The fire quickly spread to the wooden cubicles, which burned like matchwood.

The Galway Fire Brigade, under Mr. C.J. O’Callaghan, borough surveyor, and Captain T. Duggan, were quickly on the scene. It was too late, however, to do anything for the shop, which by this time was a roaring den of flames.

Two families, Madden and Fortune, who were living on the second floor, quickly evacuated, and their furniture was removed through the windows.

The brigade laid nine lines of hose and fought the flames for three hours. They concentrated on preventing the fire from spreading. The terrific heat cracked many windows along the street. The efforts of the brigade were successful and after three-quarters of an hour they had the fire completely under control.

Poteen swoop

A large force of Gardai from the Headford district made a swoop on Keelkill at two o’clock on Friday morning and succeeded in capturing a complete still-house, which was found to contain two hundred gallons of wash, a still, work, buckets, jars, hurricane lamps, a keg containing five gallons of poteen, and a jar containing four gallons of poteen.

The still-house was ingeniously erected on the shores of the lake, so that the waters of the lake actually filled the purpose of acting as a cooler for the apparatus inside the house.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.