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

1913

Church roof set to collapse

The Church of St. Cummin, Oughterard, which is nearly 100 years old, situated in a very poor district in Connemara, is in immediate need of substantial renovation and enlargement. This has been a matter of deep concern to priests and people for many years past, and the time has now arrived when this essential work can no longer be deferred.

An eminent architect, after careful examination of the building, discovered that the roof is liable to collapse at any moment, and should this happen during the celebration of Holy Mass, the dreadful results of such a calamity may well be conceived.

No street lights

In a letter to Ballinasloe Urban Council, ratepayers said: “We, the undersigned, being ratepayers who reside in the west of this town, regret to notice that the lighting of the street lamps in this district are (judging from the past few weeks) to be left unlighted, similar to last winter.

“We now beg to lay the fact before you and your Board, with a view to having the matter remedied. The road from the Union to the railway station has, on several occasions, been left in total darkness. Being large ratepayers, we expect equal treatment with the rest of the town.

“No doubt it may be put forward that there was a moon on the nights in question; if so, it was not above the horizon between the hours of sunset and 11 o’clock, p.m., the road being in total darkness.

“We would also call your attention to the fact that the same road has never been watered beyond the Convent; in consequence, during the past summer, we have lived in a perpetual atmosphere of dust.”

1938

Mayoral chain blessed

Ald. Joseph F. Costello, Mayor of Galway’s recently restored Corporation, knelt in the sanctuary of St. Nicholas’ Cathedral, Galway, before eight o’clock Mass on Sunday morning to receive from the hands of his lordship, Most Rev. Dr. Browne, Bishop of Galway, the new mayoral chain which his lordship had just blessed.

The other aldermen and councillors of the Corporation knelt at the altar rails as his lordship blessed the new robes of their office.

The ceremony was performed as the bells of the city churches and of the fourteenth century collegiate church in Lombard-st., formerly a Catholic church, were ringing out over the city. Incidentally, some of those bells of the collegiate church were donated by the old Corporation, dissolved almost a century ago.

Tourist road

About 140 men have been engaged on the Spiddal-Costelloe road for the past few weeks. This road is to be considerably widened and steamrolled and is part of the scheme of a proposed first class tourist road all round the Connemara coast.

From inquiries made by a “Connacht Tribune” reporter, it would appear that the apparent attitude of the Galway branch of the Gaelic League towards tourism does not at all represent the opinion of the people of Connemara on the subject.

Connemarians resent the insinuation that either their culture or their morals are of such a “hot-house” quality as to be easily adversely affected from without. They are proud of their tradition as regards both, and see no reason why the Galway branch should suspect them of having an inferiority complex in regard to either one or the other.

Connemarians also fail to see how the non-development of the tourist industry in the West is going to prevent thousands of young men from being forced to fly from the Gaeltacht to secure abroad the employment denied them at home.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.