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

1913

Billposters’ dispute

At the weekly Petty Sessions, Sarah Joyce summoned Patrick Ryan for unlawfully throwing down a hoarding, her property, at High Street, on the night of September 23. A man named Martin Durane was also included in the summons.

Edward Joyce, a son of complainant, gave evidence of seeing Patrick Ryan and Martin Durane pulling down the hoarding. The damage sustained was estimated at 30s. Witness reported the matter to the police.

A hoarding at O’Brien’s Bridge had also been pulled down on the same night, as also a hoarding the property of Mr. Hardiman.

In cross-examination by Mr Nicolls, witness said he did not see a young man named McDonagh that night before the boards were taken down. He knew Patrick Ryan had been at sea for five months. Witness said there were three holdfasts missing. His mother had permission for the site of the hoarding from the owner, Mr. Blake of Ballyglunin.

Constable Connell said that the last witness had made a complaint to him that the boards were thrown down by Patk. Ryan, on the 23rd September. Replying to Mr. Nicolls, witness said he never heard that Ryan’s hoardings were thrown down.

The defendant, Patk. Ryan, said that he was at a wedding on the night the boards were thrown down. He had nothing to do with them, nor was he in High street that night.

Mrs. Ryan stated she brought her son from a wedding that night close on 12 o’clock, and he did not leave the house afterwards. A fine of 2s. 6d. was imposed, 6s. 6d. costs and 6s. compensation for damage to the boards.

1938

Hurricane hits trawl

When the sixty-ton trawler, ‘Girl Winnie’, belonging to the Western Ocean Fishing Co., set sail from Cleggan, Connemara on Tuesday evening, en route for London, her crew never dreamt that she was to weather one of the fiercest hurricane within the sixty years’ experience of her seventy-five years old skipper, and limp into Galway docks three days later with her bowsprit and top mast missing, and her sails torn to shreds.

“We were about thirty miles west of Loop Head tacking against a stiff ‘sou-wester’ when the hurricane broke upon us,” the skipper said.

“Our wireless set had gone out of order the day before, so we did not receive the gale warning broadcast that evening. We had noticed trawlers moving in towards the Aran Islands as we passed down, but we thought they were only going in to fish. But we realised what was wrong four or five hours later when the gale arose.

“It hit us like a flash. In the first few minutes a heavy sea crashed into our jib and our bowsprit snapped like a match and was swept alongside. The boat reared up like a frightened horse and as she lurched down into the trough of the wave our topmast snapped with the sudden jerk and broke just at the butt.”

The gale was now at its height blowing at about eighty miles per hour. Mountainous waves came crashing over the trawler’s decks, all hatches of which were battened down, and the crew were waist high in water as each clung on to the riggings with one hand and tried to use the other tying ropes and reefs.

When the storm abated towards morning, the trawler succeeded in reaching Galway, where she now lies in the docks undergoing repairs.

Local fishermen believe the gale was worse than the one which caused the disaster of 1927.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.