Galway in Days Gone By
Galway In Time Gone By – A browse through the archives of the Connacht Tribune
1913
Neglected roads
At Portumna District Council, Mr. Moran, Co. Surveyor reported: “Very little work has been done in your district during the quarter.
The gross quantity of material specified for all your roads is approximately 7,040 tons, and out of this amount, about 2,600 tons, or slightly less than 37%, has been laid down.
“With such a deficiency staring us in the face, and at a period of the year most favourable for work of the description, it is out of the question to expect much road improvement in your district, and this is principally the reason why we find bare and rough surfaced roads so plentiful in your district.
“The work of surface cleaning, so essential in bad weather, has been very much neglected in your district. It is astonishing how periodical cleansing helps to preserve a road, especially is such situations where drainage is naturally defective.
“A noticeable feature in the work of road maintenance in your district is the want of skill in doing surface work. For instance, in some cases, we find the high or ridgy portions of the road getting all the material, while the weak and depressed portions are neglected.”
Fountain vandalised
At the meeting of the Urban Council, the Town Steward (Mr. Molloy) reported that the fountain at Taylor’s Hill had been maliciously broken. He advised the board not to have the fountain repaired, as the breakage was a recurring one.
Replying to Mr. Faller, Mr. Molloy said it had been broken six months ago.
Chairman (Mr. P. Curran): The people in the vicinity, for whose convenience it was erected, ought to look after it.
Mr. Faller, on being informed by the Town Steward that the cost of the repairs would be 3s. or 4s., moved that it be repaired again, and in the event of it being broken during the ensuing 12 months, that they have nothing more to do with it.
Mr. M. Redington, in seconding the motion, said he believed the people in the vicinity had nothing to do with the breakages, and if they did not repair the pump, it would mean causing a great hardship on innocent people.
1938
Ashford Castle to be sold
Ashford estate, Cong, part of the property of the Iveagh Trust, definitely is to be sold, Mr. Baker, private secretary to the Hon. A.E. Guinness, told a Connacht Tribune representative.
“It is with great reluctance and regret that Mr. Guinness had to adopt this course, but several things had to be taken into consideration.”
Mr. Guinness is not the owner of the estate. It is the property of the Trust, and since he took it over it never paid for itself. There are one hundred and fifty employees.
Some portions of the woods were cut at times for the purpose of replanting, but the amount realised for the timber cut would not even pay for the replanting, Mr. Baker said.
There was “constant trouble” there from some of the residents and the employees, he added.
Since the preliminary notice appeared in the Press, there have been numerous enquiries for particulars of the estate, and a booklet giving these in detail will soon be available.
Road collapses
Coming as an aftermath of the previous week’s storms, heavy rainfalls swept over Connemara during the weekend and there was considerable flooding in places. The late ‘bus leaving Clifden on Saturday night met with several floods across the road on its route to Galway.
On Monday, while a motor lorry belonging to Messrs. McNally, contractors, Galway, was passing out by a ‘bus at Shanahilla, Recess, the rain-sodden road collapsed under it and the lorry was thrown over on its side in a field about four feet below the level of the road.
Passengers on the ‘bus rushed to the assistance of the lorry driver, Mr. Joseph Downey, whom they removed from the vehicle in a dazed condition.
Accidents such as the one mentioned serve to draw attention to the unsuitability of the Clifden-Galway road for heavy vehicular traffic – a fact which seems to have been completely ignored when the railway line was closed down and the G.S.R. Company was allowed to substitute ‘bus and lorry service.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
1923
Gloom after war
The special correspondent of the “Independent”, who has been writing of the aftermath of civil war in the West, notes that a feeling of apathy, due to the uncertainty of events, exists amongst the sorely-tried people of Connemara; that politics are referred to only with disgust and that not more than fifty per cent. of the people would vote at a general election; that poverty and unemployment are rife, and there is a growing tendency towards emigration; and that there are bitter complaints of the huge impost of rates and taxes.
It is only too true that there is enough of material for the pessimist to brood over, and that a feeling of gloom permeates country towns. But it is a poor tribute to patriotism that has survived such horrors to encourage this gloom.
It is the duty of all of us to get this pessimism out of the national body and to rid ourselves of the notion that we have not enough Christianity and moral sense left to restore our people to cheerful and ordered progress and industry.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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1923
Peace negotiations
As we go to press, An Dáil is discussing the Peace negotiations between the Government and Mr. de Valera. It was announced on Wednesday for the first time that such negotiations were begun following Mr. de Valera’s “cease fire” proclamation of April 27, and that by the 30th of the month Senators Andrew Jameson and James Douglas were asked by him to discuss proposals.
They said it was for the Government to discuss; they could only confer. Into the ensuring conferences the Government declined to enter personally, but on May 3 the senators placed before Mr. de Valera the Cabinet’s terms, which were that future issues should be decided by the majority vote of the elected representatives of the people, and that as a corollary and a preliminary to the release of prisoners, all lethal weapons should be in the custody and control of the Executive Government.
Mr. de Valera relied to this on May 7 with a document in which he agreed to majority rule and control of arms, but added that arms should be stored in a suitable building in each province under armed Republican guard until after the elections in September, that the oath should not be made a test in the councils of the nation, and that all political prisoners should be released immediately on the signing of this agreement.
“You have brought back to us,” wrote President Cosgrave, “not an acceptance of our conditions, but a long and wordy document inviting debate where none is possible”.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
1923
State of the parties
Speculation as to parties after the next Irish elections is exceedingly interesting, especially in view of the enlarged franchise.
In Dublin, the view appears to be held by a number of people that Labour will make a great bid for power.
Dublin, however, has a curiously insular habit of thought where matters that concern all Ireland and in which Ireland has a say are concerned. We hope this insularity will rapidly disappear under the new conditions.
The country as a whole is backing the Farmers’ Party, and has not the smallest doubt that it will be the strongest combination in the next Dáil, and that it will oust the purely political parties, the one because it has resorted to force, the other because it has been compelled to use force to supress force, and the Labour Party because Ireland feels that at the back of its policy lurks the danger of Communism.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
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