Galway in Days Gone By
Galway In Time Gone By – A browse through the archives of the Connacht Tribune.
1913
Gruesome inquest
Coroner Cottingham, of Oughterard, held an inquest at Killian’s public-house, New Docks, Galway, on the dead body of an infant, found under gruesome circumstances in the mill race at the Galway Woollen Mills on Friday evening.
Thomas Casey, labourer, Bohermore, examined by Acting-Sergt. O’Sullivan, who conducted the case for the police, stated that he was in the employment of the City of Galway Woollen Manufacturing Co.
On Friday evening, the 20th inst., he was cleaning the grating, or the sluice, at the factory, in front of the turbines. He took up a bag that was tied. He thought there might be young dogs or something in it.
He took up another bag, which was empty. He threw both, with other rubbish, out on the street. He knew nothing further about the matter. He understood that the bag was there all day up to 8 o’clock in the evening.
Ellen Dolan, Newtownsmith, related that about 7.30pm on a Friday evening she heard children shouting; she went out, and saw the bag on the ground, with a little foot protruding. There was a crowd of girls around, and she told them to go for the police. They ran away.
Coroner: The bag was lying on the street?
Witness: It was, sir.
Dr. Thomas J. McDonogh deposed that the body was in a very advanced state of decomposition. The infant was a female.
Coroner: So far as a test is concerned, is it possible to say whether the child was dead or alive when put into the water?
Witness: It is really very hard to make a test. I am unable to say whether it was dead or alive when thrown into the water.
Witness added that the child was almost three weeks in the water.
1938
Happy boys
The popular idea about boys’ industrial schools in Ireland is that they are sort of juvenile jails or penitentiaries. This idea is, of course, an altogether erroneous one to which Letterfrack industrial school “gives the lie”. Here we have at the moment, 130 happy boys undergoing a thorough course of training in various arts and trades and living under conditions to be envied by students of many of our secondary schools.
Although one means of entrance to the schools carried with it the stigma of defendant in the district courts, most of the boys are voluntary boarders whose parents are unable to support them and to whom the school will give a new start in life. A pleasing feature of the school is the absence of uniform dress.
Hold-up arrest
A middle-aged man from Ballyforan, who was arrested by a party of guards from Ballinasloe following the alleged home-up of a postman on the public road last weekend, was taken before a Peace Commissioner’s Court in Ahascragh and remanded to the next court.
The arrest is a sequel to the alleged hold-up by an armed man of Patrick Morrissey, a postman, between Ahascragh and Ballyforan last Friday morning. Morrissey alleged that the man came out of the wood near the village of Ballyforan, held him up on the roadside and took the bag, containing £30 old age pension money, which he was taking to Ballyforan post office.
Cleaning up Ballinasloe
Ballinasloe’s market place is to have a thorough ‘clean up’ and the public are asked to co-operate with the Urban Council in ending the unsightly condition of the streets and market place in Saturday mornings.
“Bonhams, calves and an indescribable mess of paper, filth and litter are left on the streets up to a late hour – 10.30pm sometimes, and it is impossible to have it cleaned up in time for Sunday morning,” said the Town Clerk.
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.
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.
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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