Archive News
Images of a more innocent Galway
Date Published: 10-Aug-2012
PHOTOGRAPHS, especially old ones, can transport us down memory lane which is why their nostalgic qualities are so powerful.
An American tourist visiting Galway City in the summer of 1953 took a number of photographs while she was here and recently sent them to us.
They show a different city, a quieter one obviously with less traffic on the street, few pedestrians and buildings which have long since been demolished and replaced with new developments.
One photograph gives a clue to when they were taken and that image is of Queen Salote of Tonga being escorted out of a black Rolls Royce and up the steps of the Great Southern Hotel, which is now the Meyrick.
Her visit to Galway was in June, just days after attending the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in London where she got international press attention for the way she sat in an open topped carriage waving and smiling at the crowds who lined the streets in the rain.
She is wearing a mid-calf full skirted dress which was fashionable at the time. She was a tall woman who travelled with her own bed to accommodate her big frame of 6’ 3”. She had spent a few days staying in the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin before she came to Galway, possibly as a guest of a member of the English royal family who enjoyed fishing in Connemara.
What is noticeable from all the photographs is the fine weather and one in particular shows four young boys, possibly aged no more than eight years walking across the Wolfe Tone Bridge, two of them barefoot. The other two are wearing what look like homemade slippers.
Wisely for them, they are walking along the footpath as there are horse and cow droppings in the middle of the road. The boys are wearing breeches with buttoned fronts, no zippers and check shirts. But, one thing’s for sure, they look very happy, very comfortable walking the city streets.
In the background is the Arch Garage, now home to the Townhouse Bar and only one vehicle, possibly a Morris or an Austin, is parked in the area.
Those four boys, if they are still alive would be in their sixties now and the American tourist wondered if they could be identified.
Another photo shows High Street which then had two-way traffic but, again, the street looks quiet with few people or cars on it.
The Stella Cafe is prominent in the image, a hostelry which was popular with the Aran Islanders and which was one of the first places in the city to serve late night food, though in those days it was more likely to be greasy crubeens (pigs feet) than a burger!
Kennys bookshop can be seen and there are bolts of cloth outside what must be Sonny Molloy’s drapery. What it doesn’t show is the Connacht Mineral Water company, which was based on the street and which was one of the bigger employers in the city at the time.
For more of these fascinating photos see this week’s Tribune.
People’s living conditions less than 100 years ago were frightening. We have come a long way. We talk about water charges today, but back then the local District Councils were erecting pumps for local communities and the lovely town of Mountbellew, according to Council minutes, had open sewers,” says Galway County Council archivist Patria McWalter.
Patria believes we “need to take pride in our history, and we should take the same pride in our historical records as we do in our built heritage”. When you see the wealth of material in her care, this belief makes sense.
She is in charge of caring for the rich collection of administrative records owned by Galway County Council and says “these records are as much part of our history as the Rock of Cashel is. They document our lives and our ancestors’ lives. And nobody can plan for the future unless you learn from the past, what worked and what didn’t”.
Archivists and librarians are often unfairly regarded as being dry, academic types, but that’s certainly not true of Patria. Her enthusiasm is infectious as she turns the pages of several minute books from Galway’s Rural District Councils, all of them at least 100 years old.
Part of her role involved cataloguing all the records of the Councils – Ballinasloe, Clifden, Galway, Gort, Loughrea, Mountbellew, Portumna and Tuam. These records mostly consisted of minutes of various meetings.
When she was cataloguing them she realised their worth to local historians and researchers, so she decided to compile a guide to their content. The result is For the Record: The Archives of Galway’s Rural District Councils, which will be a valuable asset to anybody with an interest in history.
Many representatives on these Councils were local personalities and several were arrested during the political upheaval of the era, she explains.
And, ushering in a new era in history, women were allowed to sit on these Rural District Councils – at the time they were not allowed to sit on County Councils.
All of this information is included in Patria’s introductory essay to the attractively produced A4 size guide, which gives a glimpse into how these Rural Councils operated and the way political thinking changed in Ireland during a short 26-year period. In the early 1900s, these Councils supported Home Rule, but by 1920, they were calling for full independence and refusing to recognise the British administration.
“I love the tone,” says Patria of the minutes from meetings. “The language was very emotive.”
That was certainly true of the Gort Rural District Council. At a meeting in 1907, following riots in Dublin at the premiere of JM Synge’s play, The Playboy of the Western World the councillors’ response was vehement. They recorded their decision to “protest most emphatically against the libellous comedy, The Playboy of the Western World, that was belched forth during the past week in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, under the fostering care of Lady Gregory and Mr Yeats. We congratulate the good people of Dublin in howling down the gross buffoonery and immoral suggestions that are scattered throughout this scandalous performance.
For more from the archives see this week’s Tribunes here
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
SLIGO 0-9
GALWAY 1-4
FRANK FARRAGHER IN ENNISCRONE
GALWAY’S first serious examination of the 2013 season rather disturbingly ended with a rating well below the 40% pass mark at the idyllic, if rather Siberian, seaside setting of Enniscrone on Sunday last.
The defeat cost Galway a place in the FBD League Final against Leitrim and also put a fair dent on their confidence shield for the bigger tests that lie ahead in February.
There was no fluke element in this success by an understrength Sligo side and by the time Leitrim referee, Frank Flynn, sounded the final whistle, there wasn’t a perished soul in the crowd of about 500 who could question the justice of the outcome.
It is only pre-season and last Sunday’s blast of dry polar winds did remind everyone that this is far from summer football, but make no mistake about it, the match did lay down some very worrying markers for Galway following a couple of victories over below par third level college teams.
Galway did start the game quite positively, leading by four points at the end of a first quarter when they missed as much more, but when Sligo stepped up the tempo of the game in the 10 minutes before half-time, the maroon resistance crumbled with frightening rapidity.
Some of the statistics of the match make for grim perusal. Over the course of the hour, Galway only scored two points from play and they went through a 52 minute period of the match, without raising a white flag – admittedly a late rally did bring them close to a draw but that would have been very rough justice on Sligo.
Sligo were backable at 9/4 coming into this match, the odds being stretched with the ‘missing list’ on Kevin Walsh’s team sheet – Adrian Marren, Stephen Coen, Tony Taylor, Ross Donovan, David Kelly, David Maye, Johnny Davey and Eamon O’Hara, were all marked absent for a variety of reasons.
Walsh has his Sligo side well schooled in the high intensity, close quarters type of football, and the harder Galway tried to go through the short game channels, the more the home side bottled them up.
Galway badly needed to find some variety in their attacking strategy and maybe there is a lot to be said for the traditional Meath style of giving long, quick ball to a full forward line with a big target man on the edge of the square – given Paul Conroy’s prowess close to goal last season, maybe it is time to ‘settle’ on a few basics.
Defensively, Galway were reasonably solid with Gary Sice at centre back probably their best player – he was one of the few men in maroon to deliver decent long ball deep into the attacking zone – while Finian Hanley, Conor Costello and Gary O’Donnell also kept things tight.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
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