Archive News
January 6, 2010
Date Published: {J}
Police tax
The extra police tax in Newcastle, Athenry, which is heavier than that about to be imposed for the Athenry water supply, is to be continued and the people of the district should make some attempt to settle this miserable dispute at Tourkeel. Why it can’t be settled is a mystery.
Those whose duty it is to settle such petty disputes seem to take no interest in such cases. Every policeman employed in connection with this dispute costs the ratepayers of the county £22 a year. The reduction which the farmers have got under the Land Purchase Act will be more than gone in the police tax.
Mountbellew tramps
Next Tuesday’s meeting of the Guardians, being the winter quarterly meeting, will probably have a full attendance, and it would be well that they would take some steps to mitigate the tramp nuisance.
It reflects very little credit on the Guardians to be housing at the expense of the ratepayers an average of seventy or eight tramps each week in the Workhouse. Many of these travellers call much more often that the regulations allow, and that is a state of affairs that should not be tolerated.
These wanderers are a public nuisance, and it is a surprise that the Guardians would not instruct the officials to make use of the law that no able-bodied man or woman would be lodged at the expense of the ratepayers oftener than the law would allow.
Serving a drunk
At the City Petty Sessions, the King, at the prosecution of District Inspector Mercer, charged Mrs. Flaherty with selling drink to a person under the influence of drink.
Contable McGloin swore that on the 20th December he was on duty. He saw a woman [who was also on other charges] on the defendant’s premises. She was drunk. Witness questioned the defendant as to why she supplied her with drink, and she said she did not supply drink to her, but she did to a man.
Chairman: If the publicans did not supply this woman, a habitual drunk, with drink, she would not now have to undergo a term of six months’ imprisonment. It is a scandalous thing for them to do so, and if there was any decency in them, they would not do so.
Mr. Mercer: It is an exceedingly bad case.
Mrs. Flaherty was fined 20s and costs. The Chairman said such offences were the worst under the Licensing Act.
1935
Tinker’s tent
At Gort District Court on Saturday, a farmer and road worker from Lisbrien was charged by the State with the larceny of a tinker’s tent on Christmas Eve at Gort – Julia McDonagh, of no fixed abode, said that a bale of tarred canvas which she had bought in Gort was stolen from her cart in George’s Street.
Promoting Galway
“Keep your money at home … and keep prosperity in Galway. (1) To present to the reader a time-saving reference guide to the leading business and manufacturing houses in Galway. (2) To give reasons why every family in Galway and district should support these business houses, is the two-fold aim of this advertisement.
“By spending money outside the town you can help to prosper some other town which in NO way can benefit you, because it is a loss to the town in which you live in and in which you hope to get your living in. Every penny you spend outside Galway is lost forever to the town, and means the undermining of the prosperity of the town.
“REMEMBER THIS: The Galway stores are not behind the times and they carry as large and as wide a range of goods of the same quality as the leading Dublin or other city stores. They can sell for cheaper than city stores because their expenses are half those of city stores and consequently they can sell at much lower prices.”
90 new homes
The monthly meeting of Tuam Town Commissioners was held on Tuesday evening. Mr John P. Moran, engineer, submitted plans etc in connection with the proposed house building scheme on Kelly’s and the College field at Toberjarlath. He said this part of the scheme proposed that ninety houses be built.
Illegal malt
At Spiddal Distrit Court on Monday, before Sean MacGiollarnaith, D.J., the Attorney-Genral, at the suit of Supt. Neville, prosecuted a couple from Slieveneen, for being in illicit possession of a quantity of malt.
Guard Reilly, Moycullen, said that he was on duty with other guards at Slieveneen. When he was approaching the house of the defendant, he saw a woman leaving with a pile on her back. He asked her what was in the back.
She said it was “stuff”. It was malt. He searched the house and in one room, he found four stone of alt spread on the floor. Neither of them gave any excuse or explanation. A fine of £2 was imposed in each case.
For more, read page 30 of this week’s Connacht 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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