Archive News
July 15, 2011
Date Published: {J}
1911
Publicans’ ‘moral courage’
There were several cases by the police against a man named John Ward, who was in custody, for drunkenness at the City Petty Sessions. Ward asked the magistrates to give him two years in an Inebriates’ Home.
Head-constable Killackey: He was in Ennis and I believe of the first batch that left, he was the only one that was unsuccessful.
Chairman: This is one of the cases that the publican ought not to have supplied the fellow with drink. The publicans in Galway will want to get a little more moral courage.
Head-constable Killackey said if the cases were adjourned, he would make inquiries with a view to having Ward commited to the Inebriates’ Homes, Waterford. The case was accordingly adjourned.
Egg theft
Three children from Gort were charged with stealing eggs from Thomas Doyle, egg merchant, Drumindoora. Thomas Doyle swore he was an egg dealer and bought eggs every Saturday outside Mr. Burke’s George-st. He remembers having a box of eggs of five dozen, which he left in charge of a boy while he was going into Mr. Burke’s.
The boy called out and said some of the boys were stealing the eggs. When he came out, he saw three young fellows running away with two eggs each. He shouted after them, and one of them placed them under the railway bridge. One of the defendants said they sold the eggs.
The boys promised not to be pilfering like that any more, and were let out under the First Offenders’ Act, their parents undertaking to keep them under better control, and paying 2s. 6d. each costs.
1936
Republicans questioned
Gardaí and detectives visited a number of houses in Tuam on Saturday evening, and, it is stated, questioned young men known to have republican associations. Searches were made in rooms occupied by those men, but it is learned that no documents were seized, and that no person was detained. The searches were carried out quietly, and very few knew that anything unusual was taking place in the town and suburbs.
New Salthill hotel
The growing popularity and progress of Galway’s seaside resort, Salthill, has in recent weeks been brought to the front by the erection of a modern hotel in the Forster Park estate (which was sold some time ago for development purposes by Messrs. Joyce, Mackie and Lougheed) fronting the Promenade and overlooking Galway Bay. The final touches are at present being given to the completion of a first class hotel in the most central position in Salthill.
The building is a four-storey structure containing twenty bedrooms, lounge, three sittingrooms, restaurant, staff rooms, kitchen etc. The building has cost approximately £7,000 and the proprietress Mss M. Monaghan, Summerset Hotel, Salthill, deserves every support for her enterprise in providing this hotel.
Clifden quiet
Large numbers of holidaymakers, including caravan-motorists, bus parties, cyclists and hikers may now and again be seen arriving in the Main-street of Clifden. Yet the hotels, restaurants, cafes and such establishments as cater for the tourist trade, are never really busy, or in danger of being booked out. Those concerned are unanimous in their decision that, so far, Clifden has had a poor season – in fact an abnormally poor season, judged not only on the numbers of passers-through, but on bookings and receipts.
Harbour scheme
The Industrial Credit Corporation and the Department of Finance and Industry and Commerce are interested in the plans for the financing of the scheme for the development of Galway Harbour. It is unfortunate to have to record that, notwithstanding expert examination, an extraordinarily high proportion of the advances under the Trade Loans Acts for industry have become bad debts which the general taxpayer has to meet. Money was handed out rather unwisely.
For more, read 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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