Archive News
July 7, 2011
Date Published: {J}
1911
Broken windows
Martin Burke, of Renmore, summoned his brother-in-law Thady Walsh, for breaking the windows in his house. Mr. Daly appeared for the complainant. Burke stated that Walsh came to his house at 11.45pm and broke two windows with the stone (produced). He valued the windows at about 7s 6d. Defendant was shouting when going away.
Walsh: I did not put any stone at all into them; I put my fist through them (laughter).
Mrs Burke deposed that she saw her brother throw the stone. She added he had been in jail a few times. Whenever he is out of employment, he goes to her and she washes for him.
Walsh: I did not throw any stone. He stole my bed and stole my mother, and stole my sister (laughter).
Mr Daly: I would not blame him for stealing your sister (loud laughter).
Walsh: He stole my mother’s money and drove her out of the house and kicked her. He threw her out, but when she got the pension, he brought her back again (laughter). I sent them all to America – nine of them.
Chairman (to Mrs Burke): Are you the sister who was stolen?
Mrs Burke: I never saw my husband until the day I got married (laughter).
Mr Daly: This chap, I believe, has plenty of money, and is living on his savings.
Walsh: I put my fist through the windows and he fired a bl– mug at me (laughter). It was not a window at all, but a sort of “glory hole” and I spent three days putting them in (laughter).
Mrs Burke, in reply to the chairman, said she valued the windows at 3s 6d. Walsh: If you said 1s 6d would be more like it. It was myself put them in.
He was fined 1s and ordered the pay 3s 6d compensation and 5s costs.
1936
Chicago Police Chief
Ex-Chief Commissioner Michael Hughes of the Chicago Police Force, a native of Ballygar, County Galway, is at present on a holiday in his native district.
In an interview with the “Connacht Tribune” representative, Mr. Hughes said that he had left his parents’ home for America in the year 1888. He was little more than a boy at the time; and had his first shave on the American-bound steamer from a red-haired barber.
He entered the Chicago Police Force shortly after his arrival, and served in that department for forty-one years. He became chief of the Detective Branch in 1923, and was appointed Chief Commissioner of Police in 1927 – a position which he held up until the time of his resignation.
Speaking of conditions in Chicago, Mr. Hughes said that the city had been libeled by unfriendly propagandists. It was nothing better and nothing worse than any other city of its size in the world.
Mr. Hughes said that he had travelled several counties since his arrival in Ireland and all towns and villages seen by him had improved with the exceptions of Creggs, Fuerty and Athleague. These places were in the same condition as when he first left Ireland forty-seven years ago. He was now going to Galway, which was his favourite place outside his native Ballygar.
Connemara ‘rattletraps’
At the conclusion of a meeting of Galway County Council, Mr. Joyce asked the Council to take up with the ‘bus company the question of putting better ‘buses on the Connemara service. Orangemen, he said, could come down to Connemara in luxury ‘buses, but the people themselves had to be satisfied with “any old type of rattletrap”. The chairman said they could make representations to the company.
Tribune praise
During the sessions of the Catholic Truth Congress in Tuam, where nearly 100,000 people gathered from Saturday, June 27 to Monday, June 29, the Connacht Tribune Printing and Publishing Co. issued newspapers daily. In a letter to Mr. T.J.W. Kenny, managing director, the Standing Committee praised the very valuable help of the papers during the months before Congress.
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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