Archive News
March 21, 2013
Date Published: 20-Mar-2013
1913
Attempted suicide trial
In the County Hospital, Mr. J. Kilbride, R.M., took depositions in the case in which a young lady from the Claddagh is charged with attempting her life. The step-father gave evidence that because her mother remonstrated with her for staying out later than she should, the defendant [made the attempt].
Sergt. Golding gave evidence of rendering first aid and staunching the wound as best he could till the arrival of the doctor. Dr McDermott said she has since been under his care and there is nothing wrong with her mind. She was returned for trial to the Galway Assizes next week.
Callous treatment
At the meeting of the Oughterard Board of Guardians, the Master’s report revealed the sad fact that the people of the Lettermore district are throwing obstacles in the way of those who are endeavouring to stamp out the typhus epidemic from the locality by refusing to give lodgings to the male and female attendants who accompany the workhouse ambulance.
The consequence is that they have to sleep in the vehicle, the windows and lamp of which were broken either accidentally or wantonly on Monday last at Bealadangan. A convalescent patient in the workhouse failed to get a conveyance of any kind during the week to bring himself and his family home to Lettermore, although he offered as much as thirty shillings for any sort of a car.
In face of these facts, the guardians offered two horses for the van in order that the journey back and forwards could be accomplished in one day. The object of the people of Lettermore in hampering the guardians in this way would seem to be two-fold: 1st, fear of contagion, and secondly they want a local hospital erected as in the case of the recent fever outbreak in Lettermullen.
The guardians, however, are not up to the present in favour of this latter course, but have given liberty to the master to expend some money in the fitting up of the vacant portions of the workhouse buildings for the accommodation of any further outbreaks that may arise.
1938
Irish girls in London
A Galway man who attended the recent British Industries Fair in London states that in the hotel where he usually stays when in London, there was only one member of the staff Irish two years ago. He was informed that there were now fifty Irish in the hotel, mostly girls, and there was a demand for more Irish hotel workers in London.
He, however, advised no girls to go unless they had first secured a guarantee of work through some trusted friend. In the hotel, he said, there were Galway girls, well-housed on the premises and fairly paid.
The girls were all at kitchen work because they could not take work as housemaids or waitresses, owing to the absence of training. There was, he was told, an all round scarcity of female labour in England, and the best of those girls would soon graduate to better employment. It is obvious from those figures that there must be a considerable exodus of Irish girls into London in recent years.
The emigration figures officially published are revealing, but we have not got the people to maintain the present high level of outflow much longer.
Galwegians great victory
After the most exciting match of the season, Galwegians defeated University College, Galway, by one goal and a try (eight points) to nil in the final of the Connacht Senior Cup, played at the Sportsground, before a very large attendance. This is the first time that Galwegians have won the Cup in nine years.
It was a glorious struggle, and though the play for the most part was more earnest than skilled, it was productive of some very fine rugby.
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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