Archive News
November 18, 2010
Date Published: {J}
1910
Road damage
The Galway Urban Council summonsed two defendants for taking sand off the beach, to the injury of the public road, at Grattan-road at the City Petty Sessions.
Mr. Blake, solr. (Messrs. Blake and Kenny), prosecuted; and Mr. Concannon, solr., defended.
Mr. Concannon asked under what Act of Parliament the prosecution was brought, for he could not for the life of him make out what the authority was for this case.
Chairman: The charge is very wide, Mr. Concannon.
Mr. Concannon: Wide! So very wide that I cannot fix it.
Mr. Blake said several cases of the kind had been heard in that court. The prosecution alleged that this sand was taken away to the injury, or possible injury to the road. The Council did not claim a right to the foreshore, but they contend that even the owners themselves could not go against the Act of Parlliament and take the sand. The taking of the sand allowed the sea greater freedom to attack the road.
The defendants were accused of taking cart loads of sand from the beach. The case was adjourned following legal argument.
Habitual drunkard
A woman was charged with being an habitual drunkard, and the defendant elected to be tried by the magistrates. A number of convictions for drunkenness against her within the last 12 months was recorded.
Mr. Mercer, D.J. said there was a vacancy in the Wexford Inebriate Reformatory.
Chairman: Well, Mrs., the Inebriates’ Home is the only place for you. We will send you there for three years and, of course, if you are cured before that time, you will be discharged. Some other parties in the town have now got an example of what may happen to them. Mr Campbell said the woman had spent between £800 and £900, and it would be a good thing if this thing happened to her ten years ago.
1935
House without kitchen
A house which is being built without any provision for a kitchen was the subject of a discussion at Ballinasloe Mental Hospital on Monday, at which Mr. James Cosgrave, chairman, presided. In the new plans for the auxiliary mental hospital buildings, there were no provisions made for a kitchen, the original intention being that the food was to be cooked in the main building half a mile away and taken down to the new buildings.
Find in cart
Sergt. Monohan and four guards from Oughterard carried out searches for poteen on Saturday in the Seacum, Ugul and Finnaun districts. It is stated that they found a still, malt, barrels, buckets and shovels on the premises of David and Peter Walsh, Finnaun. Guards from Galway, Salthill and Spiddal also carried out searches for poteen last weekend in the Loughwell, Moycullen area.
Due to the vigilance of Garda Allen and Cummins, a big seizure of poteen was made on Saturday afternoon on the Galway-Moycullen Road. The two garda, who were in plain clothes, halted a sidecar in which Mrs. Julia Gillespie, Loughwell, was going into town. In a basket, they found four bottles of poteen, which, it is stated, Mrs Gillespie admitted were her property.
Hotel fire
A fire broke out in the Warwick Hotel, Salthill, in the early hours of Thursday morning. The ceiling of a kitchen was discovered to be burning. Galway Fire Brigade were called out at 3.45am and succeeded in putting the flames out. The brigade stood by for about two hours, but no further outbreak occurred.
’Wegians’ surprise
U.C.G. caught a tartar at the Sports Ground, Galway, on Sunday when they were defeated by Galwegians, the score at full time being: Galwegians, 6 points (2 tries); U.C.G., nil. Galwegians were worth at least one more sore and would have got it if Naughton on one occasion had let the ball out instead of attempting a futile drop at goal. No excuses can be made for the College team. Although they had not a full pack, there were only one or two notable absentees, and their back line was the best they could field. In short, they were beaten, and well beaten, by a better team.
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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