Galway In Days Gone By
1920
Emigration lure dissipates
The new land agitation is widespread in town and country, and no Land Act was ever capable of making the radical change in outlook in so short a space of time that this movement has already done.
A big number of people, who never wanted land in the towns, are interesting themselves in it now, and are making their claims for a share of what is going.
It remains to be seen how the results of the movement will affect the lie and conditions of the community, but that an altered state of things will come about is quite certain.
In most cases, in the new division, lands are given to young men who, contrary to the custom of some years are not inclined any longer to leave their native land.
The hankering after foreign cities, with their stately buildings and resorts of questionable pleasures and dangers has almost disappeared from our rural fire.
The old craving for foreign fields has given place to a desire for a peaceable existence at home. May it be that Ireland is about to raise again that “bold peasantry, their country’s pride?” That has been dissipated to the seven seas of the world by emigration.
Ireland is an agricultural country, and the question arises: is it producing on a scale commensurate with its possibilities?
No. Fattening the bullock is a slothful industry and does not give us the return which we would get from an extensive production of foodstuffs. We have to import every year articles of food which we should be exporting, with the result that there is practically no advantages derived from the cattle industry.
Sinister events of 1913
Following the sinister events of 1913, when the cause of Constitutionalism was in dire peril in Ireland, his Eminence Cardinal Logue issued a prophetic warning. He declared that he could see no alternative to the overthrow of Constitutionalism in this country but a period of confusion, anarchy and chaos.
And so verily it has come to pass. The extremists in Ulster first set the pace. Reactionaries in Great Britain marched to their tune. Irish extremists lost their temper at the display of perfidy and provocation.
We see the results around us in murders and shootings, raids and arrests that occur with an appalling and increasing frequency. Even supposing peace to be brought about to-morrow, it must take years to purge the country of the moral effects of these horrors. Hence, apart from our political outlook, it is the duty of every decent-minded citizen to do all he can to restore that peace and good order for which Ireland has long been noted amongst every Christian nation.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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