Galway In Days Gone By

Warm welcome

Messrs. de Valera, Cathal Brugha and H. Boland, T.D.s addressed a largely attended Republican meeting at Tuam on Saturday last. The party travelled by motor and were met a short distance from motor and were met a short distance from the town by a large body of armed I.R.A. under Commandant P. Dunleavy.

Mr. de Valera received the military salute and a guard of honour escorted him to the town. His arrival was signalled by an outburst of cheering which continued until he took his seat on the platform.

Mr. W. J. Concannon, solr., who presided, spoke in Gaelic. A number of I.R.A. officers were also on the platform. Mr. Cathal Brugha said that the beginning of the end of the late Mr. J. Redmond and his part was that they advised the Irish people to accept partition. The gentlemen who accepted this Treaty had evidently done the same thing.

Mr. H. Boland, T.D., said that of the men who fought in Easter Week there was one of the gallant commanders in that fight saved, he believed, by God, to carry on the work so well begun until December 5 when the lieutenants deserted the captain of the ship of this nation that stood out before the world as the greatest example every given by a small nation defending its liberties against a brutal Empire (hear, hear).

It was not Michael Collins won the war (cries of ‘Up, Collins.”)

Mr. Boland: Up Collins! And I was with him when there as danger, and I hope you were. When he comes back to Ireland we will be all with him, but not till then. Do not, he said, recognise eight individuals who grabbed the ship, and are trying to usurp the functions of Dáil Éireann.

Mr. de Valera, who was received with prolonged cheering, asked why they stood up against the Black-and-Tan terror and all the methods used against them. Because, he said, they were not willing to disestablish the Republic.

Somebody in the crowd had said it was Michael Collins sent the troops away. It was not. It was the fight that was put up throughout the war by the men who made it impossible for those units to govern them. They could continue to make British rule in Ireland impossible, and there as never in their history a more suitable time than the present. So long as they were determined that no outside government shall rule them.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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