Galway In Days Gone By

Distress in Clifden

Stories of distress in the West have become so painfully insistent of late that one sometimes wonders whether they are not exaggerated.

It is true that we have always a considerable amount of misery and want, for we live in the poorest county of the poorest province. It is an indisputable fact that this distress has been considerably increased by the conditions which we have gone through, partly because our own folly, during the last few years.

In addition to having lost about £1,000 a week, which was paid in wages from the Marconi Company’s station, Clifden has suffered considerably because of the attack by the Black-and-Tans, and subsequent conditions.

Only a few of the fourteen houses destroyed have undergone repairs. Some were left practically without houses, others without covering of any kind.

At present, three families are trying to live under conditions unworthy of any civilised country.

They were awarded a sum in compensation by the county courts over a year ago, and although the Shaw Commission is supposed to have dealt with the claim, it has not yet been paid. In the interests of humanity, this matter should be completed before the winter. It is a scandal that people who have already been made to suffer intensely should be compelled to endure under suffering because of lumbering and soulless bureaucracy.

Pictured: The Moneenageisha College A Team who were the winners of the County Galway Vocational Schools Junior Cross Country Championship in South Park on October 29, 1975. Front, from left: Cóilín Ó Ceallaigh (3rd), Jim Fallon (1st) and Bobby Russell. Standing, from left: Conor Conneely (2nd), Eamon Hennigan and Anthony Allen.