Galway In Days Gone By

Poverty in Connemara

The poverty and want prevalent in the Connemara district at present was strikingly illustrated during the hearing of a case at Oughterard Quarter Sessions on Monday, when a Carna resident was sued by a shopkeeper for goods sold to him from time to time.

The defendant appeared in court coatless, and in the course of a statement to the Recorder, Judge Doyle, K.C., said he had nothing whatever with which to pay the debt. He had no employment, and the only means he had of sustaining himself and his large family was by the burning of kelp – a very precarious means if livelihood. He had not even a coat to wear.

The solicitor for the defendant said that his client had a long distance to come to attend the sessions. He had started on the previous night on his 40-mile journey to Oughterard. He had to break the journey, and had to sleep out in a field one night, as he was not able to pay for a night’s lodging.

Pictured: Stars of the Renmore Pantomine at rehearsals on December 21, 1986.