Galway In Days Gone By

Hospital closure

Right Rev. Monsignor McAlpine, P.P., V.G., Clifden, whose wide knowledge and long experience of Connemara no one will ever question, takes serious exception to the statements made by Mr. Lysaght, an inspector of the Local Government Department, at the meeting of the Galway Central Hospital Committee on Saturday.

The Monsignor points out that, so far, there is no fever in Connemara this year, nor is there any actual famine – for which Providence and not the Government can be thanked. But there is acute want, and the people are living under conditions that invite recurring fever, with all its horrors in an area that is always existing on the borderline of poverty. Moreover, the closing up of the hospital in Clifden under the amalgamation scheme was “a crying shame” and would not have been tolerated but for the fact that advantage was taken of abnormal conditions.

Monsignor McAlpine instances many cases of very real local hardship that have occurred because of the lack of a cottage hospital in Clifden. The County amalgamation scheme was rushed, and one of its gravest defects is the failure to provide a cottage hospital in the capital of Connemara, 50 miles away from Galway.

Pictured: Some of the cast from the pantomime Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs which was held in January 1966 at the Parochial Hall, Oughterard. From left: Stephen McDonagh, Bill Keogh, Pat Harris, Matthew Molloy, Seamus Kelly, Pat Keogh, Pat Molloy, Martin Faherty and Sally McGauley.