Galway In Days Gone By

Reform and stability

If reform alone – that is to say, such reform as is brought about by the making of new laws – were to save the country, it would long since have been saved.

But the mere passing of legislative enactments does not promote stability, although it may promote revenue from taxation.

Few governments in modern times have passed so many laws within a given period as the Free State Government, and it is true to say that no government has ever legislated for a people who have had so little voice in the legislation.

This may seem a paradox, for have we not our own government elected by ourselves!

The fact is, however, that the deputies to Dáil Éireann are elected under a system that gives the electors the minimum control over their actions, and that the Government Party has no really effective opposition in the House with the exception of that supplied by a loosely knit combination of smaller groups.

Moreover, a great section of the deputies never attends to the business of the people in the Dáil. It is obvious to the meanest intelligence that this situation is an unnatural and abnormal one, and one that cannot continue indefinitely.

Pictured: The Naomh Éanna arriving back from the Aran Islands at Galway Docks in the 1960s. The ship operated as a CIÉ passenger ferry between Galway and the islands for decades, before being taken out of service in 1986. More recently, the boat had been docked in Dublin with plans to transform it into a floating hotel, but they were unsuccessful. It has now been broken up for scrap, but the Port of Galway has acquired the bow section and there are plans to restore it and display it on the quays in Galway City.