Galway In Days Gone By

Sunday pub closures

The total closing of public houses on Sundays was the subject of discussion at the Liquor Commission sitting in Dublin this week. The Counties’ Licenced Grocers’ and Vintners’ Protection Association, which is opposed to many of the “reforms” advocated by the temperance party, declared that complete Sunday closing would mean that every motor car carrying tourists would be followed by another containing drink, and that the police would have to deal with a fleet of shebeens.

There is a good deal to be said for this view. It is an undoubted hardship on the excursionists from, say, Dublin to Galway, that he is unable as the law stands to obtain reasonable refreshment until one o’clock, after being cooped in a railway carriage on a broiling day for four or five hours.

We have seen the excursionists who have visited Galway on Sundays during the past few months and were impressed by the remarkable absence of drunkenness amongst the people entertaining for home in the evening.

The licenced vintners in Galway themselves state that excursions are of little use to them today – that the amount of drink consumed is negligible. The visitor who takes reasonable liquid refreshment, who acts on the advice of St. Paul and takes a little wine for his stomach’s sake and other infirmities, has a genuine grievance against the legislature which deprives him of a little of the creature comforts of life after a tiring rail journey.

1950

Hobby to industry

For years past playing with chemicals has been a hobby of Richard Patrick Carr, but when his interest turned to plaster work he began to see in the pastime of his leisure hours something more than a hobby; the possibility of a lucrative means of livelihood arose.

Richard Carr, a former pupil of the Monastery Schools and St. Joseph’s College, Galway, is a son of the loco foreman at Galway Railway Station and resides at the station. He is now on the look out for premises in Galway in which to open up an industry in plaster models.

Pictured: Maureen O'Hara arriving at The Claddagh Palace Cinema (formerly the Estoria Cinema) at Nile Lodge for the opening of the Galway Film Fleadh on September 20, 1989.