Galway In Days Gone By
1925
A nation of emigrants
According to the report of that splendid organisation, the Catholic Mission for the Protection of Irish Emigrant Girls, in the eleven months preceding June 1 of this year, 27,125 were admitted to the United States from the Irish Free State, while 1,616 were admitted from the Six Counties.
To the latter number, however, should be added to the quota from Great Britain and her Possessions who were born in the Northern area. The entire quota for the past fiscal year has now been exhausted.
During that period, 2,479 Irish were excluded, and 554 deported. “We learn from official sources,” says the report, “that from 1819 to 1855, there arrived in the United States 747,930 natives of Ireland, and 1,348,682 recorded as born in Great Britain and Ireland. Bromwell estimates that of the latter, about a million came from Ireland”.
These unhappy days have gone, but emigration is still going from Ireland at altogether too brisk a rate. The quota is invariably full to overflowing, and there is a waiting list for months ahead.
Whilst the root cause of emigration is undoubtedly economic, it appears to be, in a great measure, a matter of mood and as the aftermath of the recent troubles in Ireland, the mood appears to have seized our young people to almost as great an extent as a generation ago.
1950
Sweepstake increase
The Irish Sweepstake industry is expanding and the aim of the Hospital Trust is that it should expand further and rapidly.
It is hoped that the doubling of the price of the ticket will achieve this. it is said that the Americans would have no objection to paying 2.80 dollars – present value of the pound sterling – for a ticket. The doubling of the prizes would also be an attraction. A £50,000 prize for £1 will undoubtedly appeal to the gambling instincts of many people.
We still want several millions of pounds for hospitals, and the amount required could never come in reasonable time from sweepstake tickets at 10s. each.
Expenses of the sweeps have greatly increased. When the Government tax, plus expenses, were paid in the recent sweeps, the hospitals had not so much to get.
Pictured: The Mayor of Galway, Councillor Catherine Connolly, gave as good as she got in a good-humoured snowball fight at Blackrock, Salthill on Christmas Day, 2004. Before that, she had taken the plunge into Galway Bay’s icy waters in support of COPE's Christmas Day Swim.