Galway In Days Gone By

The Sentinel

Each reader of the Connacht Tribune is presented this week with a free copy of The Sentinel, a mid-weekly paper published by the Connacht Tribune Company.

The idea is to make The Sentinel better known throughout County Galway where, for the first time in its history, the people are supplied with their own evening paper.

No one will deny that The Sentinel is value, and much more than value for a cost of one penny. It gives the latest news from the weekend after the publication of The Tribune to Tuesday evening when it is despatched throughout the county.

An Irish story is contained each week by that famous Irish author, P. Ó Conaire, whose real old Gaelic should be studied and copied by all who are studying and improving themselves in the language. Then there is a column or two written in lighter vein, giving a humorous causerie on events of the hour, with a spicy bit of the truth here and there

Articles of most important bearing on the lives and the living of the people appear frequently and are dealt with more fully than space would allow in The Tribune.

1950

Aid to farmers

Mr. Dillon, Minister for Agriculture, made known in the Dáil the other night the first instalment of his plan for the better development of the Gaeltacht.

He was replying to a debate forced by a handful of Independent deputies who wanted him, apparently, to seek out farmers who had bad hay and too many cattle to feed them and give them something for nothing or at reduced prices.

Mr. Dillion promised all possible aid to any farmer who needed it and who communicated with him, setting out the facts of the position, but that did not appear to satisfy the agitators, some of whom have no land.

The Minister let it be known that, in respect of western districts, where feeding difficulties might be expected in some cases, he was taking immediate steps to place men in those areas who would quickly get in touch with any farmer who required help.

These men are to form the advance guard of the new plan for better Gaeltacht development and they are to be drawn from the present eighty-four agricultural overseers who are operating, now, with far too large areas in the former congested districts.

The numbers of those men are apparently to be increased and their areas will be so arranged that no man will have more than about 1,000 farmers to attend to.

Agricultural overseers have been operating all over Co. Galway for nearly thirty years. They have been especially active in the Gaeltacht, but Mr. Dillon did not make it too clear in the D ail whether the new scheme would extend to the whole of Co. Galway right away or only to Connemara.

Pictured: Santa Claus meeting children at Eyre Square on December 4, 1971.