Galway In Days Gone By

Unseemly incident

An unseemly incident occurred on Monday evening at the Railway Station. About a dozen soldiers and seamen from the Fleet were returning to their respective duties.

Owing to the great crowd that accompanied them, it was deemed advisable by the railway officials to allow none of these on to the platform, as only recently a man had a narrow escape from being killed through holding on to the carriage door while the train was moving out of the station.

This proceeding tended to annoy the friends of the men leaving by the train, and they made a determined rush and forced the entrance to the platform.

In their efforts to keep the people back, the Station Master (Mr. Warner), the passenger foreman (Mr. J. Griffin), and the ticket checker (Mr. Jos. Brocken) were assaulted, but happily were not seriously injured. Up to the present, it has not been ascertained if prosecutions will follow.

Prisoners of War

The Committee of the Galway War Fund Association have sent the usual fortnightly parcels to their 65 prisoners of war, and have received acknowledgments, thanking the Committee and their kind friends for their generosity.

Large bales of mufflers, socks, mittens, and other comforts were despatched to the 5th Battalion Connaught Rangers, and also Christmas parcels. The parcels containing hospital comforts were sent to the military hospital at Malta.

Other parcels were sent to Galway ladies who are nursing in Rouen, for distribution amongst the wounded there.

1941

Racing revival

In the wake of the world’s greatest catastrophe now raging with a ruthless devastation of life and property, the belligerent nations have had their freedom in the enjoyment of the lighter side of human affairs banished.

Sport, in all spheres, has been either entirely suspended, or maintained only in depleted forms in restricted areas.

The old maxim “it’s an ill wind that blows no good” perhaps aptly, may be applied to Eire alone in this phase of activity. 1940 has made its exit, leaving this country possibly the one least war-scathed and also that which has had an unprecedented boom in that ever-popular sport which at the same time is the medium of vast reproductive expenditure – horse racing.

Few, if any, of the present generation can recall a year in which the turnstiles at racing venues have clicked as continuously as in 1940, and a still less number will be prepared to disavow the general opinion that never before has there been such a revival in racing.

Casting those reflections aside, it may be opportune to make allusion to some of the factors, which have contributed to the altered situation and the by no means insignificant part that Galway has played in the position.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.