Galway In Time Gone By - A browse through the archives of the Connacht Tribune

The “niggers” hospital

The Galway Port Sanitary Authority forwarded estimate and demand amounting to £12 10s on the Council for the year-ending 31st March, 1915. The Clerk, replying to Mr. Nilan, said the demand last year was £8 10s.

Mr. Nilan: Why is there a difference this year – we are giving that money for nothing?

Clerk: They have expended £15 on repairs.

Mr. Nilan: Sure there is no one in it but the caretaker (laughter). I think the only patients they ever had were two niggers out of some ship that was in Galway (laughter). I think we should refuse to pay it. Let them send particulars of the repairs.

Clerk: You can be compelled to pay the demand made. The Clerk then read the expense incurred in connection with the hospital during the year.

Mr. Nilan: What is the Clerk doing?

Mr. Cahill: He has more to do than you think.

Clerk: The Clerk and the Port Medical Officer get £40, which is not much for two men. It is a reduction of £6 on the year before.

Mr. Nilan: That was the time they had the niggers there (laughter). I propose that we do not pay it. It was decided to instruct the Clerk to write to Mr. Leech, Secretary of the Port Sanitary Authority for particulars showing the reason for the increase in the demand.

1939

Ballinasloe morgue

Ballinasloe is at last to have a morgue. The Urban Council is in negotiation with the Town Hall Committee to rent suitable premises for the purpose. The absence of a morgue in the town has been the subject of comment at nearly every inquest held in the district for years and particularly when a tragedy necessitates the hasty removal of the victims to the nearest business house as has happened on occasions recently.

It is only, however, in cases where post mortem examinations are necessary that the necessity for such a building becomes apparent.

The suicide’s grave

Among the incidents related by Professor J. Howley, in a broadcast from Radio Eireann, in the second of the series, “The Weirs in Human Experiences”, was a story of weird happenings near Galway City.

The late Dr. Brereton, he said, took a house not far from Galway City, and on the first day heard queer sounds, as though someone was gasping for breath, but he was unable to locate the cause of the noises.

They ceased that night to resume again the following evening. He made enquiries, and was told that the house was on the border of two parishes. The site had previously been occupied by a shed in which a man had cut his throat.

The people of the parish kept pushing his body over the border, none wanting him to die in their parish, but after a struggle, the parties agreed to put the body in the shed.

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.