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

Bring home the bacon

Martin Walsh, Galway, pleaded ‘Not Guilty’ at the Spring Assizes to an indictment charging him with the larceny of a piece of bacon valued at 5s. from Mrs. Julia Cunningham, Upper Abbeygate Street, on Jan. 23rd.

Mrs. Cunningham, in examination by Mr. Fetherstonhaugh, K.C., said she saw the prisoner in her shop in the 23rd Jan. He asked for tea and sugar, but he had no money, and she had to threaten to call the police if he did not leave.

At the time, she had weighed a piece of bacon, and placed it inside the counter. She went into the kitchen, and Miss Lee, who was in the shop, called her back, when she found that the bacon was gone.

Miss Mary Lee deposed that she saw the prisoner coming from inside the counter, and missed the piece of bacon, but she did not see it with him.

Cross-examined by the prisoner, witness said she did not see him doing anything wrong in the shop.

A daughter of Mrs. Cunningham gave evidence as to seeing the prisoner taking a piece of meat from behind the counter. Const. Haughey said he arrested the prisoner in a public-house. When cautioned, he said he was not in Cunningham’s that day.

The jury, without leaving the box, returned a verdict of ‘Guilty’. The Judge, referring to prisoner’s record, said there were in all 33 convictions against him. His Lordship ordered the prisoner to be detained in an Inebriates’ Home for his reformation, for a period of three years.

1939

Bravery honour

Galway Harbour Commissioners decided on the proposition of Mr. C.C. Copeland, to recommend to the Royal Humane Society, the action of Tommie Kelly, Long Walk, Galway, a launchman employed by the Commissioners, who dived fully clothed into Galway docks on March 6, to the rescue of a cyclist. Cllr. J. Healy said that this was the second or third rescue this man had made.

Duggan Park final?

Ballinasloe has every hope of having the Connacht football final this year in Duggan Park. At a committee meeting of those who are organising a gala week in June to raise money to purchase and develop the pitch, it was shown the park is capable of housing the attendance expected at this event and that 12,000 people could be comfortably seated on the pitch itself, leaving room for 10,000 or 12,000 outside the barriers.

It is the intention of those concerned to have the park purchased and developed to house some of the big important games of the G.A.A. in 1939 and 1940 and to make the pitch worthy of housing some of the big events of the year in the football world.

£25,000 for Ashford

It has now been officially stated that the Ashford estate and castle have been sold to the Irish Forestry Department. The purchase figure has not been disclosed, but a “Connacht Tribune” reporter learned that the estate was sold for £17,000 and the castle for £8,000. It was also learned that the Department is negotiating for the resale of the castle to an hotel syndicate.

Last week, all the employees of the estate, except five, received notices of their dismissals as and from April 29, and the tenants of twenty houses on the estate received notices to quit.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.