Search Results for 'Department of Posts and Telegraphs'

The regular use of the words ‘litir’ and ‘post’ in 15th century Irish manuscripts suggests that by that time a postal system was already in existence in Ireland. The English postal system was completely reformed by a man named Witherings in 1638 and he was then invited to do the same in Ireland. By the 1650s, mail was being carried by post boys who walked 16 to 18 miles a day between towns. It is believed the Galway Post Office was set up in 1653 when the Cromwellians were still here. In those early years, the local postmaster was expected to provide the premises, so every time a new postmaster was appointed, it meant a new main Post Office.

If I told my four-year-old son that Irish television only provided one channel at the time of his father’s birth he would probably laugh, thinking the very notion as being inconceivable. In contrast, his generation will grow up with a multitude of portable devices on which to watch TV and movies. Consequently, the television set has lost its monopolistic control over our personal entertainment, impressionable thoughts, and consumer behaviour. Public trends and industrial production, or perhaps vice-versa, have moved on and may never return this way. Though it is far from dead, it is not that long ago since the television set was the internet of its era.