Search Results for 'Galway Corporation'

THE GREAT War’s impact on Galway city, the slaughter in the trenches, and recruiting Galwegians to fight for “king and country” will be the subject of a series of public lectures taking place at the Galway City Museum, every Thursday from 7pm to 8pm.

It lasted only an hour, but for a generation of Galwegians it was a momentous occasion, one that gave a city and a population emerging from the oppressive 1950s, a much needed boost of confidence. It was the day US president John F Kennedy came to visit.

Google, that now indispensible servant for the curious seeker of information, reveals – among a myriad of other facts – that Galway is the fourth most populous city in the Republic, and the sixth most populous on the island of Ireland. From Wikipedia we learn that Galway “is known as Ireland's Cultural Heart and is renowned for its vibrant lifestyle and numerous festivals, celebrations and events”, including, of course, the internationally renowned Galway Arts Festival.

I get both embarrassed and amused, in an hysterical sort of a way, reading back over the recent social history of poor Cathleen Ní Houlihan. Particularly when it touches on anything sexual. It is surprising that any of us were born at all, such was the misery caused at the mention that anyone might be enjoying a healthy sexual relationship with a partner. The impression was given that everyone who had sexual contact outside marriage was not only in a state of serious sin, but that they were some kind of social pariah, to be scorned and driven away from normal society. Even sex within marriage could be shaky. It really was a subject that could not be discussed in public at all without inviting legions of self-righteous men and women out on the streets proclaiming well-meaning but ill-informed opinion.

This year marks the 300th anniversary of the foundation of Eyre Square, and this milestone event in the city’s chief civic space will be marked with an open air concert this Saturday.

An important stage in Galway’s housing drive was reached in 1952 when the Minister for Local Government, Mr P Smith, opened three housing schemes comprising 142 new houses, 12 at Ballybrit, 30 in the Claddagh, and 100 in Shantalla.

The Galway City Council looks likely to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Eyre Square.

Last September I wrote a number of Diary entries on the wonderful reception that Galway extended to the survivors of the SS Athenia, torpedoed off the Donegal coast on September 3 1939, the very first day of the war. The ship was sunk by Fritz Julius Lemp, the commander of the U-30. The Athenia was obviously a passenger boat on its way with refugees from Europe to Canada. This wasn’t the start to the war that the German government wanted. Initially it denied that any of its submarines sank the Athenia, and suggested that it was sunk by the British on orders from Winston Churchill in the hope of getting America into the war.

He may have been the most outspoken and vociferous opponent of the Eyre Square renovation, but that does not mean Pádraig Conneely believes Eyre Square is not worth celebrating.

“We must seek to build together an active, inclusive citizenship; based on participation, equality, respect for all, and the flowering of creativity in all its forms. A confident people is our hope, a people at ease with itself, a people that grasps the deep meaning of the proverb; Ní neart go cur le chéile’ - our strength lies in our common weal - our social solidarity.”