Search Results for 'Jimmy Cranny'

This is the time of year when parents are preparing to get their children ready for going back to school, when the kids are feeling sorry for themselves, and their days of carefree freedom in the sunshine are coming to an end.

Over the last four years, the business community in Galway has endeavoured to shine a light on water safety for World Drowning Prevention Day, a United Nations (UN)/World Health Organisation (WHO) initiative which takes place internationally on July 25 each year.

Éamon Ó Cuív lives up the Seanbhóthar behind Corr na Móna, in a small, well-sited bungalow himself and his wife, Áine, built in 1980, six years after moving to Joyce Country, where Éamon landed a job establishing an ill-fated lamb fattening station which later became a successful sawmill.

GAA heroics

GAA heroics

Jimmy Cranny was born in Dublin in 1905. He was orphaned early in life, came to Galway when he was eight and it became his home from then on. He grew up to be a champion swimmer, a winner of the Prom Swim and a springboard diving champion of Connacht. He was a member of the Royal Lifesaving Society and became one of their first lifeguards. He later joined the Irish Red Cross.

Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water as a form of recreation, exercise or survival. It has numerous health benefits and is good for all ages and all levels of fitness. It is among the top public recreational activities. One can swim in the sea, the lake or river.

On January 15, 1827 two Patrician Brothers, Paul O’Connor and James Walsh, took up residence in Lombard Street and set up the Monastery School. The attendance on that first day was 300 boys, many of whom had little interest in learning because they were poor and hungry. So the Brothers set up The Poor Boy’s Breakfast Institute in May 1830. It continued seven days a week, 365 days a year for many years after the founders' time. The breakfast consisted of porridge with molasses or treacle, and during the Famine, they fed 1,000 boys every day. The ‘Old Mon’ became a vital cog in education in Galway.

Organised water safety in Ireland really began in Milltown Malbay, Co Clare in the 1930s when a lady drowned there. This galvanised the local community into forming a Water Safety Association to help swimmers who got into trouble. The idea spread through Co Clare and eventually to the whole country. The national water safety section, set up by the government, was run by the Red Cross.

The front page story on the first ever issue of the Galway Advertiser in 1970 was about the announcement of plans for a proposed new leisure centre to be situated between Revagh Road in Rockbarton and the Promenade.