Galway Advertiser 1980/1980_09_11/GA_11091980_E1_004.pdf 

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William De Burgo founded the Franciscan Friary in Galway in 1296 on St. Stephen's Island, where the Courthouse is now. They lived there in relative peace until 1583 when they were expelled. They returned in 1612 and probably settled on the present site, but were again expelled by the Cromwellians. They returned again in 1660 and were able to maintain a community all through the hard times of the 18th century. Work began on a new church in 1781, but the present building was not finished until 1 8 3 6 and not consecrated until 1849. It is Neo Grec in style and was designed by James Cusack. The original altars are still there and are described as "pleasantly rustic". The friary in its present form dates from about 1820. The

church is reputed to be the first in Ireland dedicated to the Immaculate Conception. The area around "The Abbey" became the first F r a n c i s c a n p a r i s h in modern Ireland in 1971. In a small enclosure on the South side of the church are fragments of a 17th century Holy Trinity resembling those now in the new Cathedral. These and a few miscellaneous scraps are all that survived the Cromwellian fury in 1652. Francis Street is not shown on the 1820 map, but two lanes, one on each side of the church are shown connecting it and NewTownsmyth. With the rapid expansion of the Irish Franciscan province in the 1920's it became necessary to make better arrangements for the education of students. They have been attending U.C.G. since 1932. The foundation stone of a permanent student house (St. Anthony's College) was laid on the 25th April, 1933. A new wing was added to it in 1941. Notice the elegant lampost in t h e the

foreground of this photo graph and the apparently useless pole beside it, also the two young saplings on the edge of the-path--the trees certainly made a difference to the streetscape. The railings gave the frontage an extra bit of character. Our thanks to Mr. Aidan Clohcrty of University Road, for this photograph. On a recent holiday in Kerry we met Fred Sheehy from Dingle, a publican and hackney man, who at one time drove the Dingle members of the Kerry team. He reminisced about several haunts in Galway, including the Old Malt, and the Hole in the Wall, and another one--"I can't remember his name now, I think it began with a J , but you could not miss it--you know when you come into Eyre Square from the Dingle side, it was just down the next Street and on a corner. So whoever you are J , or. wherever you are, Fred Sheehy from Dingle was asking for you.

--T.K.

galway gleanings
By the time this material wielders of the ash have appears in print the big probably done more for match will be over. One way Galway's reputation than or another history will have any other single pheno been made, and while it is a menon in recent times. history that may not shake What with a Rose of Tralee the foundations of our winner also under the belt, society to the roots, it has its one could almost begin to own psychological import forget about the weather, ance here in Galway--and the poor tourist season, the even in Limerick also. economy and even the most Whatever the reasons, recent threat to petrol official political and non- supplies. Almost. It must be G.A.A. circles in Limerick said however that the way seemed to take this 1980 the media approached the All-Ireland final much latter problem last weekend more seriously than used to did nothing to ease matters. be the case. There were SELFISH PANIC front-page detailed stories about the significance of the Announcing the latest occasion, and not just developments in the gowhether Liam O Murchu slow story on Friday night/ was a better judge of a ballad Saturday morning, after and/or of modern musi things had been wound cians in the field of high- down for the weekend, the powered media promotion sudden highlighting of a than Mark Kill ilea. It was problem which had been even suggested that Lime there for some time already, rick's "image" had suffered and which was not due to from unfair attacks in recent get worse until Monday years and that everybody in when some other oil com Shannonside was looking to panies, but not all, would be their hurling team restoring effected, certainly did the honour, fame and nothing to encourage the reputation of the city of the public to take things easy. broken treaty. This, the Especially on an All-Ireland Limerick Leader suggested, weekend. Add to this the could be achieved no matter fact that C L E . staff in who won, adding that if Dublin were playing cat and Galway succeeded in taking mouse again with the the title from them the capital's bus services--a Limerick people would be factor which probably the first to congratulate tempted some people to them. Which only goes to drive to Dublin and con show the high standing sequently, for those inter which our Galway hurling ested, probably cost C L E . team has had ever since they considerable revenue on the became part of the big-time train side of operations-- again in the 1970s, only to and one has some idea of the miss so many efforts by so way the media handling of little in the past. The the situation probably

added to the difficulties. The Department of Energy's appeal to take things easy lacked convic tion, and could not, by the time it was issued on Saturday, prevent the usual selfish panic at the pumps in Dublin in particular--as five day week suburban dwellers made sure that a minimum of supplies would be on sale in the capital on Sunday for all those country cousins who would be driving to Croke Park for the big occasion, and a s s u m e d it would be possible to get a fill in Dublin for the journey home. R T E , as it usually does, concentrated on the Dublin situation, but also gave some thought to the country cousins on its news coverage on Saturday, by doing a "whip around" summary of the overall situation in places like Kilkenny, Waterford, Cork and Car low. WHO KNOWS? On what basis these places were selected is anybody's guess-- probably some local reporter got in with a word about a situation which is always difficult to summarise, and which, if not entirely accurate, probably does more harm than good in any case. But surely the most glaring omission in the lunch time reports on Saturday as people set out for Dublin for the AllIreland final, and as soon as it was decided to do some type of a summary of the petrol situation nation wide, was the failure to let fans know what was the situation in Limerick and Galway cities and on the main routes from these areas to Dublin. Is there somebody in Montrose who feels the G.A.A. gets too much attention in any case or who genuinely did not realise that Galway/Dublin and the Limerick/Dublin would probably be the two busiest r o u t e s in the

country at the weekend? Somebody must have told them that the All-Ireland was being held at the weekend and even if this did not appear very interesting, it should have been realised that there would be many "culchies" on the move on these routes as a result. Then again, it may only be a simple case being afraid to attempt anything like an accurate summary, because this is virtually impossible to do with any accuracy without several reporters-- never too thick on the ground outside Dublin and certainly as rare as a fine summer on weekends. In that situation the old rule seems to be if there is a serious risk of criticism, better to ignore altogether, though this, of course, raises the question why Carlow, Kilkenny and Cork came in for special mention. MARK'S O U T B U R S T Mark Killilea may have been playing to the gallery somewhat in his outburst about the Trom agus Eadrom song row. One could scarcely have expected him to say anything else in the circumstances, though it is significant that no Galway politician of any persuasion was as quick to explain how come R T E could leave Channel 2 sitting absolutely idle all during Sunday afternoon while the kids of the Connemara Gaeltacht could view the English commentary on R T E 1 or lump it. Now if the BBC did that sort of thing in the case of a Welsh Rugby final, even some of the "Gaels" in the Irish Government might be willing to support the cause of the speakers of a minority Celtic language and criticise the insentivity of the British broadcasting authorities to the minority languages under their juris diction! That is not to say that the Minister of State in the Department responsible for broadcasting did not have a point about the

prevailing attitude in Mont rose, vis a vis the "provin cial areas." But the question must be asked as to what is being done about it, if as the observations about the petrol scare seem to suggest, it has some foundation, and had been going on for longer than most care to re member. What has happen ed the proposals to network nationally some regular programming from Cork, Galway, etc. as proposed when the R T E 2 package was being sold? The fairly tame home-produced sche dule proposed for this winter is as Dublin- center ed as it ever was two full years after R T E 2 came on the air. As for the suggestion that Mr. O Murchu was the sole judge, jury and execu tioner in this case, it does not follow that he is any better or any worse in making decisions which have to deal with all sorts of pressures and may have very little to do with the production of good pro grammes. The cure, of course, is to ensure that there are professional tele vision producers in charge on such occasions. G E T T I N G S T U C K IN Anybody who has any thing to do with media feedback quickly realises that the reaction of the public to particular items, approaches or opinions is always very difficult if not impossible to judge. We have found in this column recently that there appears to be a curious demand for somewhat serious items, and for serious outspoken discussion of the more difficult headaches facing us at the moment. Thus a recent rather detailed con sideration of the economic options being offered by Professors Friedman and Galbraith, among others, brought by far the greatest reaction from a very wide range of sources. The editor has suggested "meaty" items--"something you can . . .,^ .
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get your teeth into." Which, like Killilea standing up for the Galwegians, is always a popular line, until you get your teeth into something with which others disagree, or do not want to discuss-- or do not want to hear about even. Thus, while nobody likes the blunt facts about the continuing I.R.A. cam paign in the North as outlined in the current (September) issue of Magill editor Vincent Browne has done another service in setting them out in all their stark and horrid reality. MEDIA C U R E Rather than taking them seriously however, the most popular reaction will prob ably be to attack Browne as a Provo-lover and to carry on with out heads in the sand. It is interesting to note that the series of commercials on R T E in connection with the September issue of the magazine did not mention this main story at all, but had to concentrate instead on "the background to the investigation of the Govern ment stockbrokers." This, you may recall, was the story which the Sunday World had to drop some weeks ago. A High Court injunction was issued after it became known that the paper was about to publish a story. It is possible that legal proceedings migh have been taken to try and silence Mr. Browne also--if it became known in time that Magill was going ahead with its investigation. One can clearly see what the opera tion of the media was seen as being the most important factor in the recent happen ings in Poland. Nothing is more vital, if change, and even radical change, is to be possible by peaceful means. And that puts a heavy burden on all of us. Meanwhile, Prof. Fried man's television series is drawing to a close with a typically simplistic analysis and "cure" for inflation. Compiled by Nollaig O Gadhra ,