Galway Advertiser 1984/1984_11_01/GA_01111984_E1_006.pdf 

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Saturday 3rd Nov. -- Feast of S t Martin do Porres.
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1914 The Galway Corps
In Galway in Jan u a r y 1914, s e v e n t y years ago, a meeting, p r e s i d e d o v e r by George Nicholls, decided to establish a corps of Irish Vol unteers. It was a large and enthusiastic gathering we are told and resulted in hundredds joining the new body. The spirit of the period was showing in this public response to the meeting in Nov ember at the Rotunda Rink in which the Volunteer movement s t a r t e d . It w a s a reaction by young men to the failure of Home Rulers, despite thirty years of electoral s u c c e s s , in their objective. The ballot box since 1885 had not been effective and, although a Home Rule Bill was under dis cussion, it was becom ing clear that efforts were being made to whittle away its provisions.

The Great Famine
Editorials on the famine in Ethiopia are two a penny this week. The usual exhortations are going out all over Europe. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands die a horrible death. And, yes, there is a ship being loaded at a European port at this moment with 150 tones of whiskey, brandy and liqueurs; destination Assab, Ethiopia. Is there anything we can say which will enliven our sense of what is happening ? Suppose we are back in Nineteenth Century Ireland, in 1847 to be exact. We are moderately well off citizens of Dublin. News comes in daily, hourly, of starvation and death in the countryside. Everybody is talking about it. The coachmen from Galway have terrible things to relate. People lying by the side of the road, their mouths geen from attempting to eat grass. Terrible rumours of cannibalism. Mothers with dead children at their breasts. Children pulling at dead mothers. Mass graves. Panic. Good Christians that we are, we find ourselves being a little troubled by the fact that grain ships leave Dublin port every day. But then, we reassure ourselves, is not this the iron law of Commerce, one of those immutable things like the weather which even our piety cannot change or touch? W e find it very easy today to condemn such a person as callous and criminally complacent. W e have no difficulty whatever in recognising his bad faith -- after all, it was our great-grandfathers who were starving. T h e knowledge he had of the situation, w e would say, carried with it a certain moral imperative. And yet we find ourselves in exactly the same position. The Great Famine of Black '47 was as close to our hypothetical Dubliner as the famine in Ethiopia is to us today. T.V. and modern transport have brought it that close. We have seen the dead bodies, the skeletal children, the walking dead. W e are members of a community which has a mountain of 2.7 million tons of grain, enough to feed all the famine victims for five years. An airlift could get out enough food to stop the famine in three days. N o wonder we feel a little troubled. One suggestion surfaced during the week. It is quite preposterous. It won't happen. Yet in its imaginative daring, in its grasp of what is needed, its reckless belief in the goodness of man it is the only one which meets the case. It goes as follows: N A T O and Warsaw Pact should combine their air-transport commands for one week and shift the E.E.C. grain mountain to Africa. Just that. It could be done. It won't be done. What then must we do? Our country holds the Presidency of the E.E.C. By every means at our disposal we must press for a massive increase in Community aid to the famine-stricken areas. Would you believe that the E.E.C. Foreign Ministers meet at Dromoland Castle, Co. Clare, this week to discuss the matter? Informally, of course. In the long term the problem is quite appalling. Seven years of drought in Africa is not an act of God. Climatic change caused by pollution and damage to the earth's body have caused the problem. Changing all that will necessitate a change in man himself.

J o r d a n . In Tuam the chairman was D r . T. B. C o s t e l l o and the Volunteer Company regularly assembled for drill in Sloyan's yard. By April 1914 a movement for the ladies had been e s t a b l i s h e d and t h e Galway girls wishing to join were directed to apply to C. O'Kelly, 4 Mainguard Street, in the city. The Galway Corps of the Volunteers had already by then turned out for a route march through the town and on the Castlebar road. A pipers' band led the march and in the centre was the Bohermore '98 Band. Difficulties, however, were not far away and they came with the split in the Volunteers over John Redmond's speech at Woodenbridge in September calling on Irishmen to fight on The Galway meeting Britain's side in the war. was the inauguration of G a l w a y m e n a t t h e Convention the movement west of the Volunteer Shannon and soon it was the following month in to s p r e a d to o t h e r Dublin included John counties with Nicholls Manning of Kiltormer, joined by D r . Brian P a d r a i g O Maille of Cusack and J. V. Fahy Leenane, B r i a n Cusack among the major speakers. of A Company Galway, Rooney of Athenry was to be the Michael scene of another major Moylough, E. Corbett of gathering where Larry Clarinbridge, J. Murphy L a r d n e r a c t e d as of Newcastle, J. HannifTy e c r e t a r y a n d J o h n of K i l c o n i e r a n , A . B r o d e r i c k p r e s i d e d . Neeson of Derrydonnell, Among those present that VV. Magill of Dunmore day was S t e p h e n and T h o m a s Kilgarriff

of Milltown. Obviously the split had not totally disrupted the Volunteers movement. The succeeding eight een months saw the continued development of the organisation of those loyal to the original executive and the part played in this by L i a m Mellows as organiser in t h e a r e a was v e r y important. He it was who led the Galway Volun teers in the 1916 Rising in which the county was one of the few areas outside of D u b l i n to actually participate. Galway city was full of rumours during that Easter Week in which British military reinforcements came in through the port and gunboats fired shells at targets which were miles from any V o l u n t e e r platoon. A revolution was taking place, a mental rather than a military one. The old parliamentary party was being ousted by a younger generation and Galway was part of that revolution. The Irish Party had been long unchallenged. Only two of the five elections to Parliament for Galway City from 1903 had been contested. Galway Connemara constituency had been held, without a contest since 1895, by William O'Malley.

Indeed from 1895 down to the 1918 General E l e c t i o n t h e r e were elections for thirty seats for Galway constituencies a n d in only seven instances were there contests. As the end of the World War I approached it became more and more c l e a r t h a t t h e new generation would not let seats fall to the Irish Party by default. If the Rising of 1916 was a turning point the 1918 election was clearly a sign that the old order had changed. At this stage representatives of the Volunteers went forward in each of the Galway c o n s t i t u e n c i e s . Liam Mellows was nominated for the city and surround ing area while in the other areas Brian Cusack, P a d r a i g O Maille and F r a n k Fahy, who had taken part in the Rising in Dublin, went forward. Mellows was in the U.S.A. having succeeded in escaping after the 1916 Rising but no Irish Party member opposed him. In the other Galway con stituencies the new comers swept the field polling between over 77 per cent of the votes cast. In Galway, and indeed throughout the country, the Irish Party was gone as a political force. The decade had seen one of the major changes in Irish history and politics. It is clear that Galway was as much changed as was the rest of Ireland.

I
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all your Christmas Presents. See demonstrations, enjoy a Fashion Show and take the Children to visit Santa Claus.

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Nollaig '84 Gifts & Crafts Fair
St. Patrick's School Hall Saturday & Sunday 8th and 9th December, '84 ********

Indira Gandhi
MANY OBSERVERS including Mrs. Gandhi herself knew asassination was inevitable. She was the extraordinary and undisputed leader of the world's biggest democracy and although her policies were controversial there is probably no rule of thumb for government of a nation of 800,000,000 people with 14 major languages and serious urban and rural problems. Mrs. Gandhi assumed absolute power in 1975 in order to deal with problems of corruption, famine and Marxism and her many political enemies. For this she actually served a term in prison; but not until she had herself imprisoned thousands of suspects sweeping aside all opposition. She won many major political batfes including successfully introducing socialism into her party and her nation and eventually succeeded not only in nationalising the banks but deprived the princes of India of their great wealth. She was a kinsman of the founder of modern India and the Congress Party Mahatma Gandhi, her father was former Prime Minister Nehru and she first became Prime Minister in 1966. Some people may doubt whether she was a democrat at heart; but however she may be judged by history she was as deeply loved as she was hated and was undoubtedly one of the makers of this century.

Monday to Saturday 9 a.m. -- 5.30 p.m.

Exhibitors Note: There are
5 spaces to be filled. Tel 22873, 7 to 9 p.m.

THAT PRECIOUS BOND OF LOVE
captured by

The Lane Studios
Let our photographer, Gerry T. O'Gorman, help by capturing the joy and happiness of this colourful and romantic occasion of your WEDDING DAY. Sample albums and presentation of our work in the specialised field of Wedding Photography are on view, at O'Gorman's Reception, Shop Street, Galway.
Photographer: Gerry T. O'Gorman. Tel. 62284/62996 FREE PROOFS WITH EVERY WEDDING.

Bally bane Industrial Estate, Tuam Road. (Opposite Jet Station)

0'GRADY'S

WAREHOUSING, STORAGE & DISTRIBUTION -- Deliveries & Collections --

Galway -- Dublin
EVERY TUESDAY & THURSDAY P h o n e : 55063/57946

"AM
Kenneth, Lord dark, "Ouilisation" 1979.