Search Results for 'Joe Lally'

What memories do you have of your schooldays? Here are some reminiscences of a few old ‘Jes-mugs’.

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.

After the war, there was a bit of a building boom of dance halls around the country. Radio had introduced popular music to the general public and more and more people wanted to move to the music, so dance bands began to form. Some of those in Galway were Des Fretwells’ Band, Maxie Dooley’s Musicmakers, The Bill Keaveney Orchestra, and Gerry Cahill’s Dance Band. They played the popular music of the day, were mostly seated on stage and reading the music from stands in front of them. Then along came Bill Haley and rock and roll and everything changed. The showbands had arrived. Music stands were forgotten, musicians played standing up and literally began to move with the times.

In 1925 there was a major debate in the Urban Council about a Garda report that two men from County Offaly who had been swimming in the sea in Salthill without any bathing costumes had been apprehended, and how the gardaí should deal with them. The debate was about the evils or otherwise of mixed bathing in Salthill.