When the city was being constructed in medieval times, the streets and even the lanes must have appeared wide and spacious. The only kind of traffic they would have experienced then would have been pedestrian, horse or donkey and cart and maybe the odd wheelbarrow. We have two images for you today of the east side of Eyre Square the first (courtesy the National Library ) dates from c1890 and shows that type of traffic; The second (courtesy Galway County Library ) shows the same area with motorised traffic. Since the latter was taken, the population has grown by 6 or 7 times, and of course, the traffic volumes have increased accordingly. So the Corporation had to make occasional changes to the bye-laws in relation to traffic.
After sporadic fighting in Galway during the summer of 1922, and the occupation of some buildings in the town, including the old RIC barracks in Eglington Street, and the former Connaught Ranger barracks at Renmore, the anti-Treaty forces withdrew into Connermara, and into the east Galway countryside.
The first book printed in Ireland was The Book of Common Prayer in 1551. As printing became more sophisticated, newspapers became inevitable. The first gazettes were published originally in manuscript – the word gazette being derived from gazetto, a coin of Venice, the amount paid for reading the news. The earliest printed newspapers began to appear around the end of the 16th century. These were small, quarto in size, printed on one or both sides of the page, or of four pages containing intelligence of public interest which were variously called Books of Newes , ‘Newe Newes’, Wonderful Newes , ‘Bloody Newes out of Ireland’, etc.