IRISH SCENES AND PEOPLE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 195, 17 July 1935, Page 4

IRISH SCENES AND PEOPLE.

ADDRESS BY MR T. COLLINS. To a good attendance at the Feilding Civic Club’s luncheon yesterday, Mr T. Collins (the Mayor) gave an interesting account of his tour of Ireland, made somo years ago, when, accompanied by Mrs Collins, he visited such . places as Dublin, Belfast, the Killarney Lakes, Shannon River and the ancestral homes of the families of both Mrs Collins and himself. Mr Collins had many humorous incidents to record and kept his audience well amused with accounts of Irish humour. The people in the country districts, he said, had impressed lnm as still living the simple life of about 100 years ago, but in the cities everything had been very modernised. The country people had further given the impression that they were very pov-erty-stricken, but in a conversation with an official of the Bank of Ireland Mr Collins had learned that at the time ho was speaking of all the farming people had money on deposit in the bank and, further, that then the Irish Free State had no national debt. The speaker went on to detail the indications he had seen of the strife that had taken place, and remarked that happily many of the differences had now been composed. At the conclusion of his address Mr Collins was accorded a vote of thanks j on -the motion of Mr E. H. Brewer.