Freemans Journal 4th June 1900
Lord O’Brien of Kilfenora was, as everybody knows, more than once a candidate for Parliamentary honours in his native county of Clare. It was, we believe, on the occasion of the death of Lord Francis Conyngham, one of the earliest and staunchest supporters of Isaac Butt in the early agitation for Home Rule, that Mr. O’Brien made a tour of the county and introduced himself personally to the electors. His manner was suave and his speech conciliatory in the extreme. Some of the electors were doubtful as to whether the “man of law” from Ballinalacken was with Isaac Butt or against him. In their perplexity they went to consult Biddy Early, a woman skilled in the suture, who delivered oracles in a sequestered glen between Lough Greany and O’Callaghan’s Mills. Biddy arranged her philtres, put on her sagest look, and deliberately pronounced that the cattle of any man who voted for a recreant descendant of Boru would die of black quarter. Further than this she could not be induced to go. The people were by no means satisfied, for they thought the O’Gorman man bore a much greater family likeness to Brian Boru than the man from Lisdoonvarna.
Month: May 2019
Ballinderreen 1915
Connacht Tribune 20th November, 1915 page 4
DASTARDLY OUTRAGE AT BALLINDERREEN
On Wednesday night, 10th inst. a startling explosion was heard in the vicinity of Ballinderreen village. At about 9.15 p.m. a loud report rang out in the direction of the schools, and at once the cry was raised that a German bomb had been thrown some few hundred paces from the village. Four policemen, including Acting-Sergt. Walsh, Kilcolgan, were quickly on the scene, but failed to discover the source of the mysterious report. In the morning, however, it was discovered that a portion of the National School wall had been blown up with gelignite, it is thought. The reason for the occurrence remains a mystery and the police are “all at sea” regarding the dastardly outrage.
The Burren and Beyond 