During Lord Mulgrave’s, or a preceding Lord Lieutenant’s rule in Ireland, there was a curious thing never traced to its source and never explained. In the east of Kildare, at Kill, a strange woman gave a piece of kindled peat to a man, with the injunction to pass it along to the next person on the Naas road, that person to repass it westward still alight, and so on westward. If the turf were let go out before a new piece were substituted from a living hearth, misfortune would come. That was on an autumn evening. Within twelve hours the ‘burnt turf’ had been carried to Galway Bay, across Kildare, the Queen’s and King’s counties, and Galway. No one has ever published an explanation of the affair.
The Catholic Press 15th May, 1919 p. 18 (abridged)
Mullaghmore Acrylic on canvas EO’D
You ask me why, tho’ ill at ease,
Within this region I subsist,
Whose spirits falter in the mist,
And languish for the purple seas.
Within this land which bondmen till
Who cannot call their minds their own,
But into dungeons straight are thrown
If they but speak the things they will.
A land of nameless government,
That hath a wide and dark renown;
Where Freedom hourly shrinken’s down
From precedent to precedent.
Where faction always gathers head
Where by degrees to fullness wrought
The strength of some repressive thought
Hath time and space to work and spread.
Where banded bigots persecute
Opinion, and produce a time
When honest thought is civil crime,
And individual freedom mute.
Yet ’tis the land of mist and wrong,
Wild wind! that claims my homage high;
And I will hear before I die
The shout of her triumphant song.
S.
Mr. Horace Plunkett, an enterprising Irishman, is actively engaged in fostering the production of an oyster warranted to pass the most vigilant analyst in search for bacilli. From a gentleman conversant with the oyster in a scientific as well as a gastronomic sense, I have just had direct information as to the experiments which the Irish agricultural department are carrying out.
These experiments begin when the tiny specks of protoplasm settle on the sea bed and continue until the oyster finds its way to the restaurant bar. The temperature, the effect of currents, the suitability of various kinds of beds for feeding purposes, methods of packing and marketing, and other things appertaining to the oyster too abstruse for the lay mind, are being found and “made a note of”.
In due time a gray book will appear containing information which will be at the disposal of everybody. Meantime the red bank of Burrenco, Clare, the scene of the experiments, is sending its oysters to the Dublin and to some extent to the English markets. The part of the Irish coast involved in the oyster industry is said to be absolutely free from the possibility of sewage and contamination. For example, the only habitations within any reasonable distance of the Burren beds are in the village of Burren,(sic.) and consist of a telegraph office, a grocer’s store and public house – not quite as dangerous as London for the oyster.
Apples Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) Van Gogh Museum Wikimedia Commons
The record long distance for a box of gift apples was established last week when the Apple Growers Associated received an order to forward a box of Spitzenbergs to County Galway, Ireland, for Miss Kathleen Conoly, of Portland. The box went to F.X. Twohy, of Ballinahinch. The cost of the box was $6. It was forwarded by boat to Liverpool along with a cargo of association apples.
The following is clipped from a west of Ireland newspaper. It is the protest of an Irish priest against what, on the facts related, seems to be a mean, petty prying system practised upon the people of Kinvara for the purpose of extracting evidence for use against the rebels. Such irritating measures exercised for the production of incriminating information are bound to foment strife and discord, and are well described as stupid. Father J. W. O’Meehan writes;
As a priest I feel bound to warn our people against the danger of revealing anything whatsoever, either under blandishment or threat, to armed men concerning the most sacred subject of Confession. Unfortunately it has fallen to my lot to inform the people of the fact that in this catholic parish of Kinvara, questions of a most improper character were recently put to a parishioner – a decent but simple country boy – by one of two armed men concerning the boy’s Confession. Lest in present circumstances I should be regarded as a prejudiced person, I think it better to set down in writing, coolly and deliberately, the bold facts of this sad occurrence.
On Monday evening, May 29th, two armed “gentlemen” (?) approached this young man, and having put him several questions, which, as a Catholic priest, do not concern me now, one of these armed “gentlemen” then proceeded to ask him about the Confession which he made at the Convent Church on Easter Saturday evening. I shall allow yourselves, Catholics of Kinvara, to form your own judgment on the propriety of an Irish Catholic armed “gentleman” asking an Irish Catholic youth the four following questions;
First question: Who told you to go to Confessions on that particular evening?
Second question: Where did you meet Father ________ when he told you to go to Confession?
Third question: What reasons did the priest give you for asking you to make your Confession, or why did he ask you to go on that particular Saturday evening rather than any other evening?
Fourth question: How long was it since your last Confession?
I have ample evidence to show that these four questions have been asked on the evening of May 29th. The boy who was so questioned and two other persons who were present on the occasion and prepared to swear to the truth of the statement. May it be my privilege now to ask four questions?
First: Had this armed “gentleman” authority from his superiors to pry into this most intimate and sacred subject of a man’s Confession?
Second: Does the Defence of the Realm Act empower armed “gentlemen” in Ireland to invade the sealed realm of the Confession?
Third: Can this armed “gentleman” be too ignorant or too stupid not to realise that questions of this nature would outrage the most tender feelings of Irish Catholics?
Fourth: who really are the “gentlemen” who are now exasperating the people and helping in this most peaceful district to manufacture crime?
Catholics of Kinvara, even if there are vile tongues amongst you, which blab when they should not, let those of you at any rate who still remain faithful to birth and fatherland guard even with your lives, the sanctity of Confession against all the agents of stupidity in this land.
(Signed) J.W. O’Meehan
Daily Illinois 29th January 1933
DeValera has majority of 1 seat in new Dail
President Eamon De Valera will have a majority of one seat in the new Dail Eireann which meets two weeks from today. The counting of the final ballots in Tuesday’s general election, completed tonight with the last returns from Galway, assured the tall, gaunt Spanish-Irish president a total number of seats in the lower house of the legislature which will make unnecessary his reliance on labor members, usually steadfast but occasionally doubtful allies.
Sangamo Journal/Illinois State Journal 22nd April, 1853
Burren Hills Photo: EO’D
EMIGRATION FROM IRELAND
The last American mail brought the sum of £500 pounds to the little village of Ballyvaughan, which is situated in the County Clare on the opposite side of the bay of Galway. We have heard that this large sum has been sent home for the purposes of emigration, so that the neighborhood of Ballyvaughan is likely to contribute its full contingent to the host of emigrants which are daily rushing towards the English ports. A few mornings past, the terminus at Eyre square was crowded with the relatives of the emigrants, bidding them farewell on their departure for America. In the language of a person present, when describing the numbers – it was like a fair . The strength and hope of Ireland are so rapidly passing away that sufficient hands will not remain to till the soil .
Albury Banner and Wodonga Express 16th September, 1921 p.35 (abridged)
Photo: EO’D
Crown forces, finding the road to Ballyvaughan obstructed by walls built across the road, commandeered shopkeepers, artisans and labourers at Kinvara to remove the stones. At the Ballyvaughan side men were forced to remove similar obstacles at Muckinish and Bellharbour.
A teacher in St. Ita’s School, which was the female portion of Padraic Pearse’s foundation, wrote of him in the following terms in 1916;
In another country a school like Pearse’s would be endowed both by the State and by private philanthropy. In Ireland we can hardly be said to have a State, and the few people of large fortunes might endow a school for Anglicising the country, but never one with this patriotic programme. About the time Pearse took up his quarters in the Hermitage, his work was become well known everywhere. In England, General Baden-Powell, who had founded the Boy Scout Movement, was much impressed by what Pearse was accomplishing for Irish boys, and became eager to enroll in some way for his movement the help of this inspiring teacher of boys. Of course, no working scheme between Pearse and Baden-Powell was feasible, but it is worth mentioning as showing the attention St. Enda’s School was attracting.
The school lasted in all from September, 1908 until the first week of May, 1916, when its founder was placed before a firing squad of eight soldiers, four of whom aimed at his head and four at his heart; the heart that loved Ireland so much and the fine brain that had planned such great things were riddled with bullets.
He was a great man, though his greatness was rarely apparent at first acquaintance. He had a curious aloofness and reserve. He was rarely seen at social meetings; when he was, his tall, strongly-built figure with its stooping head and slightly squinting eager eyes was the figure of a man of destiny. In conversation he was gentle and shy, only in the presence of large masses of people did he really become himself. Then he became imperious and masterful, and his strength and passion were sometimes overwhelming. He was the finest orator I have ever heard.
Everything Pearse said was charged with meaning and took root in the heads and hearts of the people. He never worked up his audience into tears about the past woes of Ireland; he made them passionately eager to struggle for the future. Thus, he dominated that generation of men and women in Ireland, who have risked so much and accomplished so much. I can easily understand how, when the choice of President of the Republic had to be taken, all minds and eyes turned to him. He is still, in the minds of the people, their President, though the soldiers threw his shot-riddled body, coffinless, into a pit and covered it with corroding lime, so that we can never recover it, to pay it our homage.
The Burren and Beyond 