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Fort Worth Daily Gazette, 2nd February, 1886, p.4
The other day there left Dublin for Galway by the Midland railroad, a respectable young man who could not speak or understand one word of English. He has never spoken any other language than Irish.
He had been a fortnight in Dublin and during that time required, in the capital of his native country, to be accompanied everywhere by an interpreter.
Tuam Herald 28th September, 1839 p.2
(excerpt of letter from Mr T. Bermingham to “To the Guardians of the unions of Loughres, Gort, Ballinasloe and Tuam, especially – and to the inhabitants of the County Galway in General.”)
I have lately examined the southern coast of the Bay of Galway, and from the trade at present existing at Kinvarra and the New Quay, I have no hesitation in recommending the building there of two good piers, to protect the boats engaged in the fishery and seaweed trade, and as asylums for vessels of moderate burden, to encourage still further their spirited trade in corn, with a view of being a proper point of communication with the town of Galway by means of a steam tug – a plan which has been long agitated by the inhabitants of Galway. Tram roads for horse power are perhaps more adapted to the present trade of this county than more expensive railways for locomotive power.
With the experience that I have had in constructing a short line of railroad on cut bog, the property of Lord Clonbrock in this county, I can almost confidently state that a double line of rails of dimensions adapted to the present trade, can be constructed for three thousand pounds per statute mile – upon which one horse can draw a load weighing ten tons upon the level. Of course it would be necessary to have relays of horses to assist at some of the elevations – which upon the route that I propose to take, would be but few.
More on Kinvara in the news archives at theburrenandbeyond.com
Southern Star 4th May, 1935 p11
Lough Ness has not all the honours to itself.
Loughrea is now plagued by some strange animal (in olden times it would be called a Piast), which is very fastidious in its choice of food.
Its menu consists of eggs, fish, poultry and lamb. It does not recognise any rights of property. A local organisation is offering a reward of fifty pounds to any person that will capture or destroy it.
Additional information on the Piast may be accessed from T.J. Westropp’s A Folklore Survey of County Clare at
http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/folklore/folklore_survey/chapter8.htm
Tuam Herald 13th May, 1848 p.4
A Cuckoo shoots across my path,
Well pleased I mark its arrowy flight,
And see it reach the neighbouring rath,
And on an aged thorn alight.
In haste I turn my dexter car,
To catch the luck-portending sound;
And fancy, as those notes I hear,
‘Tis fairy music from yea mound.
Such airy, softly plaintive tones,
Did echo breath, with love forlorn,
While pining to a shade, her moans,
Were on the mountain breezes borne.
On such soft notes mine ear has hung
At dewy eve – soul-soothing hour!
When haply viewless Bards have strung
Their harp AEolian near my bower.
Mysterious bird! where has thou been
Since last I heard thy mellow cooing?
Say in what far distant scene
Hast thou been the echo wooing?
Didst thou to Grecian nations rove
Fair lands of arts and posey
To woo the secrets of the dove,
That keeps the Delphic mystery?
Or Egypt has thou visited,
Cradle of mythologic lore;
And from her lovely Pyramid
Thy lonely descent didst thou pour?
Or far as Araby, the best
Did thy unwearied wing aspire,
To see the Phoenix on her next,
Kindle the renovating fire?
Or has thy winter all been given
To slumber, in some mossy cell:
One of the feathered sleepers, seven,
Entranced, as if by magic spell?
I hail thee Phoenix of our year!
For at thy coming nature’s womb
Revives, and all her charms appear
Arrayed in renovated bloom.
I hail thee o’er the woodland ranging,
Chasing thy mate from tree to tree:
And with thy mellow pipe unchanging,
Swelling the Sylvan minstrelsy
Nenagh News 17th August, 1907p3 (abridged)
New Quay is encircled on the south side by the rugged range of the Burren Mountains showing the ancient ruins of Corcumroe Abbey, Aughmama Abbey, Mucknish castle, and other castellated ruins along Bellharbour Bay, with the villages of Curranroe, Kinvara, Bellharbour, Ballyvaughan and Finavara, in the immediate vicinity. The air at this district and its surrounds, filled with the ozone and saline of the salt sea of the Atlantic Ocean infuses new life and vigour into one accustomed to living in inland places where the air is entirely devoid of those health giving properties and less embracing.
There are two bathing centres in New Quay supplied with bathing boxes, and a splendid range of sanded strand, one at New Quay and the other at Old Quay, a short distance away towards the Flaggy Shore. The circle of sea surrounding New Quay extends from Curranroe, at the boundary of Clare and Galway, by Munna and Carton, along one of the northern peaks of the Burrin Mountains and continuing on by Old Quay, the Flaggy Shore, Finavarra, Martello Tower and Scanlan’s Island. At this point the entrance is to Bellharbour Bay by a narrow strait dividing Finavarra from Mucknish castle and Ballyvaughan and continuing inland by the southern slopes of Finavarra demesne, and Corcumroe Abbey to Bellharbour Quay and circling outward in the opposite direction by Muckinish Castle, Oughmama Abbey and Ballyvaughan, under the shade of the Burren Mountains.
In fine weather the open sea from the mountain heights and verdant plains of this district, presents one crystal sheet of sparkling surface, with ships, steamers, trawlers, and every style of sailing boat strewn here and there along the surface of the water, from the coast to the circle of the horizon, touching the Atlantic Ocean in the West where the top rigging of the largest barque afloat is seen as a speck above the curvature of the sea, until the full sails and hull of the vessel are exposed to view as it approaches nearer along the surface of the sea.
In stormy weather this open expanse of sea presents an entirely different appearance form what it is in fine weather. To residents of the district the disturbed and placid surfaces of the sea are as familiar as the rising and setting of the sun, but to the visitor or tourist unaccustomed to the fury of the tempest, a short sojourn at New Quay brings the extreme changes caused by the elements into view.
There are intermediate phases in the elements and surface of the sea which only add to the enjoyment of a sail in open boats, but woe betide the boats or even larger vessels, tossed about like shells on the surface of the mountain waves, rolling in silvery breakers from the Atlantic ocean against the cliffs and rock-bound coast.
Anglo Celt 27th May, 1933 p.12 (abridged)
Speaking at Kinvara on Wednesday, after dealing with the Pastoral of 1931
Most Rev Dr O’Doherty said;
There is another evil that is creeping in slowly and the people must be on their guard against it. You may not know that some years ago a dozen young Communists from this country went to Moscow and Berlin to be educated in the methods of Communist propaganda and the Godless methods of Soviet Russia and came back, some of them paid, some of them unpaid, to propagate these methods in Catholic Ireland.
More on Kinvara in the news, archives at theburrenandbeyond.com
Freemans Journal 16th August, 1923 p 5
Galway Wednesday
Amazement was expressed in Kinvara at the report published in yesterday’s “Irish Independent,” that revolver shots had been fired at the meeting on Sunday last, and that eight people had been wounded.
The facts were given to me today by the Very Rev. M. Cannon Fahy, P.P., Kinvara, who presided at the meeting, and opened the proceedings by speaking in favour of the Treaty. He asked that those who had come to address them should get a fair hearing.
When Mr Geo. Nicholls, one of the Cumann na nGaedheal candidates, rose to address the meeting, he was cordially received by the greater mass of the poeple, but a group of about fifteen youths immediately began to interrupt and heckle the speaker.
Four young men who had arrived in Kinvara earlier in a motor car immediately approached the interrupters, and told them that they would not be allowed to upset the meeting.
Canon Fahy asked for a fair hearing for the speakers, and order was temporarily restored. Later however, the interruptions were renewed, and something in the nature of a free fight took place between the four men who had objected to the interrupters and the youths, who were putting a number of questions to Mr. Nicholls.
Ultimately the interrupters surrounded the four men, whereupon they produced revolvers. At this the crowd fled in panic and the meeting came to a conclusion. Canon Fahy assured me that not a single shot was fired, and the report of the affair was a gross and scandalous exaggeration.
Irish Examiner 12th March, 1923 p4.
Mr Frank Fahy’s paper on “ould Kinvarra” at the Irish literary Society last night was one of the most delightful things the Society has had for many a long day. It was an authentic picture of Irish life in a little country town in the sixties and seventies. It was real because the memories were Mr. Fahy’s own memories, and yet as he truly said, other things being equal, it might have stood for a picture of life in any other little Irish town in the same period.
Those of us who heard the paper saw the people of Kinvarra and heard their familiar talk in their homes and out of them, took part in their joys and sorrows, and were one with them in their passionate love of the scenes among which they moved, a love which years of exile from them and leagues of sea and land now lying between the exiles and them only seem to increase.
The success of Mr. Fahy’s paper lay not only in the sympathetic chords it touched in the hearts of his audience but in the artistry with which he drew his picture, and the inimitable way in which he made every word tell. Every inflection in his voice was full of meaning. No one else could have written the paper. No one else could have read it so well. It was little wonder that in the subsequent discussion there were appeals to Mr. Fahy to have “Ould Kinvarra” printed – and along with it the other lecture which he gave not so long ago before the Society in which he described the work of the Southwark Irish Literary Society in London in the eighties. The only drawback to the evening was that its attractiveness demonstrated severely how inadequate is the space in the Society’s room for such an occasion
William Boyle.
Connacht Tribune 5th August, 1911 p.3
Questions in the Commons – Land Purchase in Kinvara District
Mr W.J. Duffy asked the Chief Secretary in the House of Commons on July 24th whether he is aware of an inspection having taken place in connection with the Blake Foster estate, Kinvara; was it offered for sale to the Congested Districts Board; has any offer been made to the trustees for its purchase; and how does the estate stand at the present time?
Mr Birrell;
This estate was offered for sale to the Congested Districts Board and has been inspected by their valuers, but the report of the valuers is not yet completed. The Board will consider the question of making an offer as soon as practicable.
Mr Duffy asked the Chief Secretary whether he is aware of the number of uneconomic holdings to be found in the neighbourhood of Kinvara, Co. Galway; whether, in order to assist in the relief of this congestion, Mr Brady Murray B.A., Moydore House, Kinvara, offered some untenanted land to the Congested Districts Board; what was the extent or acreage of the untenanted land offered by Mr Murray; and when it is proposed to take up this land and prepare a scheme for its allotment?
Mr Birrell;
The Congested Districts Board are unable to state the number of uneconomic holdings in the neighbourhood of Kinvara, Co. Galway. Mr Brady Murray has offered 339 acres of untenanted land in Gort Union to the Board, and a decision will be come to regarding purchase as soon as practicable.
The Sun, 25th February, 1894 p.6 (abridged)
To the Editor of the Sun
Sir,
For some time past I have been reading in your paper a good deal of matter bearing on the cuckoo and cuckoo politicians. In Ireland, where I was born, I have both seen and heard the cuckoo scores of times. All cuckoos who visit the Emerald Isle are attended by a small bird which is called by the Irish people the goobeadawn. This bird acts in the capacity of pilot and, I believe, nest builder to the cuckoo, and wherever you see the cuckoo there you will also see the goobeadawn.
The term goobeadawn is generally applied with derision and comtempt to the mean and obsequious fellows who are always to be found curring favors from the local squireens and are always in attendance on them, cap in hand, ready to perform the most menial service.
Yours,..
The Burren and Beyond 