Connacht Tribune 17th June, 1911 p.8 (abridged)Fair Day, Kinvara c1950s Cresswell Archives
When the news reached Kinvara on Monday evening that Mr Thomas P Corless, president U.I.L headed the poll for co-option at the annual meeting in Gort, the greatest enthusiasm prevailed. A huge tar-barrel was set ablaze in the Square, and from the top of Newtown castle a great blaze could be seen for miles around.
In the patriotic village of Crushoa a similar scene could be witnessed, and Dungora castle had a number of fires lighting on every side, which showed how the people appreciated the act of the District Council.
About one hundred thousand pounds of the estimated two and a half millions annual over-taxation of Ireland would build a small link of railway between Ardrahan and Ennistymon by Kinvara, New Quay, Ballyvaughan and Lisdoonvarna and throw open to the public the enjoyment of the open sea and means of transit for the famous Burren oysters, Redbank oysters and Pouldoody oysters, whose banks are along this particular section of the coast of Clare, particularly New Quay.
It may not be generally known that the largest barley markets in Ireland are carried on at Kinvarra. Throughout yesterday and today business in the barley market has been in progress. From four to five hundred carts of barley arrived yesterday and were disposed of, and about the same number today. Yesterday some hundred tons of the corn were taken by an agent at Ardrahan Railway Station for the Dublin distillers.
Mr W. H. Persse, of the Galway Distillery, who attended the market, accompanied by a large staff of men, loaded a ship with two hundred tons of barley at sixteen shillings a barrel. The loading of another vessel for the same gentleman is going on today and the carts of grain are coming in hundreds.
The barley markets were established in Kinvarra thirty years ago by the late Mr H.S. Persse, founder of the Galway Distillery, because the place is so centrally situated and the climate and soil of the district were found to be most favourable to the growth of barley. After various experiments, it was proved that Webb’s Kinver Chevalier barley gave the finest results and the grain grown in the district about Kinvarra is held to be the best in Ireland.
Mr W. B. Yeats delivered an interesting lecture on “Irish Fairy Tales” at 15 D’Olier Street last evening, under the auspices of the Young Ireland League. Mr Henry Dixon presided.
Mr Yeats, who was received with applause, said that night was sacred to the fairies in general and to the phouca in particular. The phouca sometimes appeared as a horse, sometimes as a donkey, sometimes as an eagle and, indeed, took innumerable four-footed and two footed shapes.
The night of Samhain in old Pagan days was the commencement of winter, over which presided the phouca, whom the people considered the spirit of decay. They believed it was dangerous to go abroad on that night because the fairies might carry them off into their kingdom. That night also the dead were believed to come out of their graves and ride upon the white sea waves, and there were stories of fishermen, who, having escaped the waves and come ashore, found the dead grasping them from behind.
Mr Yeats related a number of interesting fairy tales and said that folklore afforded the most beautiful material for literature and they could not do better than encourage people to use it for such. Every country in the world had these beliefs and universal belief like that meant some universal need for it. If there was not deep down in the human soul some need to think about imaginary beings more beautiful and more powerful than the men and women they met in ordinary life, these things would not have arisen. Forelore gave a beautiful and most ample expression for their vast emotions – emotions which were always struggling to express themselves but were beaten down by the sordid interest of real life. Poets were folklorists who had listened to the voice of the people. They had taken the stories of the old men and women and had made them the delight of the most profound minds of all nations.
Seventy labourers, with their families, employed on works of reclamation by Mr P. Creagh in Burren, County Clare, have employed a clerk or storekeeper to distribute or re-sell provisions to them without any profit, under the surveillance of a committee of management from among themselves, thus making a saving of about 30 per cent.
Blessing of the Colours John Lavery, 1922. Wikimedia Commons
At a full meeting of the Grand Jury, Gentlemen, Clergy and Freeholders of the County of Galway assembled pursuant to public notice from the High Sheriff at the County Hall in Galway on the 31st of March, 1782. The following resolutions were unanimously entered into; Resolved;
That a seat in Parliament was never intended by our constitution as an instrument of emolument to individuals and that the representative who perverts it to such a purpose (particularly at so momentous a period as the present), is guilty of betraying the trust reposed in him by the people for their, not HIS benefit. Resolved;
That the people who could tamely behold their suffrages made the tool of private avarice or ambition are still more criminal than the venal representative as they become the panders without even the wages of prostitution. Resolved;
That we do hereby solemnly pledge ourselves to each other and to our country by every tie of honour and religion which can be binding on man, that as our sacred duty which we owe to the community supercedes all ties and obligations to individuals.
It is time for the people to look to themselves and in great national questions to assert their right to control those who owe their political existence to their breath and may be annihilated by their displeasure.
A general meeting of the Royal Irish Academy was held last evening during which Mr F. J. Foot read a paper on the botanical peculiarities of the Burren district, County Clare, illustrated by a botanical map.
He stated that many rare plants grow in great abundance in localities quite different from those usually known as their habitation. He was much struck by this while engaged in a geographical survey in that part of the country. The abnormal position of these plants was alluded to in a very able paper read by Rev. Mr O’Mahony before the meeting of the British Association in Dublin.
Although the barony of Burren was composed chiefly of carboniferous limestone, which sometimes rose in hills 1,000 feet above the level of the sea, the soil nourished plants of a rare and beautiful character. Mr Foot alluded to the peculiarities of the plants, some of which were remarkable for a fresh and beautiful foliage. Handsome drawings of them were exhibited.
A Member inquired whether these plants were scattered over Ireland at large, or whether they were peculiar to the west? There were many such plants as those alluded to by Mr Foot found in Portugal.
Folio 170r of the Book of Ballymote – (c1390) explaining the Ogham script. Wikimedia Commons
Evidence that an early Irish Empire flourished in the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries, with teachers and missionaries spreading its learning and culture into Germany, France and Switzerland, has been given in a series of lectures delivered at the School of Irish Studies, 6 West 12th Street, New York City by Mr Benedict Fitzpatrick.
Further details In the News at theburrenandbeyond.com
The Burren and Beyond 