history – The Burren and Beyond

Life in Galway – 1895

Posted on November 7, 2026 by The Burren and Beyond

The Australia Star 27th July 1895 p8
Continual Duels- Anecdotes of.

In the recently. published “Autobiography of Sir William Gregory,” edited by Lady Gregory, there are a number of interesting particulars concerning social and political life in Ireland at the close of the last century and the beginning of this. The narrator begins with some details about his great grandfather, Robert Gregory, an excellent type of the nabob, who amassed a huge fortune in India and then returned to England.
Sir William says:—
My great-grandfather, on his return from India, had purchased an estate in Essex, another in Cheshire, a house in Bernerstreet, London, then a fashionable quarter, and a property in Ireland of over £7000 a year. Before his death he had sold the Essex and Cheshire estates, but he reserved that of Galway. From the accounts I have heard of him, he was a most kind and polished old gentleman, living in very great state, and considering, as old Indians used to do, that a huge retinue of servants was necessary for existence. I have heard my grandmother speak of the procession of carriages in which he and his suite travelled from London to Coole, but -what particularly struck her were the number of servants who came to the door, and waited at dinner in black silk stockings, black breaches, and gold garters. He was particularly courteous to young ladies, who had good reason to remember their visits to Coole with pleasure, and it was his habit to take them at their departure to a drawer, in which were precious stones, and let them fish out one of them without looking, taking the chance of what it might turn out to be. One fortunate maiden was mentioned to me— though I have forgotten the name— who had the luck to pick up a very valuable ruby.
He died at the age of 83, September 1, 1810, with all his faculties unimpaired, and his hair scarcely tinged with grey.
The grandfather of Sir William Gregory was Under-Secretary for Ireland, a position, he held for 18 years. It is characteristic of all governments in Ireland that officials are not only paid, but housed after a splendid fashion. Some of the great officials have two official residences, one in Dublin Castle and the other in Phoenix Park, the beautiful stretch of grounds just outside Dublin. It was in the Under-Secretary’s Lodge in Phoenix Park that Sir William was born in 1817.

Much of the interest of this volume is due to the glimpses it gives of Irish life as it used to be among the Irish nobility and the Irish gentry. It is not an agreeable picture. The hiccough sounds through it all. For it is impossible otherwise to account for the recklessness and the ferocity which characterised some of their doings, especially in the matter of duelling. Though the bravery may be admired, there is something extremely odious in the swagger with which these gentlemen got up from their cups to destroy each other’s lives.
The duel was dying out in its pristine ferocity in the days of Sir William Gregory’s youth— though it had not altogether disappeared from the land. There are plenty of illustrations of this in some of the excellent stories which Sir William Gregory tells. Thus his grandfather, one day, while dressing, had suddenly to take a prominent-part in a duel :
A duel had been arranged between Sir Valentine Blake and Robert Burke, of St. Clerens, two Galway men, and the spot selected was close to my grandfather’s gate.
He was, engaged at his important shaving operation, when he heard first one, and then, after an interval, a second double shot, which he knew to be from a pistol. He did not hesitate a moment, but ran downstairs, bare legged as he was. An orderly’s horse was at the door; he sprang on it and galloped to his gate-house. As he neared the gate he heard, close at hand, a third double shot, and just outside he saw a gathering of spectators round the seconds, who were discussing the subject of making a fourth shot effective. Just as he got to the ring a huge fellow rode In and shouted out: —
“Gentlemen, this is all child’s play. Let’s finish the business properly. Let each second advance his man two paces, and I’ll engage they don’t miss.”
“Who are you, sir?” cried my grandfather, dashing his horse forward. “Who are you, sir, to give such bloody counsel?”
“Who am I indeed!” said the other man, looking at the strange figure in a grey dressing-gown and bare legs.
“I’ll have you to know, sir, I’m Mr. Hickman, the clerk of the peace for the County of Clare!”
“Then, Mr. Hickman,” said my grand father, very quietly, ” I arrest you and the principals and seconds of this duel, in the King’s name, and I’ll have you all taken up before 12 o’clock.’
After which he rode home in his bare legs, chatting very pleasantly to Sir Phillip, who had been on the ground acting professionally as surgeon for the belligerents.

An even more remarkable duel was described to Sir William Gregory by the late Marquis of Clanricarde, in his way a type of the old Irish gentleman :—
“One day, at Portumna, he pointed out to me a field on the other side of the Shannon, about half a mile from the bridge which connects Galway with Tipperary. We had been talking of William Macdonagh, the well-known steeplechase rider, who was a kind of squireen and lived in the neighbourhood. He had recently shot himself through the head in a pistol gallery in Leicester square, where Dunkellin and I went an hour afterward to practice, and there he was, lying stark and stiff behind a screen.
‘I remember,’ said Lord Clonricarde, ‘seeing the poor fellow fight his well-known duel in that field. He had a difference with some Tipperary gentleman, and it was decided that the duel should take place with pistols on the Tipperary side of the river. The decision as to the side of the river where the affair should come off was a matter of life and death, for the Tipperary man well knew that if he was victorious on the Galway side, he would be torn to pieces by the Galway mob, while the Galway man knew that if he killed his antagonist on the Tipperary side, his chance of escape from the men of Tipperary would be small indeed. On the morning of the duel there were at least two thousand persons present, all Tipperary men, as the Galway peasants did not dare to cross the bridge.’ Lord Clanricarde went over from Portumna, and Macdonagh rode his horse to the scene of action, and gave it to a man to hold close at hand. A regular lane was made, lined by spectators on each side. When the signal was given both fired, and Macdonagh not only shot his antagonist dead, but also one of the peasantry who, in his eagerness to sea the sport, had pushed forward and received the ball in his head.
Macdonagh got to his horse and made for the bridge of Portumna. After taking one or two fences gallantly on the way, he found his retreat cut off and the Tipperary men in occupation of the bridge. Without a moment’s hesitation he put his horse at the Shannon, amid the execrations of his baffled pursuers, and he reached the other bank in safety.”

Sir William Gregory was the hero of one of the most historic contests in Irish history— the fight for the Dublin seat at a by-election in 1842. He says :”The Dublin people welcomed me very heartily, and an agreement was come to that I was to pay £4000 down, that the balance was to be made up somehow, and that I was to have nothing to do with bribery. The election ultimately cost about £9000; where the balance came from I know not, but among the vouchers in possession of my committee was one which was afterwards placed in my hands: ‘For 1500 freemen, gratification, at £3 per head, £4500.”
O’Connell took part in the election, and was especially vehement against Gregory for having listened in silence at one of his meetings to the cry “To hell with the Pope.” Gregory indignantly denied the charge— so indignantly as to vex the souls of the “fifteen hundred freemen voting solid at three pounds per head”:—
“I am afraid there were some good grounds for O’Connell’s statement that the offensive words were shouted, though my conscience was clear enough. I was much rebuked for the violence of my disclaimer, and the Rev. Tresham Gregg, in a speech next day to the Protestant freeman, when alluding to these allegations, said, ‘No, my friends, we must not cry, ” To hell with the Pope;” we must cry, “To heaven with the Pope.”
It will give some idea of the religious rancour which prevailed in those days among the lower-classes of Protestants, that one of the first petitions I was requested to present was a supplication to the House of Commons to pass a measure to prevent the Roman Catholics from using bells at their chapels, which, as being summonses to idol worship, greatly distressed the ears of the petitioners.”

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Spooks and Witches – 1947

Posted on October 10, 2026 by The Burren and Beyond

Geraldton Guardian and Express 17th April, 1947 p6

Spooks and witches do not intend to be elbowed out of the post-war world. They have been making their presence felt with renewed vigour just recently in many parts of the world — in Essex, Buckinghamshire, Ireland, Natal and the Cameroons in West Africa, to name just a few.
One of the most sensational stories pointing to the re-birth of spooks and witches comes from Essex, where a bull -dozer stirred up more trouble than enough. The scene of the story is the little village of Great Leighs, where the bull-dozer, pushing emphatically along a lane which was too narrow to accommodate it, turned over at the cross roads a stone which had been set there two hundred years previously to anchor the mortal remains of a witch who had been burned at the stake.
Since then there has been the devil to pay. Church bells have rung by themselves, huge stones have been tossed about like pebbles, hay stacks overturned, and doors slammed shut of their own accord. One of the village elders, finding a stone that would take three men to lift tossed carelessly on to his doorstep, scratched his thatched head thoughtfully. ‘I don’t believe in witches,’ he said —’But then my father didn’t believe in radio!’ The village has become the centre of investigation by the London University Council of Psychical Investigation, which has found no explanation for the disturbances, and attributes them to mischief making poltergeists.

Poltergeists are a type of ghost which specialises in making nuisances of themselves. They throw your best china about, pull chairs away as you go to sit down, blow hot air round your ankles and cold air around your wrists. They fling pictures across a room, and rattle the windows on a still night. They clank invisible chains up and down the stairway, and freeze the water pipes in the middle of summer. They have the perverted sense of humour of practical jokers, but they wreak more damage than any mere practical joker would dare.
Even in these days of acute housing shortages, poltergeists are usually left in sole occupation of a house once they settle in. Cold mists which leave yellow stains on the wall, door bells which ring in an unwired house, and sepulchral wailings at the midnight hour will drive most tenants out of a poltergeist-controlled house. Even physical research investigators feel their hair rising a little at some of the manifestations of a well-trained talented poltergeist!
There have been countless documented and signed statements regarding the damage caused by these ‘creatures,’ and, although you may scoff at such things, hard-headed business men have learnt to take them as a matter of course.
In Buckinghamshire recently a girl and her mother declared that the 270 year-old house in which they live is haunted by a ghost which tickles their faces and pulls off their blankets. ‘It’s not the transparent kind of ghost,’ said the mother. ‘He is a tall misty-white figure with broad shoulders. One night, when I tried to get out of bed, I felt a hand grip my waist, and push me back, and some times the bed rocks as though the ghost were trying to pick the whole thing up.’
Not a nice sensation to go to bed with — but the house is next to the graveyard at Langley, so perhaps it is merely a case of lost-direction on the part of the ghost. Perhaps he is just trying to find his own particular tombstone.
In Ireland recently a Dublin lorry driver died of shock after giving a lift to a ghost. Before he died, he told a friend that he had been driving from Mullingar to Athlone (County Galway), when he became aware of an old man sitting beside him in the cabin of the lorry. At the Bishop’s Tree in Milltown Pass, the old man got out and walked towards the graveyard, where he disappeared. The driver told the same story to the Civic Guards — and shortly afterwards died of delayed shock. There is a superstition that five bishops were buried under the Bishops’ Tree. When the sixth died, there was no room for him there.
The ghost story from Natal concerns the Olympics, a native football team which was suspended for five years for using witchcraft against their opponents. The Olympics sued the native secretary of the Natal African Football Association with defamation. The secretary said that he had accused the Olympics of using witchcraft after members of the opposing team, the Pirates, had begun to roll on the ground in hysterics. In spite of the attentions of a witchdoctor, the Pirates continued to scream and collapse, and one by one they had to be carried from the field. The secretary added darkly that he had heard other complaints about the Olympics resorting to witchcraft on previous occasions.
From Africa too comes the story of the beer drinking ghost which inhabited Johann Albrechshohe, once a German military barracks and later a rest home for Government officials in the Cameroons. The old building was recently demolished, but the story of the thirsty ghost will probably linger for all time. The building built many years ago on the edge of an extinct volcano, was haunted by a former German district officer. Used to having his own way in life, the ghost set-up melancholy wails and groans until the household learnt how to pacify him. Sleepless nights worried everybody until some bright soul hit on the idea I of leaving a tray set with a bottle of beer and a glass every night just before 12 o’clock. This was evidently just what the ghost was wanting. The householders slept peacefully thereafter — but they often wondered when in the morning they viewed the glass encrusted with dried froth how the ghost had been able to consume the beer without removing the patent stopper. They felt that if the ghost knew how to pour beer out of an unopened bottle, he ought to have been able to solve the easier problem of keeping himself supplied with beer.
Not all ghost stories belong to ‘the other side of the world.’ Australia and New Zealand have their ghost stories too — but most of these ghosts seem to be well-established, and in no need of pressing their claims for recognition in the post-war world. Fisher’s ghost is probably the best known of the New South Wales collection, and there are many authenticated stories from people who have seen this ghost, which haunts a bridge in the Camden district. Not far off, in Meningie, is the ghost of a convict who haunts an old mill where, legend says, he was flogged to death.
In New Zealand some years ago an old family house stood vacant for many years on St. John’s Hill, one of the popular residential suburbs of Wanganui. The house belonged to a well known pioneer family who were forced to walk out after too many months of shattering experiences. They would walk into a room to find the piano playing by itself, doors would swing violently open or shut in their faces, and the household cats would spit and arch their backs at unseen enemies. The house was burnt down only a year or so ago.
For nearly eighty years a ghost ship has been the traditional storm warning along the coastal waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Wild and fantastic are the stories surrounding the ship that is said to haunt the shores of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, always before a storm. Fishermen, farmers, residents and even train crews speeding along the lines close to the shore have reported seeing the phantom ship. Always, they say, its rigging and spars are ablaze, while weird tongues of flame lick the masts. A red glow hangs over the whole scene. It is one of the most repeated tales of Canadian coasts.
Even a clergyman testifies to having seen the ship. He described his experience later: — ‘I was returning in company with three other men from conducting services on Port Hood Island. We were walking across the ice to the mainland and about a mile away from us there was open water. Suddenly the sky was lit up by a red glow and I saw a strange blood-red ship sailing northward along the edge of the ice pack. We watched if for fifteen minutes. We came to the conclusion that it was a three-masted schooner ablaze from stem to stern.’
Through the years hundreds of people claim to have seen the ship. There have been many varied accounts of its origin. Some say it was an immigrant vessel that went ashore on its way to Quebec and was struck by lightning. Others claim it was a man-o-war that blew up in the war of 1812. Countless fishermen have manned their boats and set out to investigate the phantom ship, but it has always eluded them and remained always at the same distance, like a mirage in a desert.

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Eviction Scenes in County Galway – 1886

Posted on September 15, 2025 by The Burren and Beyond

The Capricorn, (Rockhampton, QLD) 30th October, 1886 p 10

Most determined resistance is being given to an evicting party which has been at work for some days on the Marquis of Clanricard’s estate, near Woodford, County Galway.
About 1000 police had been drafted into Portumna, whence they go each morning to the scene of the intended evictions. Mr. Brady, R.M., County Inspectors Wilson and O’Brien, and eight district inspectors are in charge of the police.

The first eviction took place on Thursday, when the police went to a place called Kilnawally. They found about 500 people assembled, the crowd having been brought together by the ringing of the chapel bells. Conroy, whose rent is £24, owed with costs, above £100. The farm had been sold to the agent for the landlord at a public sheriff’s sale in Galway some time ago. An enormous crowd had assembled, amongst them being three Roman Catholic clergymen, Rev. Mr. Coen, Rev. Mr. Egan, of Woodford and Rev. Mr. Roach, of Ballinakill.
The Emergency men took three hours to effect an entrance, during which time the party inside and on the roof poured boiling water and lime on them, and threw slates down on them. Even the crowbars, with which the
wall was being broken in, were taken from them and dragged inside the house. The Emergency men drew their revolvers repeatedly, but were dissuaded by the police from using them.

The evicting force subsequently proceeded to Drumin, three miles off, to carry out another eviction, but so stubborn was the resistance that the attempt was abandoned, and the party returned to Portumna. On the following day they found that Monatreeva Bridge, five miles from Portumna, had been broken down during the night, and the remainder of the journey, seven miles, had to be performed on foot.
The house of a man named Patrick Fahy was reached, and a scene ensued similar to that on the previous day at Conroy’s. When County Inspector Willson went up close to the house to inform those inside that unless they desisted he would be obliged to order the police to fire on them, the answer he got was the pouring of a quantity of boiling lime on himself, which destroyed his uniform.
The Riot Act was threatened to be read, but the counsels of the clergy and police prevailed, and the people became less excited. Ultimately, after four hours, possession was taken. Parties of police remained out all night on Friday to prevent further destruction of bridges or obstruction of the road by trees etc. At the house gone to on Saturday the emergency men failed to effect an entrance, and the police entered with fixed bayonets. Those inside resisted, and in the struggle one civilian was stabbed, and one policeman wounded. The police made no arrests.
Home paper Sept 4

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Galway – 1898

Posted on July 5, 2025 by The Burren and Beyond

The W.A. Record Sat 20th Sept. 1898, p4
Galway -1898
Death of Mr. John Holland, of Kinvara.

On the 4th of last July John Holland, of Quay, Kinvara, died. Just 50 years ago this worthy man played a part in the stirring events of the time, which deserves to be remembered by true Irish patriots. By him the late J .B. Dillon was placed on board a ship in Galway Bay, and thus avoided the sleuth hounds that were on his track.

The Oldest Man in the World.
There is a native of Errislanan in Connemara, who says himself he is 120 years old, while others say he is much older. He remembers distinctly seeing the French when they landed at Killala in ’98, and says he was ” working with the horse drawing stones ” at that time. His name is John M’Donagh. He can only speak Irish, and that very feebly, but this season he went out and planted his own crop of potatoes.

The ’98 Centenary and the Re-naming of Streets.
At a recent meeting of the Loughrea Town Commissioners the following letter was read from the Rev. Father Nolan, dated from St. Joseph’s the Abbey, Loughrea :
To the Chairman, Board of Commissioners.
Gentlemen,
I beg respectfully to submit to you that, in my opinion, it would be a desirable and suitable means of keeping fresh the memory of the men of ’98 to have the names of the streets of this ancient town painted in Irish and in Irish characters on boards to be afterwards fixed in conspicuous and suitable places throughput the town. I would also suggest that one of the streets should be named after Peter Finnerty, a Loughrea man, who suffered pain, penalty, and imprisonment in those evil days for love of Ireland. Peter Finnerty, according to John Philpott Curran, was ‘the only printer in Ireland who had the courage to speak for the people.’

Permit me to add that I have confidence enough in my fellow townsmen to lead me to believe that the above propositions shall not only be favourably received but effectively carried out.

I am, gentlemen, your faithful servant,

Joseph Nolan, O.D.C.

Mr. Joseph O’Flaherty proposed and Mr. Martin Kennedy seconded that the suggestions contained in Father Nolan’s letter be carried out. The proposition was carried unanimously, and a subcommittee, consisting of three of the members of the board, appointed to confer with the Rev. Father Nolan with a view of laying before him the opinion of the board, and taking his further suggestions on the question.

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Budget – 1934

Posted on April 6, 2025 by The Burren and Beyond

Advocate (Melbourne) 28th June, 1934 p9,

In the new Budget the large sum of £4,500,000 is provided for housing. Money is being circulated in every city and town and village in Ireland through the Government’s housing schemes. Local labour and, as far as possible, local materials are being used.

From being apathetic at first, the local councils are now seeing social light and are enthusiasticallv co-operating with Mr. Sean T. O’Kelly’s department. So are the medical officers of health. Knowing that facilities are now available to build new houses, the doctors are listing large numbers of cottages and houses as “unfit for habitation,” and these are demolished. The face of the country is literally being changed.

Good housing, it is a commonplace, makes good citizens; and the present Government will be remembered, if for nothing else, for its brave housing policy.

In the Gaeltacht, where there is a centuries old congestion, the problem will take longer to solve than in the less densely populated parts of the country. A special grant of £80,000 is made in the Budget for Gaeltacht housing. At one time there was a notion that the migration, by State suasion(sic.), of the Gaeltacht population to other counties would be the most effective remedy. Anyone who knows the hardship with which the native Irish speakers have built their little homes and the love they bear them, can understand that this policy would prove unworkable.

The present aim is to make the Gaeltacht fit for Gaels to live in; but centuries of bad government cannot be remedied in a day or a decade.