Tag: Horace Plunkett

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Kinvara Harbour – 1904

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Photo: EO’D

The Irish Times
May 4, 1904
Kinvara Harbour and Pier
After 34 years continuous effort on behalf of the inhabitants of Kinvara, a start is at length to be made with the new works. Hitherto the great difficulty has been that the pier was private property, but the trustees of the owner, Miss Sharpe, through Messrs. Kirwan and Sons, of Tuam have now consented to hand over the pier, with its tolls, to the Galway County Council. The County Council have agreed to raise £1,000 for the rebuilding of the pier and the dredging of the harbour. The Agricultural Board, through Sir Horace Plunkett, have given a grant of £1,000 and a further sum of £1,100 has been allotted under Mr. Wyndham’s Marine Works Act, thus bringing up the total to £3,300, the amount estimated as necessary by the County Surveyor, Mr. James Perry, C.E. At the last meeting of the County Council on the 26th ult. a communication was addressed to the Congested Districts Board asking them to undertake the completion of the work. On receipt of the news in Kinvara the town was brilliantly illuminated; bonfires blazed from the surrounding hills, and a procession of torchbearers and musicians paraded the principal streets, the Rev. T. Burke, P.P., and Mr. Thomas P. Corless, Chairman Gort Rural Council, who have been so largely instrumental in the successful negotiations, receiving an ovation. It is expected that Kinvara will now become a port of call for the new Glasgow service of steamers which are to visit the principal harbours of the west coast, and that in addition to a revived barley market and trade development, a regular tourist traffic with Galway by steamer will now be re-established.

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Burren oysters – 1903

Posted on by The Burren and Beyond

Evening Star 26th February, 1903 p.15 (abridged)

boat
Photo: EO’D Crushoa

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.