Freemans Journal 4th June 1900
Lord O’Brien of Kilfenora was, as everybody knows, more than once a candidate for Parliamentary honours in his native county of Clare. It was, we believe, on the occasion of the death of Lord Francis Conyngham, one of the earliest and staunchest supporters of Isaac Butt in the early agitation for Home Rule, that Mr. O’Brien made a tour of the county and introduced himself personally to the electors. His manner was suave and his speech conciliatory in the extreme. Some of the electors were doubtful as to whether the “man of law” from Ballinalacken was with Isaac Butt or against him. In their perplexity they went to consult Biddy Early, a woman skilled in the suture, who delivered oracles in a sequestered glen between Lough Greany and O’Callaghan’s Mills. Biddy arranged her philtres, put on her sagest look, and deliberately pronounced that the cattle of any man who voted for a recreant descendant of Boru would die of black quarter. Further than this she could not be induced to go. The people were by no means satisfied, for they thought the O’Gorman man bore a much greater family likeness to Brian Boru than the man from Lisdoonvarna.
Tag: Kilfenora
An Interesting Discovery – 1864
Irish Examiner 19th July, 1864 p.4
Photo: Eirian Evans
Wikimedia Commons
To the editor of the Nation
Lisdoonvarna, County Clare, 13th July, 1864
Dear Sir,
Within the last ten days, in the vicinity of this far-famed watering-place, near the ancient town of Kilfenora, a statue of the Virgin and Child was discovered by a poor man who had been employed in cutting turf in an adjacent bog. The statue is of carved oak. The face of the Virgin is in perfect preservation, the folds of the dress most accurately delineated, and although the face of the infant in her arms is somewhat disfigured, it is wonderful how perfect the statue is after the lapse of perhaps several centuries. The statue is about two feet six inches in height, and was found some eight feet beneath the surface of the bog. Several persons, not only from this locality, but from the adjoining districts, have felt particular pleasure in observing this memorial of the past, which is now to be seen in the sacristy of the Catholic Church of Kilfenora, County Clare.
I am, dear sir, your obedient servant.
A. Visitor
The Burren and Beyond 