The Death Penalty in County Mayo – 1805-1919

Fri, Dec 31, 2021

Much of what has been written about capital punishment in nineteenth-century Mayo has been written without reference to the significant body of records from the period. Hanging was a state enterprise, and the state kept detailed records.

A taste of history – the Clew Bay oyster

Thu, Dec 23, 2021

Oysters are on the menu in many restaurants along the Clew Bay coastline, from Mulranny to Murrisk. There is, in fact, a long history of oyster eating in the Clew Bay area and evidence from at least the second half of the nineteenth century that the native Clew Bay Oyster was a sought–after commodity as far away as London.

The 'Irregulars' of St Gerald's College, Castlebar, 1922

Fri, Dec 17, 2021

Anyone schooled at St Gerald’s De La Salle College in Castlebar in the early to mid-1980s will know what it was like to go on a ‘Nature Walk’ on the shores of Lough Lannagh during a double science or biology class, when the weather improved in May or in September after the long summer break.

Trials of the Threshers – Castlebar Courthouse 1806

Fri, Dec 10, 2021

Picture this – imagine if this week, our attorney general and chief justice, together with our most senior and respected legal counsel, solicitors, prosecutors, and supporting officials and clerks, abandoned government buildings and the Four Courts and made their way west to Castlebar.

Gale days and stormy nights in county Mayo

Fri, Dec 03, 2021

Storm Arwen passed through this week, and in Murrisk at least, it kicked up less of a fuss than many of the breezy evenings we have experienced since late September.

When there is no one left to remember - Gallows Hill and Aughadrina

Fri, Nov 26, 2021

On a Sunday in March 1847, John Hogan, Secretary of the Castlebar Evangelical Relief Committee, was walking on Gallows Hill, Castlebar, when he was drawn into a cabin.

When sheep’s heads were on the menu at Castlebar Hospital

Fri, Nov 19, 2021

On a chilly day in March 1788, John Howard rode into Castlebar on horseback. When he arrived in Dublin days earlier, he noted, ‘I shall set out next week for Connaught and other remote parts of this country, which indeed are more barbarous than the wilds of Russia’.

Drama at The Lighthouse

Fri, Nov 05, 2021

Much of my travel is concerned with the past and those who inhabit it. So it was when I boarded O'Malley's Ferry for the short trip from Roonagh Pier to Clare Island for the first Storm Watching Weekend of the season hosted by Clare Island Lighthouse.

The Green and the Mall – Castlebar's Historical Treasure Trove

Fri, Oct 29, 2021

It is somewhat ironic that the building on the Green in Castlebar where the Land League was founded should later bear a name denoting Empire - The Imperial. I sometimes sit on a bench on the Green or the Mall that traverses it and mentally step through the historical significance of what is before me.

Police manhunts – County Mayo cases 1814-1821

Fri, Oct 22, 2021

Like the many, I too have travelled the route to England through the port of Holyhead and then onwards east through Wales until the seemingly unintelligible road signs suddenly appear comprehensible.

Mayo Pride Parade is another important step in our history

Fri, Aug 04, 2017

I was very disappointed to have missed the first Mayo Pride Parade in Castlebar on Saturday July22. I was out of the country but as soon as I got back I read the local papers' reports and contacted Mick Baynes, one of the event organisers, to get another view of what by all accounts was a well-attended day of good spirited solidarity. It is not that long ago when even the thought of such a colourful Pride parade through the county capital's streets would have met weighty and vociferous opposition. 

A history of Reek Sunday

Fri, Jul 28, 2017

In 1432, Pope Eugene IV issued a document that lay in obscurity deep within the Vatican vaults for centuries. When the doors of the archives and library of the Holy See were thrown open during the papacy of Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), the British government sent a team of historians to transcribe everything they could find relating to Ireland. As a result of that investigative trawl, the well-known historian William Henry Grattan Flood presented Dr John Healy, Archbishop of Tuam, with a medieval document that detailed Rome’s official 15th century stance regarding the Croagh Patrick pilgrimage. The document, dated 27 September 1432, states, “Pope Eugene IV grants to the Archbishop of Tuam [at the time Seán Mac Feorais, aka John de Bermingham] an indulgence of two years and two quarantines [one quarantine was a penance of 40 days], on the usual conditions, for those penitents who visit and give alms toward the repair of the fabric of the chapel of St Patrick on the mountain which is called Croagh Patrick: this indulgence to be gained on the Sunday preceding the Feast of St Peter’s Chains [August 1]: because on that day a great multitude resorts thither to venerate St Patrick in the said chapel.” Archbishop Healy revived the old tradition of pilgrimage to Croagh Patrick and built the present church on its summit in 1905. But the history of the pilgrimage goes back further than the 1400s.

E-paper

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