Search Results for 'Fintan Coogan'

The Penny Dinners committee was a name given to a voluntary group who used to provide free dinners for 40 to 80 impoverished children four times per week in the late 1920s and early 1930s. In fact the title was a misnomer, in no sense were they penny dinners. The children could not afford to give a penny for them, nor could the committee provide a dinner for a penny. The funding for these meals came from the people of Galway and also from fundraising productions they put on, mostly in the Columban Hall.

On November 14, 1920, a young curate, Father Michael Griffin, was lured from his house at No 2 Montpellier Terrace by the Black and Tans. Whatever ruse they used to get him out of the house, it was not to go on a sick call, as he did not take the holy oils or the Eucharist with him, but went peacefully. He went missing and volunteers and search parties were organised and combed the city and surrounding countryside looking for him. A week later his body was found buried in a bog at Cloch Sgoilte in Barna. There was an international outcry. He had worked in the parish of Rahoon since June 1918 and was hugely popular. He spoke in Irish to young and old, organised feiseanna, currach races, and donkey races on Silver Strand. He was very republican and was suspected by the Tans of having heard the last confession of the informer Patrick Joyce, which was probably the reason why they abducted him and tried to extract the identity of Joyce's killers from him.

The Columban Hall is described as a bizarre high-Victorian building with a gabled facade of opus incertum with a small porch, polychrome arches to the windows, a star shaped west window, and a curious chunky top-knot. It was originally built as a Congregational Church, designed by Raffles Brown and completed in 1863. Our photograph (courtesy of the National Library) was taken just a few years later.