Search Results for 'House of Lords'

Patricia Burke Brogan joined the noviciate of the Mercy Sisters at the convent of St Vincent, Newtownsmith, Galway  at the end of the 1950s.  It was before the reforms of Vatican II had relaxed rule of the heavy medieval habit, the shorn hair, and a constant reminder ‘to keep custody of the eyes’. What was called ‘discipline’, which was nothing less than outrageous bullying, was meted out on the novices by some of the older nuns, in a cutting and wounding way. The nuns were hard on each other.

SUBJECT MATTER wise, Haunted Hearts debut album Initiation (Zoo Music) is a little naughty, being inspired by the New York S&M scene of the 1970s and 1980s.

The succession by the infamous Marcella Netterville to a large estate near Mount Bellew, Co Galway, in the 1820s owed as much to chance as it was to her unlikely mother-in-law, with the wonderful name, Kitty Cut-a-Dash. The Nettervilles were an ancient Norman family, who came to Galway from County Meath after purchasing land from the Bellew family. A judicious marriage with the Trenchs of Garbally, Ballinasloe, increased their holdings. It appears that for a time both the Nettervilles and their tenants lived at peace and in some prosperity, at least until Frederick Netterville began to spread his wild oats somewhat wide of the field.

“Ireland took the bullet for the EU” over the collapse of the continent’s economic and banking institutions, and now “it’s pay back time”, as younger generations should not have to face a future of “austerity in perpetuity”.

Last September I wrote a number of Diary entries on the wonderful reception that Galway extended to the survivors of the SS Athenia, torpedoed off the Donegal coast on September 3 1939, the very first day of the war. The ship was sunk by Fritz Julius Lemp, the commander of the U-30. The Athenia was obviously a passenger boat on its way with refugees from Europe to Canada. This wasn’t the start to the war that the German government wanted. Initially it denied that any of its submarines sank the Athenia, and suggested that it was sunk by the British on orders from Winston Churchill in the hope of getting America into the war.

Between 1869 and 1909 a revolution took place in land ownership in Ireland. A succession of Land Acts gradually reduced the powers of the landlord, and gave their former tenants the means and the opportunity to buy out their tenancy, and to own their own farms. Generous terms were given to tenants by the Wyndham Act of 1903. £100 million was advanced for land purchase, which was immediately availed of by the great majority of tenants. Tenants were advanced the whole purchase price of their holding, at a little over three per cent to be repaid over 68 years. Most landlords were pleased to accept the ready cash, and a whole new social structure emerged throughout the island. However, initially landlords were not compelled to sell, and the independently wealthy marquis of Clanricarde of east Galway refused to cooperate. But his days of evictions, disparaging remarks about his tenants, his bully boy land agent Edward Shaw Tener and his henchmen, were numbered.

Geoffrey Russell, fourth Lord Ampthill, died at the age of 89 last April 23. His mother Christabel, Lady Ampthill, bought Dunguaire Castle, Kinvara, Co Galway, an old tower house with a bawn and smaller tower on a creek of Galway Bay, and restored it most sympathetically. It is now owned by Shannon Development and used for mediaeval banquets.

One of the oldest books I possess, bought at Kenny’s Bookshop many years ago, is a 1772 edition of The Book of Common Prayer, described by one historian as “the official doctrinal standard of the Church of England and most other churches in the worldwide Anglican Communion”.

Larger-than-life renowned chef Richard Corrigan will be in Kilkenny next week to headline a special dining event at local restaurant Campagne to celebrate its recent award from the Restaurant Association of Ireland of Best Restaurant in Leinster and mark the popular eatery’s fourth year in business.

On June 12 1922 a very special ceremony took place at Windsor Castle, near London. Following the establishment of the Irish Free State the previous December, five Irish regiments, including the Connaught Rangers, the Royal Irish, the Leinsters, the Munsters, and the Dublin Fusiliers, which had served the British army with exceptional valour at times, were disbanded. It was a day of special significance for both the participants and onlookers. It was reported in the London Times.