Search Results for 'James Mitchell'

Maurice Semple was born in 1917, a member of a family that had continuous connection with the ‘Citie of the Tribes’ for over 400 years, one of three children of Frank Semple and Elizabeth ffrench. His father worked in a clerical capacity in the courthouse, his mother was one of the ffrenchs from Claregalway. Both his brother ffrench Semple and his sister Mary predeceased him.

The first formal meeting of the Board of Guardians of the Galway Workhouse took place in the Town Hall on July 3, 1839, and the building opened on March 2, 1842, one of many such workhouses built around the country. On March 16, the first pauper died from old age and destitution. The numbers of inmates gradually increased to 313 by May 1845, after which the Famine made a huge impact on the project. It was originally designed for 800 destitute persons but this quickly increased to 1,000. Included in the complex was an infirmary for sick paupers but this rapidly became the hospital for the city’s poor.

Blunt was an aristocratic English writer, a person of remarkable ability who, as “the best looking man in England was credited with having refreshed the blood of several ancient families”. He was always against colonialism and sympathetic to small nations, so it was no surprise that he became an ardent supporter of Home Rule for Ireland. In 1887, he was in Ireland to study the grievances of the people when he heard that evictions had recommenced on the 56,000-acre estate of Lord Clanricarde in Woodford.

“...give me your tired, your poor,

In the early decades of the 19th century fortunes were made in giving hundreds of thousands of emigrants safe passage to America. As the decades slipped by the numbers grew into millions. Liverpool had the main transatlantic business for these two islands, but Galway, situated some 300 miles closer to America, and with the onset of powerful steam-driven ships, believed that a better and quicker service could be provided.

The unfortunate collision of the Indian Empire into the well marked Margaretta Rock in the middle of Galway Bay was a blow to the newly established Galway Line. But by no means was it a knockout. Galway’s vaulting ambition to open a new ‘highway between the old and new worlds’ took on an even more determined energy. The exploitation of steam-power, driving ever bigger ships and faster trains, led to wild speculation as to what could be achieved even from Galway, in the middle of the 19th century.

Mayo waltzed into the Connacht Senior Football Championship final without having to break a sweat against Leitrim in MacHale Park on Sunday afternoon.

During the last week of October 1860 members of the crew of the Connaught began to return to Galway. On October 28 the first to arrive came by train ‘where a large number of people on that afternoon were at the station to welcome them back.’

"It was just fun to be with them and they were great lads and you couldn't ask any more" - is how 25 years on Martin Carney remembers the Mayo u21 team of 1995, that were beaten by Kerry in an All Ireland final replay that summer.

A timely focus shift to the Six Nations, and Connacht's hopes of having some representation on the Ireland team, will give Andy Friend's squad a short window to review, rest and reassess their PRO14 season, and in particular their latest 8-7 defeat to Cardiff.