Search Results for 'Mechanics Institute'

MARTIN O'MEARA was a WWI hero, winning the Victoria Cross for his bravery in battle in France with the Australian Forces, but after the war his life deteriorated. Now his story is being told in Under Any Old Gumtree.

THE GALWAY Fringe Festival will launch its programme this Saturday in the Mechanics Institute, Middle Street, at 6pm and the line-up is bursting at the seams with visual arts, music, comedy, theatre, and literature.

The Augustinian Friars have been in Galway since 1508 when Margaret Athy, whose husband was mayor at the time, built a friary at Forthill, near a spring called St Augustine’s Well, the waters whereof wrought miraculous cures. In O’Flaherty’s Iar-Chonnacht, there is reproduced a document in which a miraculous cure is attested to by the signatures of several witnesses.

“The Galway Corrib Club held their annual regatta on the splendid river of the Corrib at Menlo. The day was as fine as ‘sunshine and pageantry’ could make it, and the ivy-mantled Castle of Menlo, the residence of Sir Thomas Blake, Bart, was decorated with flags of all nations, and waved gracefully in the breeze. There was not a ripple on the bosom of the lake unless what was created by the oars of the several beautiful little crafts which were constantly scudding up and down the river, freighted with some of Nature’s fairest daughters. There was a band in attendance and during the day discoursed some beautiful music. Great credit is due to the commodore, PT Grealy, Esq, and the members of the club for the satisfactory manner in which the whole arrangements were carried out. After five races between four oared gigs, outriggers and punts, the sports of the day terminated with a duck race, which was most amusing. At seven o’clock, the amusements terminated and the delighted spectators returned home, highly pleased with the day’s sport. Although there were places of refreshment, there was not a man to be seen the worse for liquor, so that the whole affair was a complete success.”

A friend once told me that the quality of choral singing in her local church was such that even the most familiar hymns sounded unfamiliar. For those who frequent the Augustinian church on Sunday mornings, the reverse is true as each Sunday is made special by the wonderful four-part harmonies and beautiful singing of the choir there. A century ago they were referred to in the local press as ‘magnificent’ and even then were singing works by Haydn, Mendelsshon, and Weber.