Search Results for 'Michael Kelly'

What do you normally achieve after four months of growing delicious, fresh home-grown food? Probably feeling healthier and certainly saving money, but what about winning an electric car for your efforts?

Moate Railway Station Restoration Group held their inaugural meeting last Wednesday night, with the objective of exploring ways of restoring the station to its former glory, building on plans for the station in relation to the Athlone-Mullingar cycleway.

The nominations for the positions of county minor and under 21 hurling managers have been forwarded to the county board and are as follows;

This year’s much-awaited Galway Garden Festival will take place on July 5 and 6 at Claregalway Castle.

There was a curious sequel to the story of poor Michael Kelly of Mirehall, Headford, whom I mentioned last week. Kelly, a substantial farmer and horse breeder, won the ‘gentleman’s race’ at Galway in 1884. However the stewards refused to give him the trophy claiming he was not a gentleman. Kelly sued, and won his case.

I do not think that it is a coincidence that the famous Galway Races coincide with the ancient festival of Lughnasa, celebrated on Garlic (Garland?) Sunday or, in the west, on the last Sunday in July. Máire Mac Neill, in her epic and scholarly study*, tells us that the date marked the most important farming benchmark of the year, the harvest, and it was robustly honoured. There were many Lughnasa gatherings throughout Ireland. Perhaps the most famous one in Connemara was at Mám Éan in the Maamturk mountains. People would camp out for days, musicians and hawkers would entertain the crowds; but the main event was a massive faction fight often resulting in serious injury or death.

The popular Rás Chonamara takes place this Easter Bank Holiday weekend with 100 riders competing for the annual Gerry Clancy Memorial Trophy.

The Left Bank area of Athlone could see the addition of a new cycle hub, attracting thousands of tourists annually, if a proposed new cycle route gets the go-ahead.

Councillors will vote on Monday week, July 22, on a proposed variation to the County Development Plan, which would allow a cycleway to be developed in the disused Mullingar-Athlone rail corridor.