Search Results for 'Frank Heneghan'

This is the time of the year when our thoughts turn to schoolbooks, copy books, pens and pencils, bus schedules, etc, as we prepare our children and grandchildren for the new school year. Inevitably it brings our thoughts back to our own school years, the friendships we formed, the teachers we liked or disliked. In those first days in class you felt you had been abandoned by your mother as she left you in with a crowd of complete strangers presided over by an adult that you had never seen before. In the case of anyone who went to Scoil Fhursa that adult was known as Bean Uí Duignan. She was a saint who quickly became a surrogate mother to every child that entered her classroom, walked them up and down the clós during sosanna, and prepared them for whatever was ahead.

The Connaught Journal of July 1823 reported that Michael Walsh, the nailer of Bridge Street, was in great distress. He was described as being very poor, and though he worked hard, his life had been a struggle for some 12 years now because of a ‘disease of his leg’. The unfortunate man had to have the leg amputated and was now ‘reduced to extreme want’ as he was unable to work. The newspaper highlighted his predicament and hoped that the charitable and humane people of Galway would contribute to his support while he was recovering from the operation. So we know that the nailer was in business there some 200 years ago.