Search Results for 'Pat Finnegan'

The next meeting of the Western Family History Association will be held on Wednesday November 12 in Lackagh Parish Centre (8.15pm).

The threat of another famine in 1879, within living memory of the horror and catastrophe of the Great Famine some 29 years earlier, brought renewed terror to the vulnerable tenant farmers in the west of Ireland. This time it was not just the humble potato, but severe weather conditions which devastated crops and feed stuffs over a three year period. Farm incomes dropped dramatically, landlords fussed that rents would not be paid. Whereas some landlords were patient, others warned that evictions would follow if rents were not paid on time.

Galway Diary received the following statement from Adrian Martyn (great-great-great grandnephew of Peter Doherty, senior), who was shot dead at Carrigan, near Craughwell village on the night of November 2 1881. I am pleased to carry Adrian’s clarification:

The continued unrest, murders, and large-scale protests as the Land War careered dangerously through the Irish countryside, led at last to some reform. William Gladstone’s Second Land Act of 1881 proposed broad concessions to the tenant farmer. But Parnell, the very effective leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, was not satisfied. He said that tenants were still vulnerable to rent arrears and poverty resulting from poor harvests. He urged that the Act either accommodate these concerns, or be rejected.

WITH ALL the attention being given to the run-up to the 1916 Rising, the event itself, and its aftermath, little if anything has been written in relation to the Land War, which took place some 35 years before Pearse stood in the steps of the GPO and read the Proclamation.

GALWAY SAW some of the highest levels of incidents during The Land War, including murders, woundings, arson, boycotting, and intimidation.

Many people will be familiar with the first line of this famous Victorian dramatic monologue, written by the English journalist George R Sims in 1879.

A series of heritage talks looking at the political history, natural history, and maritime and botanic life of south county Galway region, start next week.

THE OVER The Edge: Open Reading series returns to the Galway City Library on Thursday August 30 at 6.30pm with writers Leeanne Quinn, Pat Finnegan, and Adedotun Adekeye.

Week III