Mullingar In 1923

         ******  𝐉𝐀𝐍𝐔𝐀𝐑𝐘   **** 
The year 1923 was welcomed in Mullingar in noisy fashion. At the railway station “practically all locomotives were set blowing their steam whistles to welcome in the New Year.”

The horns at Weymes’s factory behind the County Buildings and at Flanagans’ Saw Mills also sounded. The Cathedral bells pealed and the Army Band paraded on the Barracks Square before marching down to the Market Square playing National airs.

The Band marched between the Market Square and the Dublin Bridge for one hour. On New Year’s Day prayers were offered in the cathedral for peace and harmony in Ireland.

             𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗹 𝗪𝗮𝗿

The country was in the grip of civil war as 1923 began. The situation in Mullingar was relatively peaceful but elsewhere in Westmeath there were numerous violent incidents. Rail traffic was disrupted when trains were derailed at Streamstown and signal boxes burned at Moate and Edgeworthstown.

On January 13th five Republicans were executed in Athlone.Barracks. A major raid on Republicans was carried out by National Army troops from Mullingar at a house near Collinstown.

A total of 28 people were arrested (including two great-uncles of this author.) and were detained in Mullingar Barracks.Large amounts of ammunition and guns were also seized in the raid.

A number of IRA Veterans of the War of Independence set up an organisation known as the Neutral IRA Association to try and bring about a ceasefire and the end to the Civil War.

The Neutral IRA leader in Mullingar was Bernard O Reilly from Patrick Street who had served with the Mullingar Brigade in the War of Independence. At a meeting of former members of the IRA in the County Hall on January 29th,Reilly was selected as the delegate from the local Brigade to a National Convention of the Neutral IRA in Dublin.

𝗔 𝗖𝗼-𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗠𝘂𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗿

The Mullingar Workers Council held a meeting in the Trades Hall in Church Lane to discuss the setting up of a Co-Operative Store in Mullingar.

The meeting was chaired by Town Commissioner John McKeown.The meeting was told that a premises for a store had been acquired in Austin Friars Street.Workers had long been denouncing profiteering by shopkeepers. The only remedy for this was co-operation.

There was no town in Ireland in which profiteering was so rampant as Mullingar and unless the local workers decided to make the co-op a success this would continue.

There were “several hundred workers in Mullingar and if each worker took one share they would have enough capital to make a start.” It was suggested that the share price should be set at £2 a share.

𝗔 𝗛𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗗𝗼𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿

Mullingar Rural District Council began the year still trying to solve the ongoing problem of finding accommodation in Mullingar for the District Medical Officer Dr Mary King. The councillors were not sure that they had the funds to pay Dr King an accommodation allowance on top of her salary and doubted whether the government would provide funding.. A letter was read out at the meeting from a Miss Wyse of Ashe Rd offering to rent rooms to Dr King for £3 a week. No decision was taken on whether to accept this offer.

     𝗧𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗠𝗲𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴

The coming of independence saw changes to street names in Mullingar and a decision to have names in Irish. The Town Commission discussed these changes at their January meeting and were told that the cost of putting up new bi-lingual signs would be around £36. This was considered to be too much and it was decided to get the work done at a lower cost of £25.

The meeting also discussed the price of gas. At that time the town was largely lit by gas. There were complaints about the poor quality of the lights in areas such as the Fair Green and Bishopsgate Street.

The Gas Company-known as the Mullingar Lighting Company, were requested to lower their prices but were told by the Gasworks Manager Mr Halliwell,that a reduction was not possible because the cost of coal had gone up.

             𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗦𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗲𝘁𝘆

The Mullingar Choral Society put on a production of “The Yeoman of the Guard” in the County Hall. The production received good reviews,with one critic declaring that “It can be safely stated that no such magnificent entertainment has ever been presented in Mullingar”.

The cast included Tony Stanley,Leo McCormack, Annie Doherty,May Farrell and Hugh Price. The Chorus members included George Rouse,Theresa and Mary Bird,Ann Ruttledge,Michael Jennings, Sheela McCormack and Jack Doherty. The musicians included Betty Shaw,Kitty Kearney and Dot Brophil,with H.F Gilbert conducting.

     ***** 𝗙𝗘𝗕𝗥𝗨𝗔𝗥𝗬 ******

        𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗮𝗶𝗹𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀

Republican attacks on the rail network continued in February-including the derailment of three locomotives at Streamstown. To combat these attacks the Government set up a Railway Prevention and Maintenance Corps of the Army. Advertisements appeared in the local papers seeking recruits for one year service. Mullingar Station became the Midlands HQ for the Corps.

            𝗪𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻 𝗦𝗺𝗼𝗸𝗲𝗿𝘀

A meeting of the Mental Hospital Committee was told that evidence had been discovered of female staff members smoking. Cigarette burns had been found on sheets in the nurses night room. The (all male) committee members were not pleased at the nurses behaviour. One member declared that it was “most ungentlemanly to have women smoking.”

Another member joked about the need for equality these days and that he supposed that women would be smoking pipes next.!      

             𝗔 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗛𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗹

Advertisements appeared in the local papers in February 1923 for a new Mullingar hotel. The Fairview Hotel was located at the Fair Green in what had been the Soldiers Home.This stood where the Shopping Centre is now. The hotel had “20 spacious,well lighted rooms,hot and cold running water,baths and perfect sanitation.” The bedrooms commanded “splendid views of miles of country scenery” and the hotel also had a restaurant and “a lovely garden.”

         The Hockey Club

Mullingar Hockey Club held a dance in the Parochial Hall in Church Avenue. The event was attended by more than 100 people and music was provided by H.F Gilbert on piano and Sgt Fleming on drums. Prizes were awarded to the best dancers on the night. Winners included Master and Miss Grimes (Harbour Street) for Best Waltz and Master and Miss Kerrigan for Best Foxtrot.

        𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻

At the monthly Town Commission meeting the Town Sergeant and Lamplighter,Mr E.J Macken put in a request for a second ladder to help him in his work of lighting the gas lamps.

The Commission Chairman joked that if Mr Macken got all the ladders he requested he would be able to set up as a steeplejack.! The commissioners agreed to give him a second ladder.

The Commission agreed to set the annual town rate at 2s/4d in the £. There were complaints from commissioners about the cost of the deposit for those running for election-£10. Mr P.W Shaw wondered what the point was of running for election- “just to get abuse.”

      ****** 𝗠𝗔𝗥𝗖𝗛 ******

        𝗘𝘅𝗲𝗰𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗠𝘂𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗿

At 8.00a.m on the morning of March 13th, two men were led from their cells in Columb Barracks and brought to a yard beside the gymnasium where a firing squad was waiting.

The two men were Republican soldiers Michael Greavey from Athenry and Luke Burke from Keady,Co Armagh. They had carried out armed robberies on two banks in Oldcastle on February 27th in which a large sum of money was stolen.

The men were captured and they were tried by a military court in Columb Barracks under the Emergency laws then in force. They were convicted and sentenced to death. In the early hours of March 13th they were informed that the death sentences would be carried out that day.

One of them wrote a moving letter to his family in which he stated that he had fought for Ireland for five years and was now going to be killed by fellow Irishmen.

Two priests from Cathedral House-Father Kelly and Father Finnegan, came to the barracks and gave the men the Last Rites. Almost immediately after the fatal volley of shots rang out the two priests rushed forward and anointed Burke and Greavey. The two men were buried within the barracks precinct. After the end of the Civil War their remains were returned to relatives.

                𝗔 𝗚𝘂𝗻 𝗕𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲

A gun battle took place near the railway station in early March. Republicans fired at soldiers guarding the station and the rail line. The battle went on for some time but there were no casualties on either side.

There were big celebrations at Knockdrin Castle to welcome home the 12 year old heir to Knockdrin,Sir Richard Levinge. The boy heir was given an enthusiastic reception by the large numbers of people working in the Castle and on the estate lands,along with other neighbours. The Levinge family had been at Knockdrin for almost 300 years and were popular in the area where they gave much employment.

              𝗣𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗮𝗹𝘀

While the Civil War raged on, efforts continued to bring about an end to the conflict. The Neutral IRA Peace Proposals were put before local authorities across the country.

The Mullingar Rural District Council,Westmeath County Council and Mullingar Town Commission voted to support the proposals. Meanwhile advertisements appeared in the papers from the Army offering an amnesty to any republicans who gave up fighting.

              𝗦𝘁 𝗣𝗮𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗸'𝘀 𝗗𝗮𝘆

The National Day was celebrated in Mullingar in “a most pleasing manner with no discord” according to the “Westmeath Examiner’. The Army Band from the Barracks paraded through the town playing “St Patrick’s Day” and other patriotic airs.

A special Irish language Mass was held in the Cathedral and Bishop Laurence Gaughran prayed for peace and harmony in Ireland. Prayers were said at Mass for the two men executed in the town days earlier.

A ” Grand Concert” was held in the County Hall on St Patricks’ Night .The Mullingar Choral Society and Orchestra performed alongside Feis Ceoil Gold medallist Denis Cox.

                    𝗙𝗶𝗹𝗺 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽

The Mullingar Town Commission received a letter from the Minister for Justice Kevin O Higgins, informing them that a Film Censorship Board was being set up .Local councils were invited to become involved in the work of the Board. The commissioners expressed support for the Board. P.W Shaw stated that censorship “will be the means of preventing improper pictures being shown.” .

                𝗛𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺𝘀

A meeting of the Town Tenants League heard complaints about housing conditions in Mullingar. Many of those renting from private landlords alleged that landlords were collecting rents but not carrying out maintenance and repairs as they were obliged to do.

There were also allegations that some landlords were secretly selling off properties and depriving people living in overcrowded slum conditions the right to acquire decent housing. Many landlords were accused of leaving yards and laneways in a filthy condition.

          𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗿𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝘁 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗮𝗻'𝘀

The students of St Finian’s College staged a production of “The Pirates of Penzance” in the school to widespread acclaim. The show was produced and directed by the President of the College,Rev Maurice Weymes, The cast included Desmond McCauley,Timothy Murray,Thomas Donohue,Joseph Mullen and Michael Gaffney. Bernard O Reilly took time out from his work with the Neutral IRA Association to construct the sets for the show.

********* 𝗔𝗣𝗥𝗜𝗟 ***********

                    𝗟𝗮𝗿𝗿𝘆 𝗚𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹𝗹

On April 24th the long-serving TD for Westmeath, Laurence Ginnell died at the age of 70 in Washington DC. He had represented North Westmeath in the British Parliament from 1906 to 1917 and had then served in Dail Eireann from 1918 until his death. He had worked as an envoy of the Dail Government in the United States and in South America 1920-22. He had opposed the Treaty and had been removed from the Dail Chamber for repeatedly disrupting proceedings in September 1922.

His death was widely regretted and meetings of the County Council, District Councils and Mullingar Town Commission were adjourned as a mark of respect. Political supporters such as Pat Brett of Mullingar Rural District and opponents such as P.J Weymes united in paying tribute to Ginnell’s life of service and his integrity. Many Mullingar political figures attended the Ginnell funeral in Delvin.

𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗱𝘆 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗪𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀

Following attacks by Republicans on the waterworks in Athlone and other towns, the Army was deployed to guard the pumping station at the Mullingar Waterworks beside the Brosna and the Canal at the bottom of Friars Mill Rd.

On the afternoon of April 30th a tragic incident occurred there when one soldier,Cpl Peter Bracken was shot as he was coming off duty by another soldier, Private Michael Mullally. Bracken was hit in both legs when Mullally fired his rifle at him.

The wounded man was carried across the road to the home of the Waterworks engineer,James Raleigh (this author’s grandfather). Doctor Keelan and a priest came to the house. Bracken had been hit in an artery and there was blood all over the pumping station and the house yards.

He was transferred to the Military hospital in Dublin but died from his wounds the following day. Captain Pat Byrne from Columb Barracks arrived at the Pumping Station and found Private Mullally standing in the yard still holding his rifle.

“My God,I have shot him” he told the other soldiers. Captain Byrne had Mullally placed under arrest. Mullally was an experienced soldier who had served in India with the British Army.He could not explain why he had shot Bracken.

                 𝗔 𝗟𝗮𝗻𝗴𝘂𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗥𝗼𝘄

The Secretary of the Mullingar Branch of the Gaelic League Hugh Weir,went down to the County Council offices to get a registration license for his motor car. He filled in his name in Irish.

The County Secretary told him that he had to provide an English translation of his name. When Mr Weir refused to do this the Secretary told him that he could not give him the license. Weir wrote a letter of protest to the Council-stating that “I refuse at all costs to be a party to the degradation of the Irish language.”

                      𝗦𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁

A Boxing Tournament was staged by the Army in the gym at Columb Barracks.The referee for the tournament was Colonel Batten of the Mullingar Motor Company in Castle Street and the judges were Major Hume Kelly and the State Solicitor,Mr J. E Wallace.

The Mullingar Hockey Club won the Midland League Championship -defeating Birr in the Final

𝗠𝘂𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗿 𝗧𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻

The monthly meeting of the Commission discussed the slow progress of the installation of sanitation in the St Loman’s Terrace houses . Plumber Patrick Raleigh who had won the contract to install toilets and connect the houses to the sewerage network,asked the Commissioners whether he could start the work as he now had all the materials he needed.

The Commissioners were told that there was a problem with littering at the Canal and that large numbers of dead dogs were being dumped in the Canal.

                  𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝘀𝘆𝗹𝘂𝗺

The monthly meeting of the Asylum Management Committee was told that,as of the beginning of April,there were 1046 patients in the asylum. The asylum farm was doing well and there were plans to start up a bakery.

             ****   𝗠𝗔𝗬 ****
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗪𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗱𝘆 𝗜𝗻𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁
In early May an Inquest was held into the tragedy at the Waterworks pumping station in which Corporal Peter Bracken was shot dead by Private Michael Mullally. The soldiers were part of a military guard at the waterworks. protecting the complex against possible attack by Republicans.

Private Patrick Creagh told the inquest that Private Mullally was on sentry duty when he fired on Corporal Bracken. Mullally had cried out, “My God I have shot him”!.

Bracken had asked for a priest and a doctor. He had been brought by ambulance to the Military Hospital in Dublin but had died from his injuries. Captain Pat Byrne from Columb Barracks gave evidence of having seen Mullally standing in the pumping station yard with the rifle in his hands.

He had arrested Mullally who could not explain why he had shot Bracken. The inquest was told that Mullally “had a good deal of experience with rifles,having served in the British Army before joining the National Army. He suffered from malaria which he had contracted while in India. The Inquest jury ruled that the shooting was an accident and recommended that Mullally should never be allowed to have a rifle again.

       𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗖𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗴𝗻.

The Neutral IRA Association continued their peace campaign throughout April and early May. The peace proposals had been adopted by Mullingar Town Commission and the Commission received a letter from the Association thanking them for their support and stating that;”if every public body in Ireland acted in the same patriotic manner there would be no doubt of the success of the Association’s efforts for peace.”

By early May the Civil War was drawing to a close. On May 24th a ceasefire came into force.

      𝗗𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗵 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝗟𝗼𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗣𝗮𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗼𝘁

There was widespread sadness in Mullingar in early May at the death of Joe Mulready,a veteran of the War of Independence and local politician. Mr Mulready had served with the Mullingar Brigade Old IRA during the independence struggle.

He had also served as a judge in the Dail/Republican Courts and was a member of Mullingar Rural District Council. He was only 33. His funeral Mass in the cathedral and burial in Walshestown was attended by vast crowds

       𝗔 𝗕𝗿𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗖𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗯𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻.

The Mullingar Hockey Club had won the Midland League Cup and,to celebrate the victory they held what was described as “one of the most brilliant celebration functions in connection with Midland Sport in recent years”. This was a dance which took place in the County Hall on May 28th. Over 300 people attended the event. Music was supplied by the Clarke-Barry Band.The catering was done by the Misses Leonard.The Trophy was prominently displayed in the colourfully decorated hall.

𝗔 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗧𝗿𝗶𝘂𝗺𝗽𝗵

Mullingar soccer supporters had much to celebrate when the local team- Mullingar St Patrick’s defeated Athlone Town 2-0 in the Final of the Midland League . The match was played in Athlone with many Mullingar supporters travelling to the match by special train.

         ******* 𝗝𝗨𝗡𝗘 ******

𝗔𝗻 𝗔𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗴𝗲𝗱 𝗔𝘀𝘀𝗮𝘂𝗹𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝘀𝘆𝗹𝘂𝗺

An Inquiry was held in Mullingar Asylum following a complaint from a patient that he had been assaulted by two attendants. The Inquiry was told that the patient had refused to go to bed and had been shouting at staff.

He had been forcibly put to bed by two male attendants . The patient had severe bruising on his body and a doctor stated that he did not believe that the bruises were self-inflicted or the result of an accidental fall.

Evidence was given of overcrowding and staff shortages on the night of the incident. There were 75 patients and just two attendants on duty. The attendants were criticised for not calling for help from other staff on the night and were deemed to have used excessive force on the patient.

      𝗗𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗵 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝗣𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗔𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗶𝘀𝘁

There was deep shock in Mullingar in late June when the Neutral IRA Association member Bernard O Reilly died suddenly at the age of just 25. Mr O Reilly. suffered an injury while at work and developed sepsis. In a pre antibiotics age doctors could not save him.

Bernard O Reilly had served in the Mullingar IRA during the War of Independence. He was a member of the local Gaelic League Branch and was described as “a lover of all that pertained to Irish Ireland.” He was also a member of the Choral Society (taking part in their production of “The Yeoman of the Guard”) and was also in the Cathedral Choir.

His funeral was attended by hundreds of people and military honours were rendered by his comrades of the Mullingar IRA. Tributes were paid to him at the Rural District Council meeting at which he was described as someone who “had given the best years of his life to Ireland.” It was agreed that efforts would be made to secure a pension for his widowed mother,living in St Lomans Terrace who was financially dependent on her only son.

         ****** 𝗝𝗨𝗟𝗬 *****

         𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗘𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻

Preparations got underway in July for a General Election .Pro-Treaty Sinn Fein members were now in the process of forming a new political party-Cumann na nGael. A party branch was set up in Mullingar and prominent local businessman and politician P.W Shaw was selected as a candidate for the Longford-Westmeath constituency.

The anti-Treaty Sinn Fein members locally selected Dr Conor Byrne from Ballynacarrigy as their candidate in succession to the late Larry Ginnell. Labour in Mullingar chose leading local Trade Unionist Tom Redmond. Sean Lyons,who had been elected for Labour in the 1922 General Election ,left Labour following rows over policy and decided to stand as an independent..

An election rally was held by Sinn Fein on the historic Hill of UIsneach. Dr Conor O Byrne declared that people were still faithful to the Republic declared in 1916. The actress,activist and 1916 veteran,Helena Moloney told the meeting that only the Republic would bring peace to Ireland.

            𝗔 𝗠𝘂𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗿 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗸𝗲

The assistant and clerical staff in Nooney & Sons Hardware Store in Pearse Street went on strike in early July in a dispute over pay and conditions. Flyers were distributed round the town and pickets mounted outside the shop. The dispute spread with workers and Shaws Drapery and Keelans Drapery joining the strike.

The owner of Nooney & Sons,T.F Nooney,was the Chairman of the Mullingar Ratepayers and Employers Federation. After a week of negotiations between the Federation and the Union of Distributive Workers and Clerks,a settlement was agreed and the strike ended.

               𝗠𝘂𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗿 𝗙𝗲𝗶𝘀

The annual Midlands Feis took place in St Mary’s CBS and the County Hall on July 1st. The event attracted competitors from all over the Midlands. There was a drop in the number of musical entries but an increase in the Literary,Dance and Industrial Sections. The Feis concluded with a Grand Ceili in the County Hall.

        𝗔 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺 𝗶𝗻 𝗣𝗮𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗸 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗲𝘁

The July meeting of the Town Commission heard a letter read out from residents of the Valley Cottages in Patrick Street concerning a sanitation problem. The letter complained about the “insanitary condition of our cottages and of the road outside.” There was a problem with sewage overflow from behind the Commission houses at Parnell Terrace. The residents expressed fears that there would soon be an outbreak of disease in the area .

A meeting with the Commission or District Council was requested. The Commission decided to bring the matter to the District Council. The residents of Valley Cottages who signed the letter included P Scally,W Murray,J Tate, J Kiernan and Mrs Burns.

      𝗖𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗯𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗚𝗮𝘆𝗯𝗿𝗼𝗼𝗸

A big celebration took place at Gaybrook House to mark the return from his honeymoon of Captain Robert Smyth-the owner of the House and estate. A gift of jewellery was presented to Mrs Smyth by the estate workers and indoor staff. The Smyth family were popular in the Gainstown/Gaybrook area and gave considerable local employment.

****** 𝗔𝗨𝗚𝗨𝗦𝗧 *******

        𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗘𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻

The Election campaign got into full swing in August,with polling day fixed for August 27th. A big Cumann na nGaedheal rally was held in the County Hall on August 5th. The main speaker was the Home Affairs Minister Kevin O Higgins. In a typically robust speech,he defended the security policies of the Government.

He declared that it was “a vital necessity ” to ensure “the right of the people to decide all national issues” and to freely choose their government. Other speakers at the rally included the Cumann candidate P.W Shaw and Rev Macken from Cathedral House. A letter of support for Shaw and for the Government from Bishop Laurence Gaughran was read out by Father Macken.

Sinn Fein held a major rally on the Market Square. Local candidate Dr Conor Byrne questioned how free and fair the election was given the number of republicans still in jail.

The Chairman of Mullingar Rural District Council,Mick McCoy declared that the election would give voters the opportunity to vote for a Republic. “In 1921 the Treaty was signed and the Cause of Ireland was made miserable.It was not,however,lost for there were still men and women who stood faithful to the standard of Irish independence.”

Independent Labour candidate Sean Lyons told voters that “the cause of the worker lies deep in my heart.” The Labour candidate Tom Redmond made a similar claim.

Polling day on August 27th passed off peacefully. The Westmeath Examiner declared that ” there had never been a more orderly or quiet election” in Mullingar. One of the first people to vote in the town was Bishop Gaughran. For the first time all women over 21 could vote.

There were no female candidates in Longford – Westmeath , however. When the results were declared,Dr Conor Byrne topped the poll,with P.W Shaw close behind. Sean Lyons was also elected , as was Pat McKenna from Streamstown – running as a Farmers candidate. The Republican/Sinn Fein candidate in Longford,James Killane took the fifth seat.

              𝗦𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝗥𝗮𝘁𝗲

After a long and fraught meeting Westmeath County Council voted to set a rate of 6d in the £. Concerns were expressed about cuts in government funding. A large crowd of workers gathered outside the Council Chamber to protest against cutbacks. At one point some of them stormed into the room and tried to get over the barrier separating councillors from the public gallery. They eventually withdrew,still very excited.

               𝗥𝗼𝗮𝗱 𝗦𝗮𝗳𝗲𝘁𝘆

At the Town Commission monthly meeting members discussed road safety problems in the town. The number of motor cars was increasing and many drivers drove carelessly. (There was no requirement to pass a driving test at that time.) P.W Shaw expressed concern at the number of cars ” speeding through town at up to 70mph.”

He felt that it was time to put a stop to persons driving at such high speeds. The other commissioners agreed with him and decided that a speed limit of 10mph in the town and 25mph in rural areas was reasonable.

            𝗔 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗗𝗼𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻

During World War One there had been a Red Cross hospital for wounded soldiers at Bloomfield House. The Hospital had closed in 1919 but there were still some funds in the bank.The Trustees of the Bloomfield Fund decided to give £150 to the Mullingar Branch of the Vincent de Paul to be used for the care of disabled war veterans and their families in the town. There were hundreds of ex-servicemen in Mullingar and many lived in poverty.

          𝗞𝗻𝗼𝗰𝗸𝗱𝗿𝗶𝗻 𝗖𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗯𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻

There were big celebrations at Knockdrin Castle to welcome home the 12 year old heir to Knockdrin,Sir Richard Levinge.  The boy heir was given an enthusiastic reception by the large numbers of people working  in the Castle and on the estate lands,along with other neighbours. The Levinge family had been  at Knockdrin for almost 300 years and were popular in the area where they gave much employment.

**** 𝗦𝗘𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗠𝗕𝗘𝗥 *****
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗪𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗱𝘆
The tragic events at the Waterworks Pumping Station in April resulted in Private Michael Mullally being charged with the murder of Corporal Peter Bracken . The preliminary court hearing took place in Mullingar Courthouse before District Justice Reddin..The Prosecution case was put to the court by the State Solicitor J.M Wallace,while J.J Dowdall acted for the Defence.

Witnesses who gave evidence of the events around the fatal shooting of Corporal Bracken by Private Mullally included Private Michael Craig,Private Peter Dolan and Private Patrick Boland.Private Dolan told the court that he and the other soldiers “carried Cpl Bracken across the road from the pumping station to Mr Raleigh’s house”. Dr Keelan gave evidence of attending the injured man,who was then transferred by ambulance to the Military hospital in Dublin.

After hearing all the evidence and statements from the Prosecution and Defence solicitors,District Justice Reddin ruled that there was insufficient evidence to allow a charge of murder to be sent to the Criminal Court. Private Mullally was dismissed from the Army.

        𝗘𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗯𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀

In the aftermath of the General Election Sean Lyons TD held a victory dance in the County Hall. The party was described as being “one of the most brilliant,successful and interesting social events in recent years”.

Music was provided by the Dunne-Behan Band from Athlone.In his speech to his supporters Mr Lyons described himself as “The “lion” who had never been tamed.” To much laughter,he said that “when I saw the Mullingar boxes open I thought I was in some foreign country or a zoo because there was nothing in the box but Lyons, Lyons, Lyons.”!

He talked about his record of service,in and out of the Dail,to every worker in the constituency and to the cause of a united,progressive Ireland-“a sovereign,independent and united Ireland,not of 26 counties only but of 32.”.

Mr Lyons also commented on his falling-out with the Labour Party which he had once represented. “Why was I rejected by the Labour Party.? Was it because I didn’t wear a silk hat or evening dress?”

           𝗔 𝗠𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗪𝗲𝗱𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴

There was a large gathering in the cathedral for the wedding of Captain Patrick Byrne of Columb Barracks. Captain Byrne,who was Commander of the 45th Division,was a War of Independence veteran who had served with the Mullingar Brigade IRA and had been imprisoned in Mountjoy jail. He had also worked as a printer in the Westmeath Examiner office. The bride Nora Smeltzer, was the daughter of the Stationmaster of Streamstown.

          *****𝗢𝗖𝗧𝗢𝗕𝗘𝗥 *****

𝗔 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗠𝗲𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗱𝗿𝗮𝗹

On October 18th a protest meeting was held in the cathedral to highlight the continuing imprisonment of a large number of republican activists five months after the end of the Civil War.Hundreds of the prisoners had now begun a hunger strike to secure their release.

A large crowd assembled outside the County Buildings and marched up through the town.On arrival at the cathedral the protestors -many of them women,went inside and began to recite a decade of the Rosary with one of the protestors leading the recital.This was completely at odds with church practise and the cathedral administrator Father Kelly was very annoyed. The following day Father Kelly told the congregation at morning Mass . "Last evening after October devotions in this cathedral a public service was held.The Rosary was recited by a layman and answered by those present.This is a new departure in the Church of God , and altogether foreign among us. I hope this announcement will be sufficient to ensure that such will not be repeated."

That evening the priests of the parish-Father Kelly,Father Finegan,Father Smyth,Father Macken and Father McCormack remained outside the cathedral doors after the evening devotions-ready to repel any protestors. However the protestors stayed away from the cathedral this time. They marched instead to Columb Barracks and paraded alongside the barracks wall,reciting the Rosary.

There were no further protests at the cathedral,but the protests were taken up elsewhere in the town. A meeting of the Mullingar Branch of the ITGWU passed a resolution calling on the government to release the prisoners on hunger strike. On October 31st a meeting of the County Council supported a ban on all concerts and other entertainment in the County Hall until all the prisoners were released.

****** 𝗡𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗠𝗕𝗘𝗥 *****

𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗛𝘂𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗸𝗲𝗿𝘀

By the beginning of November more than 4000 republican prisoners had gone on hunger strike. The Mullingar Rural District Council and Mullingar Town Commission passed resolutions supporting the prisoners and calling for their release.

The District Councillors and the Commissioners then voted to suspend all meetings until the prisoners had been freed. At the District Council meeting,Chairman Mick McCoy declared that “It was a nice thing to see men like Brian O’ Higgins risking his life on hunger strike in support of the principle of Irish independence while Kevin O’ Higgins could go into Trinity College and enjoy a good supper.”

The hunger strike ended later in November and many prisoners were released-including local men Joseph Fitzsimons from Mullingar and John Judge from The Downs.

𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗖𝗼𝗹𝘂𝗺𝗯 𝗕𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗸𝘀

On November 20th a special religious ceremony was held in Columb Barracks at which the garrison church was reconsecrated for Roman Catholic use. Described as “an occasion of much solemnity”,the blessing ceremony was preceded by a large parade on the barracks square. Soldiers presented arms as Father Kelly blessed the church,which was at the time dedicated to St Patrick.

The Army hosted a dance in the barracks gymnasium later in November. Around 300 people attended the dance and the gym was colourfully decorated with flags and bunting.

Those in attendance included both civilians and soldiers. Among the civilians, all sectors of Mullingar society were represented- professional , commercial, shop staff,officials from the Post Office,the Railway Station and the banks.

General Sean McEoin was in attendance ,along with P.W Shaw T.D and the Quarter-Master of the National Army, Commandant McNally.

𝗔 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗔𝗺𝗯𝘂𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲

At a County Council meeting the Mullingar Motor Company in Castle Street was awarded the contract to supply a new ambulance to the County Home (now St Mary’s Hospital.)
The “Hewick” vehicle would be supplied at a cost of £570.

******𝗗𝗘𝗖𝗘𝗠𝗕𝗘𝗥 ********

𝗖𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗹 𝗠𝗲𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀

With the hunger strikes over and republican prisoners being released,the members of Mullingar Rural Council agreed to resume meetings.
The first issue that they dealt with was the appointment of a Clerk for the Council.

A discussion took place on the salary to be offered to the person appointed. It was eventually decided to offer a starting salary of £200.

The County Council also ended its suspension of meetings. At the December meeting a letter from the Local Government Board was read out informing councillors that the Land Commission was making 950 acres of land in the Mullingar area available for farmers.

The largest parcel of land was at Enniscoffey-300 acres,and P.W Shaw told the council that he would ensure that 25 acres was made available to some of the poorest farmers in the area for use as cow parks.

The Town Commission discussed the poor quality of gas lighting in parts of the town especially in the Fair Green and College Street area. There was an argument over whether the duty of ensuring lights were working was the responsibility of the Town Clerk or of the Lamplighter. .

The poor lighting outside the Technical School on Jail Hill was also raised,with Pat Brett declaring that the place was “a death trap for students attending night classes in the school.”

There was a discussion as to whose responsibility it was to ensure that there was adequate lighting at Jail Hill, with Pat Brett arguing that it was the responsibility of the County Council as they ran the school and their offices were beside the lamps.

There was also an argument over whose responsibility it was to report on the state of the lamps-the Town Clerk or the Lamplighter. It was agreed that the Manager of the Gas Company,Mr Halliwell should be requested to put in new lamps where required.

      𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝗣𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗻𝘀

Three ” lady publicans ” from Mullingar appeared in the District Court before Judge Reddin on charges of “keeping open their licensed premises for the sale of intoxicating liquor during prohibited hours.”.

Sgt Goggins of the Gardai gave evidence of finding the doors of the pubs open and ,when he and Guard Ryan entered,finding men in the tap room and glasses of porter on the counter. Two of the publicans were convicted and fined.

In the third case however, there was a claim that a man and two women who got out of a car and went into the pub were “bona fide travellers” who did not take any drink while on the premises.

Justice Reddin ruled that there were extenuating circumstances in the case and “a mixture of romance” and dismissed the charge. In one of the other cases there was laughter in court when Sgt Goggins described finding a man sitting at the bar who said nothing. Asked whether fear had made the man speechless,Goggins said that when the man did recover his powers of speech “he said I was a terrible person.”

             𝗘𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁

The St Mary’s Temperance Club Drama Club put on a production of the popular play
“Bob Brierley’s Vindication” in the County Hall.
The cast included Sean Mulderry and Lizzie Russell.

The Feast Day of St Finian on December 12th was “most auspiciously observed” in St Finian’s College. In the morning Mass was celebrated by Bishop Gaughran. In the evening the students put on a performance of “The Pirates of Penzance” produced and directed by the College President , Rev Maurice Weymes.

The Winter Meeting at Newbrook Racecourse was “a highly successful event” attended by large crowds from Dublin and all over the Midlands. In some races there were as many as 17 horses. The work of the racecourse directors, Messrs Downes ,Dowdall and Cleary,and the Secretary P.J Carroll was much praised.

      𝗪𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗵 𝗮𝘁 𝗪𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿

There was a General Election in the UK on December 6th. Among the MP’s returned to parliament were Charles Howard-Bury from Belvedere House,who retained his seat in Wolverhampton for the Conservatives,and T.P O Connor from Athlone who held his seat in Liverpool as an Independent. O Connor was the longest serving member of the Commons and
was Father of the House of Commons.

       𝗔 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗛𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗹 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗠𝘂𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗿

Miss Leonard,who ran a confectionary business on Earl/Pearse Street and was Catering Manager in the County Hall (and a member of Cumann na mBan and War of Independence veteran) announced her intention of opening a hotel in Mount Street. She had secured “a commodious house” two doors up from the Blackhall Street junction.

We hope you have enjoyed a glimpse of Mullingar 100 years ago.
Many thanks to Historian Ruth ILLingworth
For her research and writing this .

Westmeath’s Great Blizzard Of 1933

Ninety years ago in February 1933,Westmeath was hit by one of the worst blizzards experienced in Ireland in the 20th century. Snow drifts up to twelve feet high blanketed much of the countryside.

Ninety years ago in February 1933,Westmeath was hit by one of the worst blizzards experienced in Ireland in the 20th century. Snow drifts up to twelve feet high blanketed much of the countryside.

Electricity and phone services were cut and transport systems disrupted.In many areas food supplies ran short. There were numerous “fantastic and exciting incidents” in Mullingar and other parts of Westmeath.

𝗦𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝗻𝗼𝘄

The Great Blizzard began on the afternoon of Thursday February 23rd. At first the snowfall was light but as evening came on it increased in intensity and the winds picked up. By the early hours of Friday morning the wind from the east had reached in excess of sixty miles an hour.

In parts of Dublin there was serious flooding, with boats overturned in the harbours and on the Liffey.The strong winds led to drifting and by midday on Friday much of the country was a white wasteland with high banks of snow everywhere.

Westmeath was one of the worst affected regions and many villages found themselves completely cut off from the outside world.

𝗚𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗡𝗼𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲

Train services were badly hit. A train from Galway was blocked at Castletown-Geoghegan on Friday morning by drifts ten feet high. The passengers endured a long wait for a relief train. It was not until Saturday night that they could proceed on to Mullingar.

To help feed the passengers and crew six chickens being carried on the train were killed and roasted over the engine fire. A postman from Castletown who had arrived at the station to collect mail from the train could not get up the road and was trapped at the station for nearly two days.

A train from Mullingar to Cavan was trapped at Float Station near Coole for 48 hours. A local man managed to organise food supplies. Sean Hennessy from Castlepollard,who ran a grocery store,teamed up with a local blacksmith, Mr Hayden and they loaded horses with food baskets which they delivered to the train and to the villages of Coole,Collinstown,Fore and Finea.

It took the two men and their horses five hours to get across the snow drifts to Inny Junction and Coole from Castlepollard. A mail train from Cavan was stuck at Inny Junction for three days. The train crew were looked after by local people.

Among those trapped by the snow were hundreds of rugby supporters from Connaught making their way to Dublin for the Ireland v Scotland Five Nations match. They could get no further than Mullingar. Many of the supporters slept in the carriages or in the station waiting rooms while others booked accommodation in local hotels.

On Saturday morning some of the supporters
heard a rumour that a train would soon be leaving for Dublin. .They hastily collected their bags., cancelled their reservations and headed for the station.

On the way they passed another group of stranded passengers heading into town.At the station the supporters discovered that the rumours were incorrect . No train was going to Dublin. They returned to their hotel-only to find that their rooms had now been allocated to the passengers they had passed along the way.

The situation at the railway station reminded many of Easter week in 1916 when,again trains were halted at Mullingar and the platforms and waiting room became like a refugee camp.

Bus services were severely disrupted. On Saturday morning the Irish Omnibus Company in Dublin reported that they had lost all contact with buses coming to Dublin from the Midland counties. Drivers turned back when confronted with snow blocking the roads or simply abandoned their buses.

On Saturday afternoon a man out walking along the Mullingar-Ballynacarrigy road stumbled over something in the snow. He was walking high above the hedges on drifts up to ten feet high at the time.

When he scraped away the snow he found that he had stumbled over the rail on the roof of a bus which had been evacuated by the driver and passengers and was now completely entombed .

A bus from Ballymahon ran into a mountain of snow at Rathconrath and was not freed for three days.A similar fate befell a Longford-Mullingar bus near Rathowen. Similar problems occurred all over the country,with the Omnibus Company reporting that in south Co Dublin,”the village of Tallaght was completely cut off to all traffic.”

𝗔 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀

The Court Sessions in Mullingar were cancelled as the District Judge could not get down from Dublin. One lawyer emerged from the courthouse on Thursday night to find his car totally buried. By Friday afternoon Mullingar was full of abandoned cars and lorries.

The weight of snow and the strong winds brought down telegraph and telephone lines.Much of the town was left without electricity and phone and telegraph communications with the rest of the country were cut for a number of days..

There were also water shortages as pipes became frozen. Deliveries of milk and bread and other foodstuffs to shops and homes became very difficult.On Saturday milkmen strapped two milk cans on either side of a horse and managed to make their way around the town.Their appearance on the streets was “very welcome to the townspeople who had been without supplies.

The hospitals were “in a bad way for provisions” by Saturday.Some bread was delivered to the asylum on Saturday evening using a cart pulled by two horses.

On Monday morning pupils in St Finian’s College, under the direction of the College President dug a path through the snow from the school to the Green Road. This enabled food to be brought from town to both the school and the neighbouring County Hospital (now St Mary’s) where supplies were running short.

𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗰𝘂𝗲 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸

Clergy, doctors and nurses worked heroically to reach the sick. Cars and bicycles were abandoned in favour of horses. The parish priest of Tyrellspass managed to reach the historic outlying church of Raheenmore and say Sunday Mass with the assistance of parishioners who turned out with shovels and dug a path through the snow drifts.

The priest made the journey on the back of a sturdy pony along the top of the hedgerows. The weight of the snow had brought down the bell tower at St Stephen’s Church in Tyrrellspass.

In the rural areas around Mullingar farmers struggled to rescue livestock from the drifts. Large numbers of animals died but some farmers had pleasant surprises. One farmer had thirty lambs at the start of the blizzard and ninety by the following Monday.!

Another farmer managed to pull a cow out of the snow and found that she had given birth to two calves. Mother and calves all survived.

Out at Ballinea smoke was seen rising from the ground in a low lying area. When a group of men went to investigate they realised that the smoke was coming from a chimney. Digging down they uncovered an entire cottage and its occupants completely buried in the massive drifts.Happily everyone survived unscathed.

By Monday morning the village of Delvin was suffering from a severe shortage of bread and other provisions. A group of forty men-led by the parish priest, equipped themselves with shovels and began digging their way through the snow all the way to Mullingar.

Here they were able to purchase food to bring back to their families after a round journey of twenty-four miles. Some farmers were able to clear the roads with snow ploughs. This happened at Ballynagall and at Monilea.

𝗕𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗛𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗗𝗲𝗮𝗱

Funerals were affected by the blizzard. In Mullingar one family walked across the fields to Ballyglass carrying their loved one’s coffin on their shoulders as no motor hearse could make the journey from the cathedral to the graveyard.

Another funeral involved an epic journey through the snow from Mullingar to Castlepollard. Joseph Davitt,a student priest from Castlepollard, died from meningitis at Dalgan Park college in Galway. His remains,accompanied by the college president and other priests, were on the Galway -Mullingar train which was held up by the blizzard at Castletown-Geoghegan station.

Eventually the train passengers-and the coffin, were transferred to a relief train and conveyed to Mullingar. The coffin remained in the cathedral for two nights before being brought to Castlepollard on Monday morning-a journey which would take ten hours.

The coffin was placed on a sleigh and pulled out as far as Gartlandstown Hill near Crookedwood. Meantime hundreds of men from Castlepollard dug a path through the snow from the town as far as Gartlandstown,where the coffin was transferred from the sleigh onto a large horse drawn cart and the journey to Castlepollard continued.

The coffin lay overnight in the church there while men dug a path from the town out to Rathganny churchyard. Mr Davitt’s remains were finally laid to rest on Wednesday morning,some five days after departing from Galway.

The situation gradually improved from Tuesday onwards and by the following weekend things were back to normal There was just one fatality in Westmeath-a man who collapsed while shovelling snow in Fore..

But the blizzard of 1933 when,in the words of the Tyrrellspass poet,Nora Feehan- “the snow lay fathoms deep o’re vale and tree”,would long be remembered across the county.

Written and researched by Historian Ruth ILLingworth 2023

Mullingar In 1922

                         𝗝𝗔𝗡𝗨𝗔𝗥𝗬
The ratification of the Anglo-Irish Treaty by the Dail on January 7th was generally welcomed in Mullingar. Three of the four Longford-Westmeath TD’s supported ratification. The one exception was Larry Ginnell but he was unable to vote because he was living in Argentina and the USA. Another opponent of the Treaty was the Mullingar born TD for NUI Galway, Dr Ada English.

The Mullingar-born TD for Trinity College ,Dr Ernest Alton supported the Treaty and the newly formed Provisional Government which was set up on January 14th. .Back in Mullingar the majority of members of the Town Commission and the County Council also supported ratification of the Treaty ,as did Bishop Laurence Gaughran and the majority of his clergy.

Mullingar in 1922 was suffering from much economic hardship. Unemployment was high and many people relied on charities such as Vincent de Paul for help. Among those particularly affected by poverty were the numerous World War One veterans in the town. In January a meeting took place in the County Hall of what was then known as The Legion of Irish ex-Servicemen (later the British Legion.).The meeting noted that “great hardship prevails in Mullingar for want of employment.”.
The members of the Mullingar Legion Branch included John Maloney,Chris McLoughlin and PJ Carey.

                      𝗙𝗘𝗕𝗥𝗨𝗔𝗥𝗬

With the Treaty ratified and the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State/Saorstat Eireann established, the British military began to leave Ireland. The 1st Battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment had been stationed in Mullingar since April 1919. Some 300 officers and men of the battalion left Mullingar by train and lorry at the end of January. They were replaced by the Royal Sussex regiment,whose main task was clearing out the barracks and making an inventory of stock..

On February 13th,the British handed over the barracks to Commandant James Maguire of the Mullingar Brigade and Captain C.S “Todd” Andrews of the Eastern Division IRA.Captain Andrews was a grandfather of Ryan Tubridy. Both Maguire and Andrews were anti-Treaty-as were a majority of the Mullingar Brigade.

Within a day,however,the barracks changed hands again. Local RIC Mullingar District Commander,District Inspector Harrington arrived with a number of his men to request that the barracks be used by the RIC as a demobilisation centre. Harrington had worked as an agent of Michael Collins within the Westmeath RIC during the War of Independence. .

There was alarm in Mullingar when people saw large numbers of RIC men arriving from all over the country. Rumours spread that the British were coming back. But DI Harrington issued a statement reassuring the townspeople that the RIC were simply in Mullingar to be formally demobilised.So the barracks passed briefly back into the hands of Crown forces.

As well as the British Army the feared Auxiliaries and Black and Tans also left Mullingar in February 1922. They had been stationed in the spacious RIC barracks. As the “Auxies” drove through the town on their way to the railway station one of them stood up in a lorry and played “The Last Post” on a bugle.Some RIC men saluted them as they passed by. Local men who had been imprisoned by the British during the War of Independence were now being freed. There was a standing ovation in the County Council Chamber for the Chairman,Thomas Noonan when he returned from internment in the Ballykinlar Camp in Co Down.

During the War of Independence an alternative judicial system-known as the Dail Courts, had been set up as an alternative to the British courts system. In Mullingar the courts took over almost completely from the Crown courts .Local solicitors and magistrates co-operated with the Dail system.

The courts were presided over by men such as Cllr Pat Brett of Westmeath County Council and Cllr Joseph Mulready of Mullingar Rural District Council. There was also an alternative police force to the RIC,known as the Republican Police. The Republican Police broke up drunken brawls and investigated crimes such as the theft of money from the ex-servicemen’s club house in Patrick Street.

A British Act of Parliament known as the Soldiers,Sailors and Airmen Land Act allowed Local Authorities to build houses for veterans of the Great War. In Mullingar the construction of what would be called ex-servicemens’ cottages began in February 1922. The contractor for the scheme was Charles Doyle. The cottages were to be built at Ward’s Field in Ballinderry, R.J Downes’s land in Russellstown and “Mr Merlehan’s land in Clonmore.”

Charles Doyle was also the contractor for the building of a new technical school for the town. Vocational/Technical education had begun in Mullingar around 1906,with classes taking place in the Governor’s House in the old jail complex..The new building was located beside the County Hall.

Trade unionism and the labour movement were strong in Mullingar a century ago. In February 1922 a “Great Labour Rally” was held in the County Hall. The rally was attended by around 1000 people and was preceded by a march through the town led by the Kilbride Fife and Drum Band.

Red flags were conspicuous during the march. The rally was addressed by prominent local trade unionists and politicians such as Thomas Redmond of the railway workers union and Cllr John McKeon. One of the speakers declared that : “The Red Flag was the only one under which the worker could march to his emancipation.”.

The state of medical care in Mullingar was a cause of concern. At a meeting of Mullingar Rural District Council,Dr Mary King,the Dispensary Doctor for the town,stated that the Dispensary building in Austin Friars Street was in disrepair and was unfit for the treatment of TB patients.

                              𝗠𝗔𝗥𝗖𝗛

Mullingar Town Commission discussed the issue of electric light for the town in March. Some prominent buildings-including the railway station and the asylum had electric light by this time but most of the town still relied on gas lighting. A presentation on proposals for the provision of electricity was made to the commissioners by Captain Farrell of the Mullingar Motor Company and a Mr Kennedy,Consulting Engineer.

The appointment of a Miss Robinson as Assistant Matron of the District Asylum caused controversy. The asylum staff wished to see one of their own members-Agnes Murray, appointed and argued that she was better qualified than Miss Robinson. However the County Council was unwilling to allow the asylum workers a say in appointments in the institution.

The Mullingar Workers Council urged that “Appointments to public positions should be through competitive examinations.”A fair field and no favour.”.
A major political rally was held in the County Hall to support the Anglo-Irish Treaty. The main speaker was General Sean McEoin. The rally was attended by bands from Longford and Multyfarnham and banners proclaiming “Westmeath all for General McEoin” were hung up at the entrance to the hall.

On March 24th the RIC barracks in College Street was handed over by the police to a unit of soldiers led by a Captain Grady. He represented the anti-Treaty GHQ of the now splintering IRA. The barracks became a base for the anti-Treaty IRA and the tri-colour was raised over the building.James Maguire was the Commanding Officer of the anti-Treaty Mullingar IRA. The first Irish Free State stamps went on sale in Mullingar in March. The stamps had "rialtas na sealdach na hEireann" overprinted on them in red.In another sign to Mullingar people that independence was at hand, advertisements appeared in the local press for recruits to the new police force-the Civic Guard.

At a ceremony in London,Charles Howard-Bury of Belvedere House was presented with the very prestigious Founders Medal of the Royal Geographical Society for his work in leading the Mt Everest Reconnaissance Expedition in 1921. The RGS citation noted that Howard-Bury and his expedition "had reached a higher point than has ever been attained before on the slopes of the chief mountain of the world,suffered great hardship and brought home specimens and information of great value."

St Patrick's Day was celebrated in Mullingar with a major "Gala Ceili" in the County Hall,organised by the local Gaelic League branch. The hall was decorated in patriotic colours and a very large crowd attended . The event was deemed to be "a great success." At the St Patrick's Day Mass in the cathedral prayers in Irish were recited by Rev Maurice Weymes,President of St Finian's College. Horse and pony races were held at Mrs Killian's farm near the Dublin

Bridge. A “natural grandstand was provided by a hill in the central part of the course around which most of the events were contested.” The races were deemed to have been “a brilliant success.”.
For almost seventy-five years the Greville family had been the owners of Mullingar. But the old order was now changing. It was reported in March 1922 that Mullingar Town Commission was opening negotiations with Lord Greville on the purchase of the town tolls.

Women now had the vote in parliamentary elections on the same terms as men and professions such as the law and civil service were opening up. It was noted locally,
however ,that “Westmeath is perhaps the only county in Ireland which is without a lady member of any of its important public bodies.”
.

𝗔𝗣𝗥𝗜𝗟
On April 10th 1922 the Military Barracks changed hands once more when the RIC completed the demobilisation process and handed over the barracks to General Hugo McNeill and a Captain Keegan of the Free State Army.

The handover was a low key affair but large crowds gathered on the Green Bridge and on the Fair Green to watch the arrival of the troops and the departure of the last of the RIC men.According to the “Westmeath Examiner” “the transfer was carried out in a perfectly smooth and peaceful manner.”. General J.J “Ginger” O Connell arrived the next day and spent several days in the barracks.

By April 1922 the IRA had split into pro and anti- Treaty factions and the anti-Treaty military leaders had set up a republican executive based in the Four Courts . The Mullingar IRA were largely anti-Treaty. The RIC Barracks in College St was held by anti-Treaty soldiers under the command of Commandant James Maguire .

They numbered 400 men and Maguire and his colleague Captain Todd Andrews wanted to get control of the military barracks which were of major strategic importance.

On April 13th the anti-Treaty force seized the County Buildings and Courthouse. Tensions rose in the town as General O Connell started arresting local republicans and raids were carried out on the homes of republican supporters in Patrick Street and Austin Friars Street The Army took control of the Post Office in Dominick Street,which backed on to the republican HQ in the RIC Barracks..

The republican side seized a number of Free State soldiers as hostages in response to the arrest of some of their men. Both groups summoned reinforcements to the town. A deputation of local businessmen and politicians and a priest visited the HQ of both sides and managed to keep an uneasy peace for a time.

On April 27th however,the truce was shattered. People in Mullingar woke to the sound of gunfire. There was a gun battle in College Street between the republican and Free State soldiers..A Free State soldier -Adjutant Patrick Columb was killed and two other men wounded. Soon afterwards a republican soldier-Volunteer Joe Leavy,was shot dead in controversial circumstances at the Mary Street/Dominick Street junction.

Leavy was apparently unarmed and had surrendered when Free State soldiers opened fire on him and other republicans. The soldiers who shot him may have been members of the Dublin Guard-an elite unit whose main loyalty was to Michael Collins. They had a reputation for ruthlessness.

James Maguire and his colleagues were in a very difficult position. Many of the republican soldiers were withdrawn from Mullingar to fight elsewhere and outlying barracks’ in Kinnegad and Ballinacarrigy were captured by Free State troops. The republican forces withdrew from the Courthouse and County Buildings and the prisoners held by both sides were released.

On April 23rd a major anti-Treaty rally was held in the Market Square. A large crowd attended and were addressed by Eamon De Valera and Harry Boland. Despite the tension in the town the rally passed off peacefully. The same day troops from both sides attended Mass together in the cathedral.

The funeral processions for Patrick Columb and Joe Leavy passed through Mullingar .Shops closed and blinds were drawn down in a mark of respect. The military barracks was renamed in honour of Columb. Joe Leavy and Patrick Columb were among the first victims of the Civil War.

As violence and lawlessness grew around the country three prominent Mullingar businessmen-Robert Downes, Thomas Dowdall and C Levinge had their motor cars stolen at gunpoint. In another incident a train from Cavan was stopped by armed men just outside Mullingar and goods from Belfast were taken off and destroyed. A consignment of flour was distributed among the poor of the town..

Amidst the turmoil cultural life managed to go on in Mullingar. The Choral Society put on a production of “The Mikado”.Because of the military occupation of the County Hall the show was transferred to St Mary’s Hall. The cast included Tony Stanley,Leo McCormick,J.E Wallace,Hugh Price,Annie Ruttledge and Lily Doherty

𝗠𝗮𝘆

On May 3rd the Anti-Treaty forces withdrew from the RIC Barracks. As they left they blew up the building. As flames and smoke rose high into the sky over College Street fire crews from the Asylum and the Army barracks rushed to the scene .

Postal workers and others worked frantically to save horses and cars from Killians and Hope’s garages on Dominick Street while the fire crews succeeded in preventing the fires from reaching the Post Office and houses in Mary Street.

Windows were blown out in some houses and a number of people were treated for shock and minor injuries. .

Inquests were held into the deaths of Patrick Columb and Joe Leavy. The jury at the Columb inquest ruled that the killing was an act of murder. In the case of Joe Leavy,the jury concluded that “Joe Leavy met his death from bullet wounds while a prisoner and with his hands up and unarmed.”. They called on the Dail to hold an inquiry into the matter.

The Passionist Fathers held a three week Mission in the cathedral. .The Mission attracted large crowds and prayers for peace in Ireland were offered. Among those in attendance were over 100 troops from the barracks under the command of Captain Stapleton.

After the Mission they lined up in Bishopsgate Street before marching back to the barracks.Their “neat uniforms and general turnout was much admired.”. On May 1st, Father J Kelly from the cathedral blessed the newly named Columb Barracks.

A sitting of the local Dail or Parish Court was dramatically disrupted when a man wielding a revolver began shouting and threatened to shoot the court chairman, Cllr Pat Brett. A member of the Republican Police. Volunteer Beglan quickly seized the gunman and disarmed him. At a council meeting,an emotional Cllr Brett declared that he owed his life to “Almighty God and Volunteer Beglan. “.

Campaigning began for a General Election called for June 16th. The Republicans in Mullingar re-selected the veteran TD Larry Ginnell to stand.His election agent was his wife Alice. Alice Ginnell had made history in the 1918 General Election when she became the first woman to serve as an Election Agent in Irish or British history.
(Side Note :Larry Ginnell’s grand niece Aideen Ginnell is married to TD and Minister for State Robert Troy (FF) )

Other candidates running in the election in Longford-Westmeath included Sean McEoin, (pro-Treaty Sinn Fein),Sean Lyons (Labour) and Patrick Belton ( Ratepayers Association). One of the Longford-Westmeath sitting TD’s,Joseph McGuiness died just as the election campaign began. His brother Frank was selected as his replacement.

Sports events continued in Mullingar even as the political tensions mounted. The newly arrived Free State soldiers began using the Camp Field beside the barracks for Gaelic football matches. The Summer Race Meeting at Newbrook Racecourse drew “an immense attendance. “

𝗝𝗨𝗡𝗘

A General Election took place on June 16th to elect the Third Dail. In the Longford-Westmeath constituency Sean McEoin topped the poll. Larry Ginnell was comfortably returned for the second seat and the other two TDs elected were Frank McGuiness and Sean Lyons. All the TD’s bar Ginnell were pro-Treaty. An unusually high percentage of votes in the constituency were spoiled-4.7%. This was the highest for any constituency in the country.. The Mullingar born TD,Ada English lost her NUI seat.

As lawlessness increased nationwide Mullingar experienced a series of sectarian attacks on local Protestants. The windows of a number of Protestant owned shops in the town were smashed one night. Premises targeted included T.L Hutchinson’s,Porter and Sons,Loftus’s and Connolly’s Shoe Store. A number of Protestant farmers living near the town received threatening letters. The attacks were strongly condemned by leading local Roman Catholics.

In another incident people attending a show in the Parochial Hall were held up at gunpoint by a number of armed men,who forced them to go across the road and take all the furniture out of the Masonic Lodge and pile it up at the door. But before the hall could be set alight a group of local business men arrived along with two priests from the cathedral-Father Kelly and Father McCormick. .

They managed to persuade the gunmen to leave. Several Protestant shopkeepers- including T.L Hutchinson,wrote letters to the local papers firmly denying rumours that they were sending money to Belfast in support of the Unionist government.

The Select Vestry of All Saints’ Church issued a statement condemning the sectarian attacks on Roman Catholics in Belfast.

A tragic incident occurred at the Soldiers Home on the Fair Green when one soldier was accidentally killed by another. Private Richard Clinton was shot by Private Patrick McDonnell when McDonnell pointed his rifle at him. The funeral of Private Clinton was a full military one and a sombre occasion for the town.

A happier occasion was the first route march staged by the Army .Large crowds watched with great interest as the military marched through the main streets led by a Pipers Band “dressed in picturesque Celtic uniform. “

The military also staged an army dance in the County Hall in June.The dance was supported by “a very numerous assembly”. Mr P Dooner acted as MC for the evening.

The end of an era was marked at Windsor Castle on June 12th when the historic British Army regiments from Southern Ireland were disbanded. These regiments included the Leinster Regiment-which had recruited heavily in Mullingar,and the Connaught Rangers and Royal Dublin Fusiliers which had been stationed in the town on a number of occasions

A meeting of Mullingar Rural District Council was told that twelve new houses were to be built in Patrick Street “on Mr Dibb’s land. “.
A sweepstake was organised for the purpose of raising funds for the upkeep of the town fire brigade. The first prize of £20 was won by Miss Rooney of Dominick Street.

𝗝𝗨𝗟𝗬
At the end of June 1922 the Civil War began. Free State troops bombarded the Four Courts buildings in Dublin,which had become the HQ of the anti-Treaty IRA executive.

Fierce fighting also took place along O Connell Street. Cathal Brugha,who was one of the leading Anti-Treaty political figures,was shot and fatally wounded. With him at the time of his death was Mullingar- born Dr Ada English,who was working as a Medical Officer with the anti-Treaty forces.

In Mullingar the Free State Army erected military checkpoints and raided houses of suspected republicans .

In one tragic incident a soldier was killed by his own side. Sgt McNamee from Longford was driving a car containing a number of republican prisoners who had been arrested at the Dublin Bridge towards the barracks when he was shot by Free State soldiers standing outside the Greville Arms who appear to have mistaken him for a republican..

His funeral through the town was an impressive occasion with pipers leading the cortege.and the beating of muffled drums.

A special sitting of the Mullingar Dail Parish Court was held in the Courthouse at which Thomas Reilly from Monilea was charged by the Republican Police with the murder of an elderly woman,Mary Keane at her home in Knockatee,Monilea.

The court was presided over by Cllr Pat Brett,sitting with Cllr John McKeown and Richard Mullally. Evidence of arrest and charge of the prisoner was given by Republican Police Head Constable Dooner. Thomas Reilly was remanded in custody to await trial.

One of the major annual cultural events of the year in early 20th century Mullingar was the Midland Feis. Despite the Civil War the Feis went ahead in its usual venue of St Mary’s College in the first week of July. It was attended by musicians,singers and poets from all over the Midlands and was opened by the President of St Finian’s College,Rev Maurice Weymes.

The Drama Class of the Mullingar Gaelic League put on a successful production of Lady Gregory’s play,”Hyacinth Halvey” in the County Hall.

Mullingar Town Commission wrote to Lord Greville’s agent requesting that the Market House clock be repaired so as “to ensure that the people of Mullingar will have the nearest approach to Greenwich Mean Time. “

𝗔𝗨𝗚𝗨𝗦𝗧

On August 5th, General Michael Collins visited Mullingar. He met local County Councillor,P.W Shaw and then carried out an inspection of troops at the Military Barracks. He “expressed himself pleased with their deportment and aptitude in going through training.”

Just over a fortnight later Collins was killed. The news of his death caused shock in Mullingar. Flags were flown at half mast and shops closed on the day of Collins’s funeral. Local TD’s and county councillors attended the enormous state funeral in Dublin and there was a military parade in Columb Barracks.

The Town Commission,County Council and other public bodies adjourned meetings as a mark of respect and the Westmeath Examiner appeared with a black border. The death of Arthur Griffith just ten days before Collins also caused widespread shock and mourning in the town.

During the fighting in Co Cork in early August, Private James Gavigan from Mill Rd was killed while serving in the National Army. Private Gavigan had also served in the First World War. His funeral was a full military event.

When his remains arrived by train from Cork a pipers band from the barracks played at the station. Shops closed and blinds were drawn down as the funeral passed down the main streets on the way to Rathconnell cemetery.

The military in Mullingar continued to crack down on local republicans.A leading member of the Mullingar Brigade IRA,James Hynes,who worked in the Post Office,was arrested-although he managed to escape soon afterwards. Another republican was arrested as he got off a train at the station and was found to be in possession of “subversive” documents.

There was little violence in the Mullingar area but shots were fired at the house of the Asylum farm head stewart. The former CO of the military barracks,Captain Peadar Conlon was seriously wounded in an ambush in Co Mayo.

The issue of electric lighting for Mullingar was discussed by Westmeath County Council. It was suggested that electric light should be installed in the County Buildings and the Technical School.But no decision was taken and the matter put back for further consideration.

As preparations began for the setting up of the first Senate of the Free State,the Mullingar Town Tenants Association called on the government to “secure the interests of town tenants by giving a Senate nomination to a member of the Irish Town Tenants Association.”

Despite the War,the people of Mullingar were still able to find entertainment. Duffy’s “sensational circus” visited the town in August and performed for a number of days at the Fair Green.

A supper party was held in the Greville Arms by the Army to say farewell to the Quartermaster of the Barracks, QMS Doran,who was moving to Carlow. The Barracks Officer Commanding, Captain Fulham predicted that QMS Doran would “have a brilliant career in the cause of a free Ireland.”

𝗦𝗘𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗠𝗕𝗘𝗥

A special Mass was held in the cathedral on September 2nd to pray for the souls of Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith. According to the Westmeath Examiner,”Memorably solemn and impressive scenes were witnessed in Mullingar” that day. All shops closed and 100 soldiers from the barracks marched through the town to the cathedral led by Captain Joyce and and a pipers band.

The Mass was presided over by Bishop Gaughran with over 100 priests from across the Diocese. Members of Westmeath County Council and Mullingar Town Council and Rural District Council were also present. At the end of the Mass,the Last Post was played

The Third Dail held its first meeting on the 9th September in Dublin. The three pro-Treaty TD’s from Longford-Westmeath,Sean McEoin, John Lyons and Frank McGuinness were in attendance.

The only anti-Treaty Deputy to attend was the fourth Longford-Westmeath TD, Larry Ginnell. He was soon removed from the Chamber however, after repeatedly interrupting proceedings to inquire whether the Third Dail was in fact Dail Eireann (a 32 county Dail.). He would never return to the Dail chamber.

A new police force for the Free State-the Civic Guard or Gardai Siochana had been set up early in 1922 and had marched into their new HQ in Dublin Castle in August. The new Commissioner,Eoin O Duffy began sending gardai out across the country. In September the first Civic Guards arrived in Mullingar. The old RIC barracks was in ruins so the men (no women were recruited) were housed in the Courthouse.

𝗢𝗖𝗧𝗢𝗕𝗘𝗥
On October 1st the people of Mullingar were woken in the early hours of the morning by the sound of gunfire. Free State troops and republican soldiers exchanged fire along the railway embankment between the railway station and the Lynn Rd bridge. No-one was hurt in the incident. A few days later a bomb was thrown over the wall of the army barracks but it failed to explode.

Later in the month,”a startling sensation was caused in Mullingar by the sound of two explosions around 5.00am.” The explosions blew up the Supply Bridge on the Castlepollard Rd and bridges at Knockmant and Kneadsbridge out at the Downs.

As the Civil War raged on many Mullingar men joined the Free State Army.According to the local press,”Nearly all the available men in the Mullingar district have joined the colours and recruits are still coming in in large numbers”

Private Patrick Reilly from Austin Friars St, Private Thomas McKeown from Crookedwood and Private Patrick Corroon from Patrick Street were wounded in fighting in Dublin.

A meeting of Westmeath County Council heard a proposal to site a TB treatment unit in the Governor’s House at the County Buildings. The proposal was rejected due to the proximity of the new technical school which now had 250 pupils.

Mullingar now had a new police force. Two sergeants and ten men of the new Civic Guard (Gardai) were stationed at the Courthouse under the command of Supt O Neill. The Republican or Dail District and Parish Courts were now suspended as preparations were made for the setting up of new District Courts.

The people of Mullingar acquired a new civic amenity in October. What was known as “The People’s Park” opened at the rear of the County Buildings.The park included flower beds,trees and play facilities for children.

At a meeting of Mullingar Town Commissioners there were complaints about the quality of gas lighting in the town. One commissioner stated that,”In some shops a 1p candle would give as good light.”

The Chairman of the Commission,John McKeown,commented that,”There must be no commissioner living in Bishopsgate Street.The light there is very bad.”

At the same meeting,the commissioners granted the Town Sergeant the sum of £10 to provide himself with a new uniform and boots.

Despite the ongoing war the people of Westmeath continued to play and to watch sport. In October Westmeath and Dublin drew in the Leinster Junior Football semi-final and there was “an extremely large attendance ” at the Autumn Race Meeting at Newbrook Racecourse. A Men’s Hockey Team was formed in Mullingar and,in their first match they drew with Edenderry.

𝗡𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗠𝗕𝗘𝗥
On November 3rd legal history was made in Mullingar with the opening of the first District Court.The court sitting was presided over by District Justices Kenneth Reddin and Liam Price. J.J Mackin welcomed them on behalf of the local Bar. Justice Reddin welcomed the Civic Guard to the court and paid tribute to the work of the Dail courts. He went on to state:

“This court has been set up by the people and is for the people. These courts are set up by the will of the people and by the government of the people.

This country belongs to us ; this court belongs to Ireland. Ireland and her people have now complete control of the country and of the administration of justice. .”

The Civil War continued to rage across the nation. Two prominent Mullingar men-Dr D Keelan and Mr J.P Shaw were on their way to a funeral in Dublin when they were caught up in a gun battle between Free State troops and republican soldiers between Maynooth and Leixlip. Dr Keelan was slightly wounded and his car was commandeered by the republicans.

The Free State government was increasingly ruthless in its dealings with those they saw as seeking to bring down the elected government.Special military courts were set up to try people caught in illegal possession of weapons. In November,Erskine Childers and four other republicans were executed by military firing squads in Dublin.

The executions were condemned at a meeting of Westmeath County Council. Anti Treaty councillors tried to have the meeting adjourned as a mark of respect to Childers “who had done as much for Ireland as Arthur Griffith”.

But the pro-Treaty majority on the council refused to adjourn,with councillors calling on the anti-Treaty members to condemn republican as well as Free State violence.

A General Election took place in the UK in November. Among the new MP’s elected to the House of Commons was Charles Howard-Bury of Belvedere. He became the Conservative MP for part of Wolverhampton.

Back in Mullingar the army hosted a dance in Columb Barracks. About 300 people attended the dance,which was held in the barracks gymnasium.The venue was decorated in tricolour flags.

A meeting of the County Council was informed that the Dispensary building in Austin Friars Street was in “a disgraceful state.” The place was being used as a TB observation station,but councillors were told that this was not a suitable location because “the wives and children of working people are going in to be examined by Dr King.”

Many of the Dispensary patients came from large impoverished families and were “in a low state of health and liable to pick up any disease going.”

A meeting of the County Council Asylum Committee was told that there were 1036 patients in the asylum as of the start of November. The staff and patients were treated that month to a visit by the Drama group of the Mullingar Choral Society who put on a performance of a popular play called “The Private Secretary.”

The performance was well received and the cast were afterwards treated to dinner by the R.M.S. Scenery for the show was provided by the Asylum Drama Club.

The Mullingar Holy Family Confraternity held their half-yearly General Communion service in the cathedral. A newspaper report noted that: “the passing years have not changed the loyalty or dimmed the militant vitality of this fine old midlands sodality.”.

A delegation of residents from Springfield were admitted to the Town Commission to complain that the gas lamps in the area had not been lit for some time.The Lamplighter explained that when he had gone to light the lamps he had been shot at.

A discussion took place with Mr Halliwell of the Mullingar Lighting Company and it was agreed that the lamps would be lit. At the same meeting there were complaints about the high price of gas for private homes.

The Mullingar Rural District Council discussed the possible purchase of the houses in St Lomans’s Terrace by their occupants. It appeared that bureaucracy within the Local Government Board was holding up the sale and that some work needed to be done to connect the houses to the sewerage system.

Some councillors called for the houses in McCurtain/Barrack Street to be sold to the householders as well.

A collection was taken up in the Diocese of Meath for the victims of famine in Russia. Bishop Gaughran told Mass goers that parts of Russia were “a vast graveyard.” The collection raised a substantial sum of money. The Famine-in Tatarstan and other regions along the River Volga. claimed about five million lives in 1921-22

𝗗𝗘𝗖𝗘𝗠𝗕𝗘𝗥

On the morning of December 6th 1922,the people of Mullingar awoke to find themselves living in a new state. On that day Ireland left the United Kingdom after 121 years and the Irish Free State-Saorstat Eireann, came into being.

The new Free State Senate held its first meeting two days later. Among the members of the First. Senate were a number of people with Mullingar connections Senator Maurice Moore had served with the Connaught Rangers regiment in Mullingar barracks in 1903-06. and had,as Inspector-General of the Irish Volunteers,reviewed a mass parade of Volunteers corps from across Westmeath on the Fair Green in 1914.

Sir Bryan Mahon had commanded many Mullingar men serving in the 10th (Irish) Division during the First World War and had visited Mullingar to open the Red Cross hospital at Bloomfield House in 1917.

The Earl of Granard’s family had been landlords of Mullingar from 1661 to 1858.

At a meeting of Mullingar Town Council there were complaints that a gas lamp at the Oliver Plunkett Street end of Meeting House Lane “on Mr Donohoe’s wall” was never lit. It was suggested that if the lamp was not lit it should be removed and placed in St Andrews’ Terrace (in Barrack St) instead.

With the Civil War still going on there was a rise in crime around Mullingar. A quantity of whisky and other items were stolen from Joseph Bennett’s business premises in Austin Friars Street.

Armed men held up Mr Thomas Tyrell at his home on Ardmore Rd and stole his watch and £10. Gunmen also held up Mr Gaynor in his home at Lough Owel and stole £1.

The thieves were believed to have escaped on bicycles.

One of the leading figures in the 1916-21 freedom struggle in Mullingar died after a short illness at the age of just 29. David Burke had run a jewellery business in Dominick Street and had served as a member of both the Mullingar Brigade IRA and of the IRB.

His funeral was attended by a very large crowd. A wreath “was laid by his young friends,many of whom had suffered internment with him.” A card with the wreath read “From his comrades of the old volunteers.”

The Rural District Council discussed the possibility of securing a house in Mullingar for the Mullingar District Medical Officer,Dr Mary King. The councillors were told that she was living out in Kilbride and that the poor of the town were suffering from the lack of a resident MO.

No agreement was reached on a possible house for Dr King The meeting also heard complaints from a number of Mullingar people about the “disgusting state of the Brosna ” in the town due to sewage from the workhouse,which was not yet connected to the town sewage system.

With Christmas approaching,the local papers were full of advertisements from the town retail sector. The Royal Oak bar in Oliver Plunkett Street offered “high class teas, wines and whiskeys”,as well as “jams and jellies. T.L Hutchinson Drapers reminded customers that “coat time is here.”

Mulholland’s at the Green Bridge advertised “fruit and jams” And with a new year around the corner, Roe Brothers garage in Patrick Street advertised the Ford Coupe car as being particularly suitable for doctors, commercial travellers and other men who were constantly on the move. The car was priced at £325.

By RUTH ILLINGWORTH. Historian ©

MULLINGAR AND WATERLOO CONNECTION

June 2015 marked the bicentenary of one of the most famous battles in European history. On June 18th,1815,at Waterloo in what is now Belgium,British and Prussian Armies defeated the French Army and ended twenty years of war between France and most of the other Great Powers of Europe-a conflict which stretched from Mayo to Moscow and from the North Sea to the Nile.

Waterloo was one of the greatest victories in British military history,but it was also an Irish victory. The Commander of the British Army was an Irishman with Westmeath connections,Arthur Welleseley,Duke of Wellington. Up to 45% of the men he commanded were Irish.

Speaking in the House of Lords as Prime Minister in 1829,Wellington declared that the victory at Waterloo and other other military successes of the British Army against Napoleon were only possible with the help of the Irish; “It is mainly to the Irish Catholics that we owe all our proud pre=eminence to our military career.”

Many of these Irish Catholic soldiers,who had fought at Waterloo and earlier in Spain and Portugal,with Wellington came from Westmeath-recruited from the garrison towns of Mullingar and Athlone or from among the tenants of such families as Wellington’s in-laws,the Pakenhams,Earls of Longford.

The Duke of Wellington was born in Dublin and spent much of his childhood in Trim and Summerhill,Co Meath. He met Kitty Pakenham,daughter of the 2nd Earl of Longford and fell in love with her. But the Earl refused to allow a marriage as he felt that Wellington was not a wealthy man and had few prospects in life. (Wellington’s mother felt the same ).

So Wellington went to India where he showed his military and leadership skills in wars against the French and Indian rulers. Returning to Ireland he found Kitty Pakenham still unmarried. He had promised to marry her and felt obliged to go through with his promise,although he now thought her ugly and no longer loved her.

They married in 1806 and had two sons,though for most of their unhappy marriage,they lived separate lives. Wellington did,however get on well with his brother-in law,General Ned Pakenham,who served with him in Portugal and Spain and was killed in the Battle of New Orleans,in the Anglo-American War,just five months before Waterloo.

The Irish regiments who took part in the Battle of Waterloo included the two Enniskillen based formations,the 27th(Inniskilling)Regiment of Foot and the 6th(Inniskilling)Dragoons.The Dragoons played a crucial part in saving the day for the British and their Allies by beating back an advancing French assault. They suffered very heavy casualties.

As men from Westmeath would serve in the Inniskillings in the Boer War and the First World War,it is possible that they were among those who fought with the Inniskillings on that epic day at Waterloo. The 4th Cavalry Brigade at Waterloo was commanded by Laois born Major-General Sir John Ormsby Vandeleur.He would have been related to the Vandeleurs of Killucan who served with distinction in the two World Wars.

There may also have been men of Westmeath origin serving in the Irish Legion of the French Army. Set up by Napoleon in 1803,this unit was a successor to the Irish Regiments of the pre-Revolution French Army. They served the French State with distinction unti after Waterloo when the Legion was disbanded.

The Austrians had been an ally of Britain throughout the Wars against France.The Austrians did not fight at Waterloo but they had been fighting to drive the French out of Italy in 1813-14. Many of the high ranking officers in the Austrian military were Irish.

These included Count Lavall Nugent and Andrew Nugent O Reilly from Westmeath. There may also have been men of Westmeath origin or birth in the ranks of the Russian and Prussian armies-also part of the Grand Alliance against France. About 1400 British soldiers were killed at Waterloo and many more wounded.

Many of the casualties were Irish.It took three days to recover all the dead and injured from the battlefield. The survivors returned home to Britain and Ireland as heroes. Wellington was honoured. The across the United Kingdom-including the erection of the Monument in Phoenix Park and the naming of the newly completed military barracks after him The poular composer,Wellington Guernsey,born in Mullingar in 1817,was one of many boys named after the victor of Waterloo.

But for many of the rank and file soldiers who had fought that historic day,the end of the war brought poverty and hardship. The Governments of the UK in the decade after the defeat of revolutionary France were,as was the case across Europe,reactionary-determined to defend aristocratic and Church privilege.

In Britain and Ireland the working class and those in favour of democracy suffered persecution. For those Waterloo veterans who wee Roman Catholic,the aftermath of the victory at Waterloo brought no relief from discrimination.

As one Irish ballad put it: Oh Wellington,sure you know it is true, in blood we were drenched at famous Waterloo. We fought for pur king to uphold his crown, Our only reward was-Papists lie down.!"

In the 1820s, Daniel O Connell began his battle to secure Catholic Emancipation-creating the first mass democratic political movement in the process. One of the first MPs elected on the ticket of Catholic Emancipation was the Westmeath landlord,Hugh Morgan Tuite of Sonna,for Westmeath,in the 1826 General Election.

Waterloo veterans may have been among those who voted for him. Many of the 200,000 veterans of the Wars against France were among those deployed round the country by O Connell to steward politcal meetings and elections and keep order and discipline.

In April 1829,a year after O Connell’s election as an MP,Catholic Emancipation was finally granted by the Government of the Duke of Wellington. In his speech to the Lords commending the Bill, Wellington said,”without Catholic blood and Catholic valour,no victory could ever have been obtained.”

The Meath raised Premier also spoke movingly about his pride in his Irishness-“I glory,my Lords.in the name of Ireland.”However,Wellington was not a good political leader-despite his recognition of the justice of Roman Catholic claims. He opposed the 1832 Great Reform Act-which opened parliament to the middle class and gave representation to the British industrial cities such as Manchester and Glasgow in which many Irish workers now lived.

He was also an opponent of Jewish Emancipation (a cause advocated throughout his career by O Connell),on the grounds that the United Kingdom was, “A Christian country.” He grew more reactionary as he grew older and increasingly out of touch with the changing societies of Britain and Ireland.He remained proud of his Irishness,however.

Kitty Pakenham,Duchess of Wellington,died in 1831. Her husband died in 1852 and was given a State funeral which was one of the largest in British history. Those who attended the funeral included many of the members of the landed families of Westmeath.

The last survivors of Waterloo -including women who had followed their husbands to war,lived into the 1870s. Perhaps those men and women and those they left behind on the field of Waterloo and on other battlefields across Europe are best remembered by the lines from the 19th century ballad,”Over the Hills and Far Away”,which was sung in the TV Series,”Sharpe.”

" Over the hills and far away. King George commands and we obay. Through Flanders,Portugal and Spain. Over the hills and far away. "If I should fall to rise no more, As many comrades did before, Ask the pipes and drums to play, Over the hills and far away."

RUTH ILLINGWORTH ©

BREXIT AND BORDERS SYMPOSIUM IN MULLINGAR

_{Pictured at the Symposium held in All Saints Church Mullingar L-R The Most Revd.John Mc Dowell Archbishopof Armagh and Primate Of All Ireland , The most Rev,Patricia Storey ,Bishop of meath and Kildare ,Professor Katy Hayward, Professor of Political sociology at Queens University , Belfast and Rev.Cannon Alastair Graham Mullingar Union of Parishes}

On September 27th 2021 , a symposium was held in All Saints’ Church Mullingar Co Westmeath on the subject of ,”Brexit, Borders And The Greater Good” in Northern Ireland. The symposium was addressed by the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh ,Dr John McDowell and by Professor Katy Hayward of Queen’s University Belfast. The event was chaired by the Bishop of Meath and Kildare,Most Rev. Pat Storey.Bishop Storey made history in 2013 when she was consecrated as the first woman bishop in Britain or Ireland.

 Professor Katy Hayward lectures in Political Sociology and is an internationally renowned expert on the subject of Brexit and of political borders.In her talk she described the impact being made on Northern Ireland by the departure of the UK from the EU. She said that Brexit had “raised existential questions with regard to territory,identity and borders.” Northern Ireland was now in “an unhappy limbo” and it was “possible to feel the heat of the past on our heels.” 

She explained the problems arising from the Northern Ireland Protocol contained within the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement.The Protocol effectively keeps Northern Ireland within the  EU Single Market for goods-thus avoiding the return of a hard border between the Republic and Northern Ireland. But the Protocol obliges the UK to check goods moving between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. This has created an Irish Sea Border and created a barrier  within the internal UK single market.

 Prof. Hayward explained how Unionists  oppose the Protocol because they see it as undermining Northern Ireland’s status as a full part of the UK and threatening their British status. There have been violent street protests against the Protocol in Loyalist areas and the DUP Leader,Jeffrey Donaldson,has threatened to pull out of government and bring down the Executive and Assembly if the Protocol is not amended or dropped. Former First Minister,David Trimble has warned that the Protocol  risks undermining the Good Friday Agreement.

(Click on photos to enlarge )

_{^{Archbishop Of Armagh , Arthur O Toole All Saints Church warden}}

^{Marilyn Convery ,Anna Roylston ,Edna Craig}

^{Violet Medford, Mavis Murray, Eleanor Anderson}

^{_{students from Wilsons Hospital school padraig Lillis ,Eoin Cauley ,Luke Hawkins chaplin}}

_{Conrad Gross , Jannet Gross}

Archbishop of Armagh and Senator Emer Currie

Professor Hayward and historian Ruth ILLingworth

 

Prof.Hayward noted that “where there is uncertainty,fear grows.”  Unionists are uncertain about the future of Northern Ireland and fearful that Brexit and the Protocol make a united Ireland more likely. There is alack of trust in Northern Ireland now,with Unionists having litle trust in the British or Irish governments or the EU.  Nationalists in the North also believe that Brexit makes a united Ireland more likely. They do not trust the British government Ireland-although they are inclined to trust the Irish government and the EU.  However surveys carried out by Prof Hayward and others do not indicate majority support in the North for Irish unity. Around 52% of voters would vote to remain in the UK and just 37% would support a united Ireland.

 Brexit was largely driven by English nationalism and,according to Prof Hayward,the British government,in “getting Brexit done”,has undermined devolution within the UK. She said that Northern Ireland’s voice was not heard during the negotiations over the Withdrawal Agreement and the Province was taken out of the EU against the wishes of a majority of local voters.  For most of the negotiation period there was no Northern Ireland government because of the collapse of the institutions in February 2017. She also noted that some parts of the Good Friday Agreement had never actually been fully implemented.  A Civic Forum,which was supposed to give wider civil society-trade unions,churches,the business community,a voice was not restored when devolution returned and  a cross border civil society forum never set up at all.  

Professor Hayward said that the Good Friday Agreement had made the Border almost irrelevant and invisible,while the Agreement had also made it possible for people to identify as Irish or British or Northern Irish.. Brexit was bringing back the border and  questions of identity. Cross community contacts were becoming  harder and people felt that they had no control over Brexit or what was happening.

Archbishop McDowell talked about his childhood in working class Protestant East Belfast in the Sixties. Before entering Church ministry,he had worked for Short Brothers  aero engineering-one of Northern Ireland’s most famous businesses. His father had worked for the same company. Before his election as Archbishop of Armagh in 2020,he had served as Bishop of Clogher.  During his time in that cross -border diocese,he had written to Boris Johnston to explain the complexities of the Border A visit to one of his parishes necessitated crossing the Border eight times. 

The Archbishop   expressed his concerns about the way in which Northern Ireland had developed into a “Market Society” in which the “dignity of work” seemed to be forgotten about and the number of working poor was on the increase. He criticised the lack of vocational  training and apprenticeships and that the development of a meritocracy was undermining the common good by making the less well educated/skilled felt left behind.

Archbishop McDowell said that Brexit and the Covid crisis had shown up the divisions in Northern Irish society. These divisions were not unique to the North. In a memorable phrase,the Archbishop said that the Brexit vote,the election of Donald Trump and the rise of populist leaders in Brazil,Hungary and elsewhere meant that over the last five years, “The rest of the world began to look like Northern Ireland.”    He suggested that divisions into majorities and minorities would no longer work. “We are all minorities now”.-North and South.

Minorities were not going to go away and some means would have to be found to allow society to hold together-a recognition of common objectives and of “the things we do together.” Political decisions have to take account of minorities.This was not done with Brexit,where the views of the 48% who voted Remain (including voting majorities in two of the four UK Nations) were not taken into account.

The Archbishop talked about the importance of respect in trying to work for the common good of society. Respect for one another   is at the foundation of human society.-“You are other than me-but I will listen to you.”  Northern Ireland suffers from a mentality in which what is seen as good for one side must be bad for the other side. “We are in danger of  no longer being able  to understand and act in the common good. More of our society than we think  depends on holding back on   our individual and group aspirations. and saying that there are some things which can only be good for me if they are good for you also.”

“If we don’t start to think about that we will have a society forever divided into winners and losers. We win a political argument and say “right,that’s it,we know what to do.’.  But in a properly working democracy the people who are not in the majority are not going to go away.  What am I going to do about that? Am I going to say,in the long term we are going to have to occupy the same space,so we’re going to find something we can all gather around.”

Dr McDowell  told the young people in the audience that their vocation “is to be the prophets of this country”-renewing the vision of what it is to belong to a nation,and helping to answer what sort of a nation we want to be.

The presentations by Archbishop McDowell and Professor Hayward were followed by a Q & A session.  Issues raised included the financial support received by Northern Ireland from the British  government;the need to understand the Unionist tradition and the  question of whether the political centre ground in Northern Ireland.

Bishop Storey  expressed her hope that “this occasion  will make an important  contribution to  building the  reconciliation and understanding that is needed.”

Among those in attendance were Minister Robert Troy T.D.Minister Peter Burke T.D,Deputy Sorca Clarke T.D,and Senator Emer Currie. Senator Currie is Fine Gael Spokesperson on Northern Ireland in  the Seanad,and is the daughter of former SDLP and Fine Gael politician Austin Currie..

Canon Alastair Graham,rector of All Saints’ and organiser of the event thanked “the distinguished speakers” and stated that, “In light of developments in the North regarding Brexit,it seemed appropriate  and important that those of us in the midlands of Ireland would be informed of the situation.” 

Ruth Illingworth

(If other media outlets ,ie broadsheet newspapers ,National papers , local and regional papers, tabloid papers , online editions , online digital media magazines wish to reproduce this article including Pictures , written consent must be obtained from Mullingar News And Views , please email mullingarnewsandviews@gmail.com )

THE CAREY BRIDGE :THE BRIDGE WITH A NAME LONG BEFORE IT WAS EVEN PLANNED

The Carey Bridge situated at the Fair Green area of Mullingar, has been an important Pedestrian crossing over the Royal Canal since 1953.  What we see today is the second much wider pedestrian bridge constructed in 1998, to replace the smaller bridge which stood number yards nearer towards the Greenbridge side.  On either side of the canal, you may still view the impact of the previous bridge on the wall and canal banks.

So let’s look at the history of the Carey Bridge and what led to its construction and indeed it’s naming. 

The Beginnings
After Irish Independence one of the first tasks Mullingar Town Commission aimed to achieve was to create more housing for the town’s inhabitants, with many of our towns inhabitants living in sub-standard accommodation.

The Fairgreen area which for centuries, was also the main location for trade and livestock sales with markets and fairs still very much part of the commerce of the town, was viewed as being a prime location for housing with its large land expanse and central location to the town centre.  

By the late 1920s, twenty houses named Grand Parade, were constructed on the Fair Green outside the main gate of the Army Barracks. Grand Parade was a very fitting name for this housing scheme, with it incorporating the historic nature of the location which held many fine grand military parades over the centuries.

This of course is unlike many housing schemes today, which bear little or no resemblance to the topography or history of the locality. 
The town commission also sought and succeeded in taking charge of  the Married Quarters in the Army Barracks for use as social housing, and in the process, naming them St Finians Terrace and St Laurence’s Terrace respectively. 

An interesting point to note at this juncture, was that only a mere year or two previous, an Irish Army Officer and his young family had lived in a section of these Married Quarters, one of the young boys of that family was Charles J. Haughey, who later became the Leader of Fianna Fail and An Taoiseach. 

As the 1930s and indeed 1940s progressed, more housing schemes also began to spring up in the Fair Green including, Cathedral View, St Brigid’s Terrace and the Green Road.  For sure, the first twenty years of Irish independence witnessed the members of Mullingar Town Commission on an important mission, and that mission was to provide homes for the town’s residents leaving no stone unturned…… literally!!!! 

The increase in housing of course symbiotically witnessed an increase in the population at the Fair Green area of town, not to mention the great mass of people that thronged the area on fair days.  Local residents and their children wishing to attend local schools, the Garda Barracks and church services in the Cathedral of Christ the King, literally on the other side of the Royal Canal, had to walk down into the town centre to access these locations. 

Consequently, it was reported that a very dangerous situation and habit was now becoming the norm amongst the younger population, with it being reported that local school children were using the railway as a short cut to get to school.   A meeting of Mullingar Town Commission in the early 1950s, heard that it was only a matter of time before tragedy struck, especially regarding the newer diesel trains which were much quieter than the steam engines and therefore less likely to be heard by the school children. 

However, from the late 1930s onwards, a long serving member of Mullingar Town Commission, James Carey had began to lobby both his colleagues on Mullingar Town Commission and Westmeath County Council, to alleviate this concerning issue and sought  the construction of a pedestrian bridge across the Royal Canal. 

Commissioner James Carey was a coach builder at Castle Street in the town centre, and had previously proposed the idea of the construction of an airport in the Lynn/Clonmore area of the town, which of course never materialised.

However, on this issue he was not going to give up and he campaigned relentlessly for the next number of years, indeed, so much so, that the proposal became known as the Carey Bridge by locals, long before the local authority and its engineers even had it even planned let alone designed!!

At the June meeting of the Mullingar Town Commission in 1950, the issue of a pedestrian bridge over the Royal Canal was once again raised by James Carey and as to why there was such a delay is in its construction.   In response, it was reported that at the recent County Council meeting that a letter was read from C.I.E. agreeing to give permission to Westmeath County Council to erect a foot-bridge over the Royal Canal, however, there was a caveat included. 

This Caveat as proposed by these leaders of Irish transport was that, before a bridge could be constructed, that it should be agreed that on six months’ notice from C.I.E. that the bridge could be taken down if they (C.I.E.) deemed it necessary!  This latter suggestion by C.I.E. was rejected by those present with Mr L`Estrange stating that “They would not agree to that”.   

The County Manager also informed the meeting that another issue that arose regarding the delay of the construction of the bridge was that Lord Greville still held a lease on a portion of the land adjoining the Royal Canal.  Things were definitely not looking good for the construction of the Carey Bridge with bureaucracy and “red tape” creating obstacles. 

By July, The County Engineer informed the Commissioners that C.I.E. had now granted permission for the erection of the bridge but that what was now holding up its progression was again, permission from Lord Greville, who held a right of way on the land from the Green Road to the banks of the Royal Canal.

  In response, Commissioner James Carey positively informed the meeting, that in view of the manner in which Lord Greville had acted previously when he handed over the Market House and part of Dominick Street, the Fair Green and tolls to the local authority a few years previously, that it was hardly likely that he would now hold up this project any further.  

In March 1951 at a meeting of the Mullingar Town Commission, Mr Jennings stated that all that was needed now for the erection of the Carey Bridge was permission from the County Council for the erection of a bridge at the site, for which the Town Clerk interjected and informed everyone present, that this had been carried out.

The County Manager also informed everyone that he received a letter from the solicitors of Lord Greville who still had an interest regarding land on the Fair Green side of the proposed bridge and that it stated that his Lordship was willing to dispose of his interest in the site in question, Commissioner James Carey had worked his magic on his Lordship!!! 

It now appeared that the Carey Bridge would now become a reality and the dreams of Commissioner James Carey were about to be realised.   The chairman, Mr Shaw proposed that it would be a nice thing if they wrote to James Carey to inform him of the progress and also the hope that he would be asked to perform the opening ceremony.

By 1952, the Carey Bridge as proposed by James Carey began to become a reality with Westmeath County Council agreeing to its construction.  By November of the same year, the Department of Local Government wrote to the County Council approving a tender of £625 from Messrs Tuberwrights Ltd, London, for the supply of a fabricated steelwork bridge to be erected by the Dublin Erection Company at an estimated cost of £800. 

It was further noted by the County Manager, that this approval was subject to the obtaining of a license for the free import of 5.1 tons of fabricated steelwork from the UK, subject to the consent of the Commissioners of Public Works.

In 2021, one can only imagine the amount of loop holes and paperwork needing to be carried out by Westmeath County Council at this initial stage of planning and preparation. This, faced with the fact that the Ireland of the 1950s strictly followed an economic policy of rigid protectionism, especially regarding importation.

It was not until the early 1960s, that An Taoiseach Sean Lemass, along with Civil Servant T.K. Whitaker were to open up the Irish economy and break with the rigid policy of protectionism with the implementation of the First Programme for Economic Expansion.

In January 1953 a reporter in the local media stated that it would be another 6 months before the steel would arrive from the U.K. Sure enough, Six months later in June, word came through to the people of Mullingar that the steel for the new pedestrian bridge over the Royal Canal was due to arrive within days.  However, this excitement by the residents of the Fair Green area of the town was to be short lived when the tragic news of the death of a prominent local representative was announced.

  The very man who for years had campaigned for the construction of the pedestrian bridge over the Royal Canal, so much so in fact, that locals even termed this architectural dream as “The Carey Bridge” long before it was even given any serious consideration, died at the home of his nephew only a short distance away at Grand Parade.

It was recorded that James Carey was 78, and had only retired as a Town Commissioner two years previously after decades of loyal public service to the people of Mullingar.

Poignantly, James Carey, the noted Mullingar public representative, businessman, coach builder, prize winning carpenter, inventor of parts for winnowing machines and hay bogeys but most of all, champion of the residents of the Fair Green area of Mullingar was never to witness his greatest dream become a reality.

However, the oddities of Life have a strange way of making themselves known, and only days after his passing in June 1953, initial ground works began at the site of the proposed Carey Bridge, with the long awaited steel arriving shortly thereafter.  On Saturday, 20 September 1953, it was reported in the local Westmeath Examiner newspaper that the steelwork for the Carey Bridge had been erected with Westmeath County Council in the process of providing a concrete roadway to enable pedestrians to cross it. 

The bridge was described as being 80ft in length, 6ft wide and weighing 13 ½ tons.   Approaching the Carey Bridge, Trees were now planted along the banks of the Royal Canal along with a “lick of paint” following the completion of works.

However, not long after the bridge was opened and much to the annoyance of local officials it appeared that more than pedestrian began to use the Carey Bridge.   At a meeting of the Mullingar Town Commission, Mr J Coleman exclaimed that he had been informed that a local man looking to take a short cut into town, decided to travel over the Carey Bridge in his “Ass n Cart” making several attempts to cross before realising it was a hopeless case and finally giving up!!!

For sure, many of the town’s people of Mullingar fell about laughing as they picturing this calamitous scene at the bridge named in James Carrey’s honour.  To date, it is not clear whether it was the local man or indeed the poor old donkey, who finally decided to reach this sensible conclusion of giving up on attempting to cross the bridge!!!!!!!!!!!

The Carey Bridge served the people of Mullingar for over 40 years before it was decided that due to an increase in population, that a new more modern wider bridge was required at this location.  In September 1997, it was announced that the old steel fabricated Carey Bridge was to be demolished and that tenders were now sought for the construction of a new pedestrian bridge over the Royal Canal.

  Construction of the new Carey Bridge began almost a year later in the Summer of 1998 with Westmeath County Council allocating £52,000 for the work.  This new bridge was to be located a number of meters to the north of the original bridge which was to remain in place until works on the new bridge was complete. 

So it was that in 1999 that a new more modern pedestrian bridge came into operation with the demolition of the old Carey Bridge.  In March 2002, it was decided that the hard work, dedication and foresight of Commissioner James Carey 50 years previously, was to be remembered with the erection of a plaque in his honour on the Fair Green side of the new Carey Bridge.

This fitting tribute witnessed local dignitaries including his descendants in attendance in which all present were to recollect the life and foresight of this great Mullingar man of yesterday.   The Carey Bridge today remains an important conduit for pedestrians from far and wide who visit Mullingar especially school children as they make their way to the local schools.

So the next time you cross this Mullingar landmark, please take the time to remember Commissioner James Carey and his dream of a pedestrian bridge over the Royal Canal,
“The Carey Bridge: The bridge with a name long before it was even planned!”

Article by  Jason McKevitt © Local Historian     2021
(Formerly a resident of Grand Parade, who holds many happy memories growing up in this part of town)

NOTABLE MULLINGAR PEOPLE FROM HISTORY : ERNEST ALTON ( ‪1876-1952‬)

Ernest Alton was a Mullingar born academic and politician who was Professor of Latin at Trinity College from 1921 to 1942 .He served as Provost of the University from 1942 until his death and Senator and TD for Trinity College from 1921 to 1942.

During the Easter Rising he led the defence of the College against possible attack by the rebels,for which he received a bravery award. While Provost, he attended one of the most significant lectures in the history of 20th century science.

Ernest Alton was born at Marlinstown Mullingar on September 21st 1876. His Limerick born father,James Poe Alton was a bank official. His mother was Margarita Keely. The family later moved to Dublin and Ernest attended the High School in Rathgar. He entered Trinity College in 1892 and studied Classics and Philosophy. He was a brilliant scholar and graduated with First Class Honours in 1896.

After a period working in London as a journalist,he returned to Trinity in 1905 after passing the rigorous examination for a Fellowship in the College. He would spend the rest of his career in the university. A tribute to him after his death stated that Alton: “Believed in God and the Church of Ireland and he loved the Classics.”

Alton was a member of the Trinity College Officers Training Corps. The OTC offered military training to boys and men in schools and universities across Britain and Ireland. When the Easter Rising began on April 24th 1916,Alton,who held the rank of Captain, found himself in command of the OTC as the more senior officers were away on Easter vacation.

He organised the defence of the College against a possible attack by the rebels,who had taken control of nearby Westland Row Station and had access to the loopline rail track overlooking the eastern side of the College Park. Alton feared that the Irish Volunteers might try to seize the weapons held in the College armoury.

Leading a group of about fifty OTC members-comprising students,lecturers and servants,he ” managed to keep up communications with the British military at Beggars Bush barracks and the police at Great Brunswick (now Pearse) Street “We removed windows which we filled with sandbags.Firing platforms were constructed along the walls..

We organised our guards,ambulance units,cooking etc.” For two days he and his men patrolled the college while running the risk of being hit by sniper fire. from buildings along Nassau Street and Great Brunswick Street. However the rebels did not attack.

On the third day of the Rising the College was relieved by the 5th Battalion of the Leinster Regiment (the Royal Meath’s),who had just left Mullingar Barracks the previous week after a nine month tour of duty there. As the fighting continued outside,the college grounds filled up with soldiers.

One of the chaplains ministering to these soldiers was Father Bernard Farrell from Mullingar,who would later serve in Mesopotamia (now Iraq).before returning to Mullingar to serve as Administrator in the cathedral. He made history during Easter week when he said Mass for the soldiers.It was the first time a Catholic Mass had been held in Trinity since 1689.

Although grateful to the military for saving the college,Alton was not comfortable with their presence."Soldiers invaded the sacred grass plots,horses and mules kicked up the honoured cobbles,and impeteous Tommies brushed aside impatiently the most august of our academic figures."

For his own military service during Easter Week,Alton was awarded the Military Cross (MC),the third highest bravery award in the British Army. and also received a cup from the College.

In May 1921,elections took place to what the British called the House of Commons of Southern Ireland and the Irish regarded as the Second Dail. Alton was one of four Unionists elected to the 128 seat Dail,along with 124 Sinn Feiners.

The Southern House of Commons met just once,with Alton and his three Unionist colleagues the only members to attend. He did not attend the first meetings of the Second Dail. However he did vote for the Treaty in January 1922. He was elected as one of the Trinity College members to the Third Dail in June 1922 and continued to sit as a TD until the abolition of the university seats in 1937.

In 1938,he was elected to the Second Seanad for Trinity and served in the Seanad until 1942. Although he came from a Unionist tradition,he was loyal to the new state and wished to serve his country. He was on friendly terms with leading government figures such as President Douglas Hyde and Taoiseach Eamonn De Valera.

In 1921,Alton was appointed as Professor of Latin at Trinity. He was a major scholar and was regarded as a world authority on the Roman poet Ovid. His scholarship earned him honorary doctorates from the universities of Oxford and Padua and he lectured across Europe.

In May 1942 he was elected Provost of Trinity. .The following year, he attended a series of lectures given at Trinity by the Nobel Prize winning Austrian physicist,Erwin Schrodinger. Professor Schrodinger was then living in Dublin working as Head of the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies (DIAS).

His lectures at Trinity,in February 1943,entitled “What is Life” would inspire a new generation of scientists to research the structure of the human genome and work out how genetic information might be stored. The result of this was the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA in 1953. Schrodinger’s lectures at Trinity are regarded as among the most significant Scientific talks of the 20th century.

In May 1945,on VE Night,as Europe celebrated the end of the war in Europe,there was serious rioting in Dublin between Trinity students and UCD students. Some Trinity students burned the Irish flag and some UCD students responded by burning the British flag.

Professor Alton was deeply angry and embarrassed by the actions of his students. and condemned them. He was anxious to integrate Trinity fully into Irish life and end the perception that it was still a Unionist “West British” institution. He wrote that he “intended to do all in his power to make TCD a truly national college and to prevent any developments of an anti Irish nature.”

His friendship with De Valera and other government ministers helped secure Trinity its first grant from the Irish State in 1947. Alton was noted for his great personal charm,which “conciliated some enemies and won the college new friends.” In early 1952,shortly before his death,Alton was greatly cheered by a visit from De Valera who informed him that “a very substantial increase in the college grant could be expected.”

Ernest Alton died on February 18th 1952,aged 75. His funeral cortege proceeded from Provost’s House across the Trinity Courtyards to the College Chapel for the funeral service.A tribute to him from a colleague noted ” A chapter of college history closes. The man and his college were one”

Professor Alton’s nephew, Bryan Alton was personal doctor to Eamon De Valera for many years. He followed his uncle into politics,serving as a member of the Senate representing Trinity College from 1965 to 1973.One of Ernest Alton’s grandsons,R.J Babington,also had a short political career. He was Unionist M.P for North Down in the Northern Ireland Parliament from 1969 to 1973.

By Historian RUTH ILLINGWORTH ©

The Island Of Ireland Peace Tower And The Mullingar Connection

The Island Of Ireland Peace Tower And The Mullingar Connection
The recent passing of former TD Paddy Harte in 2018 and the story behind  the Island of Ireland Peace Park in Flanders and it’s center piece the 100ft Irish Round Tower  has a amazing  connection with Mullingar.

Paddy Harte TD from Donegal and Northern Ireland Unionist politician Glen Barr wanted to build a memorial to all the Irish Catholic and Protestant from the Island of Ireland  who lost their lives in World War 1.

Both men envisaged the park as a memorial to the first World War and to the Troubles. They founded the Journey of Reconciliation Trust with that view in mind.

But there was one problem there was no funding for the project  and the  Fine  Gael government that Harte’s party belong to had offered a paltry sum of money that just didn’t cut it. However there  was a change in government in 1997 and Bertie Ahern was the new Taoiseach.
To Harte’s  surprise Bertie Ahern completely backed the project and made funding available to complete it.

CONTROVERSIAL DEMOLITION
In 1998 The organisation were due to buy the stone from a quarry in  Carlow when local  news & media outlets  reported the controversial demolition of a vacant  protected historical building that was used as the “Work House ” during the Great Famine . The section of building that was being demolished was called St Anne’s block and was used as the County Infirmary from 1936 to 1962 .It had lain vacant since 1987.

Upon hearing of the subsequent demolition and of  the good quality stone that was used in the construction of the work house they asked the Midland Health Board could they take the stone to construct the Irish round Tower. The Midland Health Board agreed of course.

THE WESTMEATH CONNECTION
The  Stones were prepared and bag for export to Flanders by John Reynolds stonemason from walderstown drumraney
Indeed John Reynolds was the stone mason who  was  charged with building the round Tower . In total 200 tons of Stone was removed from the building in St Mary’s Hospital to build the round Tower.

The westmeath people involved in the construction of the tower were John Reynolds, Val Reynolds, Derek Reynolds, Rory Reynolds, all from Walderstown, along with Bernard Cassells, of Glasson.

The park was built near where the 16th (Irish) Division and 36th (Ulster) Division fought together at the Battle of Messines Ridge though the actual site where the tower is located was captured by the New Zealanders on June 7th, 1917.

The Battle of Messines involved the British Second Army, under the command of General Sir Herbert Plumer, in an offensive on the Western Front near the village of Messines in West Flanders, Belgium on 7-14 June, 1917.

Soldiers from the 16th (Irish) and the 36th (Ulster) Divisions played an important role in one of the war’s most effective large-scale operations by reclaiming the German occupied Flemish village of Wijtschate. It was believed that the success of the operation on June 7 created the prospect of reconciliation between the two political traditions in Ireland – British unionism and Irish nationalism.

Recently  a group of people went out to visit the tower in Flanders and discovered that there  is a plaque at the tower that the stone used to build the Round Tower came from Mullingar (Work House).

It’s great to see  that the  thousands of people who visit the island of Ireland peace Park every year  know where the stone that built the
Irish Peace Tower came from Mullingar.

We are unsure if it is mentioned at the round Tower that a westmeath man / Irish stone mason and workers from Westmeath  helped build the Irish Tower. If anyone has information let us know.

This truly is Mullingar’s unique gift to the Island of Ireland  Peace Park. Commentators have suggested that a plaque should be placed at the site of the former Workhouse in Mullingar, (St Mary’s Campus, Cluain Lir) to educate people passing by of the monument’s connection to Mullingar.

But there is a deeper twist to this story, An incredible Twist of Fate.

We also know from records that children were born in the workhouse from 1846 to 1921 . (Until the workhouse system was abolished , when Ireland gained independence)

Some of the children who were born there  when  they  reached adulthood they subsequently joined the British Army in WWI and died in Battle  in  Flanders Fields in the Messines  in Belgium..

One young Mullingar man named William White (22)had given his address as the Work House when he joined the Army. . William like many thousands others died not too far from the Island of Ireland Peace Tower.

A truly remarkable story., that the  stones  in the workhouse where a baby boy  William White   was born is now in  Belgium, not far from where he was killed in action in the Theatre of War.

The stones now take the shape of  a round Tower acting as a memorial  built  to honour Irish soldiers like William White who were killed in WWI from the island of Ireland.

By Editor of Mullingar History

Aerial view of the workhouse in Mullingar and section highlighted that was demolished

PRIME MINISTER BORIS JOHNSON:THE “ONE MAN MELTING POT”

PRIME MINISTER BORIS JOHNSON:
THE “ONE MAN MELTING POT”
Historian Ruth Illingworth looks at the historical lineage that makes up Boris Johnson, who once called himself a ” One Man Melting Pot”

One of his great-grandfathers was a Turkish journalist and politician;a great – great grandfather was a Rabbi in Lithuania; His great x3 grandmother was a Circassian slave girl from the Russian Caucasus. His mother was American and he himself was born in the United States;he is descended from a British monarch and two German Princes;his first wife was half Italian and his second wife half-Indian.His American stepfather was of Hungarian parentage.

One of his great x4 grandfathers was Irish and his godmother,Lady Rachel Billington,is a sister of Thomas Pakenham of Tullynally Castle,Castlepollard.. Brought up a Roman Catholic and a convert to Anglicanism,he has Jewish and Muslim ancestry and a Sikh mother-in law. It is not surprising that Britain’s new Prime Minister,Alexander Boris De Pfeffel Johnson,once described himself as ” a one man melting pot.”

The Turkish great-grandfather was Ali Kemak, the grandson of a slave girl brought to Turkey from Circassia. Kemak was a prominent journalist in the Ottoman Turkish Empire in the years before the First World War and was on good terms with Sultan Abdul Hamid. In 1909,the London “Times” newspaper described Kemak as “amongst the leading men of letters in Turkey.”

He served briefly in the Turkish government in 1919 and was one of the Turkish delegates to the Paris Peace Conference in the aftermath of the First World War. He was murdered by a lynch mob in Ankara in November 1922 during the Turkish War of Independence. His Anglo-Swiss wife settled in Britain and one of her grandchildren was Boris’s father Stanley.

On the maternal side of his family,Boris Johnson is a great-grandson of a noted Jewish-American scholar,Elias Avery Lowe,who was a well known paleographer. Born in Lithuania in 1879,Lowe was the son of a leading silk merchant.

He emigrated to America in his teens and married Helen Tracey Porter,a noted translator who was particularly famed for her translations of the works of the great German novelist Thomas Mann.

She also wrote a play called “Abdication” which received its premier at the Gate Theatre in Dublin,produced by Micheal MacLiammoir in 1948. Her grandfather was a Rabbi in. Lithuania.

The Prime Minister’s mother,Charlotte Fawcett Wahl is a noted artist. Born in 1942,she and her siblings were close friends of the Pakenham family. Charlotte is a descendent of the noted British suffragette,Millicent Garrett Fawcett. Her father,Sir James Fawcett,was a distinguished lawyer who helped write the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for the UN in 1948 and served on the European Commission for Human Rights from 1962 to 1982.

Boris Johnson also has German ancestry-as seen in his third name-von Pfeiffel. His great x3 grandfather was Prince Paul of Wurrtemburg-a prominent aristocrat in mid-19th century Germany Another German ancestor was Frederick Eugene,Duke of Wurttemburg. A more distant ancestor was King George the Second of Great Britain and Ireland Through this German lineage,the Prime Minister is distantly related to Queen Elizabeth and to the King of Spain..

Johnson is the first Prime Minister of the UK to be a baptised Roman Catholic-although he is was later confirmed as an Anglican (Church of England),and now appears to be a follower of the religion of the Ancient Greeks and Romans. He speaks French,German,Spanish,Italian and Latin. Part of his schooling took place in Brussels when his father was working there as an MEP and an European Commissioner.
By
RUTH ILLINGWORTH
Historian

A Westmeath St. Patrick Scholar

A WESTMEATH ST. PATRICK SCHOLAR
On St Patrick’s Day , Historian Ruth ILLingworth looks at one of Ireland’s leading Celtic Scholars who was an authority on St. Patrick.and old Middle Irish.

DR KATHLEEN MULCHRONE (‪1895-1973‬)
Professor Kathleen Mulchrone from Westmeath was one of the most distinguished Celtic and Irish language scholars of the 20th century. She was an authority on the life of St Patrick and the early writings about our national Saint, as well as being a scholar of Old and Middle Irish.She published numerous books and scholarly essays on Early Christian Ireland and ancient Irish manuscripts such as The Book of Lecan and The Tripartite Life of St Patrick.

Kathleen was born in Kilbeggan on November 22nd 1895,the daughter of an RIC sergeant. The family moved to Fore where Kathleen attended the local National School. She went to Loreto Convent in Mullingar for her secondary schooling where she got an Honours Leaving Cert in 1913 and was awarded a scholarship to UCD She graduated with a BA in 1916 and got an MA in 1918 .

After the First World War she was awarded a Travelling Scholarship which enabled her to go to Germany to study for a Doctorate at Bonn University. Her doctoral supervisor was a noted Swiss born Celtic scholar called Rudolf Thurneyson,who regarded Kathleen as one of his best students. Her Doctoral thesis was a study of writings about the life of St Patrick.

She would later publish this thesis as a book entitled “Bethu Phatraic:The Tripartite Life of St Patrick.” in 1939. This book was praised by the noted Irish Celtic scholar,Osburn Bergin as,”The best of its kind that has appeared for many a year.”

On her return to Ireland from Bonn,Kathleen was employed by Westmeath County Council teaching Irish to students in the Vocational School in Mullingar. The school was then located in the County Buildings in what is now Aras An Mhuilinn.. She worked there from 1925 to 1927,then moved to Dublin where she taught in Rathmines Vocational College from 1928 to 1938.She was a Lecturer in Irish at U.C.D ‪1931-1938‬.

From 1928 to 1938 she worked for the Irish Manuscripts Commission at the Royal Irish Academy. Her work involved compiling a catalogue of the many manuscripts in Irish in the possession of the RIA. She published a large number of studies of these manuscripts in academic journals and books.

Between 1926 and 1970,she authored or co-authored 14 of the 27 fascicles of the catalogue of Irish Manuscripts in the RIA. Her essays in academic journals included “Studies in Early Irish Law” (1936) and “The Book of Lecan” (1938).

In 1938,Kathleen was appointed to a Professorship of Old and Middle Irish and Celtic Philology at NUI Galway.. She often delivered her lectures in Modern Irish..She retired in 1965 and came back to Mullingar where she lived in Patrick Street…

Professor Kathleen Mulchrone died on June 13th 1973,aged 77. She is buried in Ballyglass .

RUTH ILLINGWORTH