People

Máirtín Moylan was born on the 10th of November 1898 to Thomas and Honor Moylan, (née Burke from Ardgaineen) of Farmerstown. His father died in January 1899 leaving his mother to rear the family by herself. Could it be from here, looking at his mother’s strong will and determination that Máirtín found the resilience to see his cause through to the end in his later life? Honor may have needed time to get herself on her feet after her husband’s death, and on the 31st of March 1901, Máirtín is to be found in the census records listed in the house of his grandparents, Michael and Ellen Burke (née Boyle from Carrowbrowne) of Ardgaineen. How long he remained with his grandparents is not known but sending children to live with relatives was not an uncommon practice at the time to help with rearing the family. He was not to remain in Ardgaineen indefinitely and in time returned to his beloved Farmerstown.

They used to dine upstairs at the Mill House, in a large room facing the road, with a cabinet in the corner which contained the finest bone china and polished silverware. There was a mahogany table in the centre of the room, and the lady of the house would often rap its surface with her knuckles and emphasise it was solid mahogany and proceed to give an account of the local doctor offering twenty pounds when he had occasion to visit the house. if they were prepared to sell it. However, even though twenty pounds was a substantial sum of money in the early part of the century, on no account would the table be sold, for at the time, corn mills throughout the country were flourishing and the owners were financially secure, so there was neither the need nor the desire to part with such a magnificent piece of woodwork.

Omaha Daily Bee, August 1908: More than fifty-eight years after they left their old home in Ireland, Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Cavanagh, 5056 North Twenty-fourth street, will visit it again. They will leave about August 31 on the long journey to the scenes of their childhood. “I don’t expect we’ll see a soul we know,” said Mr. Cavanagh. “All of them are gone by this time, though it’s quite possible I’ll run across some of the boys I used to play with about the quay and wharfs of old Galway, for the people over there are not great to leave their homes and where they are born they generally stay like a tree rooted in the ground. “Of course, the city will be changed. There’ll be tram cars and electric lights and all kinds of modern improvements that we knew naught about when my wife and I left there in the ’50s. And there’ll be steam cars runnning all over the dear old isle and steamships spouting smoke in the harbor where I knew naught but sailing vessels.

It is just over one hundred years since the influenza pandemic, commonly known as the Spanish Flu, swept through Ireland and infected one fifth of the population. The death registers for Turloughmore and Headford registration districts indicate that there were at least 25 deaths due to influenza in the Annaghdown area, between September 1918 and May 1919. The first victim recorded is Martin Nally (57) of Tonamace, who died on 22 September 1918. The disease is known to have affected younger individuals more severely, and this is to be seen in the fatalities in Annaghdown, with 17 of those who died aged under 40 years.

I was born on 4th July 1923 and was second in a family of 6. My parents, Patrick and Mary Greaney lived at Cahermorris Cross where our house was used as the local dispensary and subsequently became known as Cahermorris Dispensary. When I was a child, Doctor Golding of Headford was the local district doctor and attended each Thursday from 11a.m. till 1p.m. until his retirement. He was replaced by Dr. Maguire who was the last doctor to attend there prior to the dispensary’s closure. At the time most houses would have had to get their water from local streams or would have had collection tanks. The nearest local well at the time was in Kilcoona. It was practice at the time to have a clean water source in close proximity to a dispensary for patients who were attending.