Oranmore Castle by Daniel Grose, 1792. Cumann Staire agus Seandálaíochta Oirdheisceart na Gaillimhe Newsletter No. 22 Summer 2016 Upcoming Events and Lectures Contents The Irish Workhouse Centre, Portumna. Still under a Green Flag by Liam Moloney 3 Thursday, April 21st @ 7:30pm - Lecture Recommended Sources by Steve Dolan 4 Professor Terry Dooley, Director of the Centre for the GAA Heroes of Old - Meelick 5 Study of Historic Irish Houses & Estates, will present a An Englishman in Loughrea 5 lecture on ‘big house’ destruction during the War of Postcards: Loughrea town by Julianne McDonagh 6 Independence - ‘Is everything we love gone forever?’. Galwaymen at War by Marie Bennett 8 Law and Order in Galway by Ronan Killeen 9 ____________________________________________ Visit the Workhouse for ongoing exhibitions this Summer One Man’s Rising by Michael Howley 12 ____________________________________________ Portumna Bridge by John Joe Conwell 14 Knockbaun Children’s Burials by Christy Cunniffe 16 Field Trip: The next field trip takes place on Saturday The RIC and the Rising by Philip Keane 19 May 21st at 11am. Our own Dr Christy Cunniffe takes Tales from the Workhouse 20 us on a tour of Lorrha as guests of the Lorrha Dorrha What it says in the Papers 20 Historical Society. For more info, please email sega- ______________________________________________ [email protected] or phone 086 4070851. SEE PAGE 18. Chairperson’s Update ____________________________________________ The year has certainly begun with a bang with all the A lecture titled ‘Joseph O’Flaherty - Dissent in 1916 1916 commemorations and indeed our own Spring pro- Loughrea’ by Pól Mag Lionáin takes place at the Ab- gramme. Our AGM in February saw the entire commit- bey in Loughrea on Tuesday April 26th next @7:30pm. tee re-elected and I would like to thank both them and ____________________________________________ you, our members and readers, for your ongoing support. Athenry Historical Network hosts a lecture by Adrian As we move into the summer, we will be no less busy. I Martyn on the ‘Battle of Athenry 1316’ on Friday can also tell you that, in partnership with others, we have April 29th next in Athenry Town Hall @ 8pm. been putting much work into developing a full heritage ____________________________________________ programme and I look forward to sharing more details on The ‘Farming and Country Life 1916’ event will take same when we can. place at the Teagasc Mellows Campus, just east of Athenry, on June 10th & 11th. See local media for more. Ann O’Riordan, Chairperson. The Irish Workhouse Centre and SEGAHS The seasonal SEGAHS newsletters are published in partnership with the Irish Workhouse Centre, home of the society. The Irish Workhouse Centre is open from 1st March to 31st October 2016, with guided tours 7 days a week from 09.30 to 17.00. For more, please visit http://irishworkhousecentre.ie/. If one believes the tall tales of his voyages, the connections between the Irish and Mexican cultures are tracea- ble back to Saint Brendan. More recently however, in 2013, President Michael D Higgins laid a wreath at Cha- pultepec Park commemorating the Mexican soldiers who jumped to their deaths in 1847 rather than surren- der to the Americans in the Mexican-American war. This event brought to the fore the relationship between the two nations. In the latest of his contributions, Liam Moloney casts an eye over Galway-Mexican ties. Still under a Green Flag - Galway’s Impact on Mexico Liam Moloney Ireland’s history with Mexico is a long and complex one. Under Spanish rule, many of the Spanish Viceroy's were of Irish descent including Juan de O'Donojú y O'Ryan (1762–1821), the last Spanish ruler of the colony before Mexico's independence. Since then, a substantial number of politicians of Irish descent have risen to positions of power. El Zorro Whatever about Saint Brendan, the country’s influence in Mexico goes back to at least 1642 when Wexford’s Wil- liam Lamport tried to unite the natives with creole elites and blacks in rebellion against the Spanish crown. Despite his exploits, with some historians suggesting he is the original ‘El Zorro’, Lamport over-stretched himself. He was captured, and after 17 years in jail was executed in 1659. As with so many other countries where the Irish have left a lasting legacy, rightly or wrongly the Catholic church would play a huge role in the building of that legacy. The first major figure, unsurprising for those who realise the impact the county has made, was a Galwayman - Fr French – in the seventeenth century. Fr Peter French In his history of Galway, Hardiman (1820) described Fr French as someone ‘who, for upwards of thirty years, was a celebrated missioner among the Indians of Mexico’ before he ‘returned to his native town. The apostolical character compiled a catechism or exposition of the Christian faith in the Mexican tongue, and converted multitudes’. French had studied in Louvain and taught in Rome before his extraordinary exploits in ‘New Spain’. He died back home in Galway in 1693 where it was said his Irish and English had deteriorated to such an extent that he now pre- ferred to converse in his adopted tongue. Soldiers Undeniably however, the best known Irish-Mexican is Galway’s John Riley (Seán Ó Raghailligh) from Clifden. He was though not the only Galwayman who fought in that conflict (Mexican-American War, 1846-48). Mexican-American War Riley famously deserted the US army, founding the Batallón de San Patricio or Saint Patrick's Battalion, and fighting bravely against the US. Irish soldiers had suffered mistreatment in American ranks and, coupled with cul- tural alienation and being unable to practice their religion, hundreds joined Mexican ranks. Among the battles they fought in was the Battle of Buena Vista (or Battle of Angostura) in northern Mexico on 23 Feb 1847 as the US Army used artillery to defeat the larger native army. Gal- waymen fought Galwaymen and among the dead in American ranks was Gal- way’s Patrick Logan. Another Galway- man, Thomas Donahue, fared better. Meanwhile, in Mexican ranks, in addition to Riley were Martin Lydon, Peter Neil, and later James McDowell who all served in the San Patricios. Another major battle was the Battle of Churubusco which took place on 20 August 1847. Here, outnumbered three-to-one, the staggering bravery of the San Patricios would not be enough to carry victory. In the aftermath, at least fifty of the San Patricios who had survived and were captured were hanged in the largest mass execution in US history. Many in the United States saw / see Riley as a traitor who deserted for better pay or conditions and the war as being justified, though most historians, primarily outside the US, argue(d) the war was a land-grab. Ulysses S Grant later de- scribed the conflict as ‘the most unjust war ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation’, with the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo adding insult to injury. The Nation (right), which opposed the war, gives an Irish perspective. Writers & Historians In the last century, one of the more prominent connections between the countries was Thomas Concannon (Tomás Bán Ó Conceanainn) - writer & historian and husband of TD and Senator Helena Concannon. Qualifying as an Account- ant in the US, the Aran Islander moved south of the border establishing his practice in Mexico. On a holiday at home in 1898 he became so involved with the Gaelic League that he remained in Ireland. A loss to our Mexican cousins, Concannon was an significant figure in Irish nationalism. Back to the Church Rounding off another of the links between Galway and Mexico is Fr Damian Louis Byrne from Prospect Hill in the city, just one of many priests and nuns from the county who served in Mexico. Byrne was a Dominican priest who had studied in a school for missionaries in Cuernavaca in Mexico, before later returning to the country to the Mexi- can province as provincial. His spiritual contribution to the country would be immense. Para dejar el pellejo, lo mismo es hoy que mañana References Hardiman, James, The History of the Town and Country of the Town of Galway (Galway, 1820). Hogan, Michael, The Irish Soldiers of Mexico (Mexico: Fondo Editorial Universitario, 1997). Irish Times, 22 Oct 2013. Maher, Helen, Galway authors: a contribution towards a biographical and bibliographical index, with an essay on the history and literature in Galway (Galway, 1976). Ó Fógartaigh, Séamus. 'The Man Behind the Mask of Zorro' in Irish Roots No. 54 (Second Quarter 2005). Rootsweb web-site, Thomas Donohue detail, see http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~irlgalway/galwayd.pdf . Sunday Independent, 8 Aug 1926. The Nation, 12 Feb 1848. For Logan’s details see http://boards.ancestry.com/surnames.logan/1347.1.1/mb.ashx Note: While caution is always advised when researching on-line, the language used on some ‘history’ sites on the Mexican-American conflict is troubling. This is therefore not a good topic to be researched on the internet. Recommended Sources in Local History Steve Dolan Continuing our series on the sources of information available to local historians, here we are highlighting the nuggets of information available in journals and magazines, primarily those from the nineteenth century. Our readers will be well familiar with the sketches of Irish life as depicted in Punch, the Graphic, and the Illustrated London News. These publications are among the better known sources for images of nineteenth century Ireland and are possibly over-used, or misused. While the depiction of Irishmen during the nineteenth century is often an unpleas- ant one, or even racist in nature; they are nonetheless very valuable and often make a point beyond the obvious.