Tag Archives: Paddy Waldron

RESEARCH relating to the County Nursery in Kilrush has found that 261 children, under the age of nine, died there between 1922 and 1932. Historian Paddy Waldron told The Clare Champion that married mothers with children also lived at the home, which predominantly housed unmarried mothers and their children. “It was set up as one of the first things that the Sinn Féin authorities did before the Treaty and as soon as they closed the workhouses down. We have 266 recorded deaths, of which five were mothers and 261 were children under the age of nine. “The information came from the civil records of deaths, which were put online, free of charge, last September. “I had been planning to go through them but I got a volunteer in Australia, who was doing his own family research. He went through all of the Kilrush deaths of children under the age of 10,” Mr Waldron explained, adding that these figures have not …

THIS weekend, Kilbaha, which is the most westerly village on the Clare coast, will mark the 150th anniversary of the community’s role in the Fenian Rising on March 5, 1867. The Fenians of Loop Head were among the few groups throughout the country who rose up on that day. On Saturday, in Kilbaha hall, Scott Deloughery, great-grandson of John Deloughery, who was leader of the Kilbaha Fenians in 1867 and subsequently emigrated to Newtown, Connecticut, will launch an exhibition of contemporary newspaper accounts of the event. Saturday and Sunday will also feature further talks, a guided historic walk and a wreath-laying ceremony. Historian Paddy Waldron, who will deliver a talk on The West Clare Fenians on Saturday, believes this is Scott’s first visit to Ireland. The attack on Kilbaha Coastguard Station took place on Shrove Tuesday night, 150 years ago. “There were five rebels. There were various other people charged afterwards. Thomas McCarthy Fennell became the best known of the …

IN 1860, over 1,200 volunteers from Ireland travelled to Italy to fight for the Papal States in the Papal Wars. An appeal was made throughout the country for funds to support the volunteers. Twenty-three Catholic parishes from Clare published lists of subscribers in newspapers of the day and, now, members of Clare Roots Society have undertaken to transcribe the names of these subscribers, resulting in a database of over 4,000 names. This week, members of Clare Roots Society handed over the Papal Army database to county librarian, Helen Walsh. In recent times, staff at the library’s Local Studies Centre came across extensive lists of subscribers names published in The Clare Journal, the local newspaper of the day. The subscriptions were in response to an appeal for funds to support the Irish volunteers to the Papal Army in the summer of 1860. Peter Beirne, Local Studies Centre librarian, immediately saw the value of these lists to genealogy researchers tracing Clare families. …