Ballinasloe occupies a strategic location on the N6 National Primary route linking Dublin and Galway and is one of the principal gateways to the West. The town owes its origins to its location as a crossing point on the River Suck, a tributary of the Shannon, on the borders of Counties Galway and Roscommon.
It is the largest town in County Galway after Galway City, and its hinterland extends up to twelve miles from the town boundary into County Galway, and up to six miles into County Roscommon. The population of the town is over 6,000 and over 9,000 residing in the environs (according to the Census 2006). Ballinasloe is a prosperous and expanding town, and is the main commercial/industrial center for East Galway.
The town is within easy access of other major regional center's and functions mainly as:
A commercial and market centre
A centre for hospital and educational facilities
A centre for Enterprise & Technology investment
A centre for manufacturing industry
A centre for Research and Development
A central base for tourists, offering a plethora of leisure pursuits including coarse angling, boating, shooting, golf and horse riding and a marina.
Ballinasloe Urban District covers in excess of 4,000 acres, making it in geographical terms the third largest of Ireland's Town Authorities. Relative to other large towns, Ballinasloe would appear to have a low population density. This however, is more accurately explained by its large tracts of undeveloped lands including the Garbally Demesne and the Western Health Board lands in Creagh. Every October, Ballinasloe is host to one of Europe's oldest and largest Horse Fairs, dating back to the 1700's. This annual event attracts up to 100,000 visitors from all over the world, with many returning to the town year after year. This festival is one of the most important social and economic events in the life of the town. The town is also renowned for horse and pony riding, show jumping and other equestrian activities which take place throughout the year.
Ballinasloe is steeped in history, and has been lauded for the architectural character of its fine streetscapes. This planned layout of the town in the 19th Century consisting of wide streets, a market square, fair green, show grounds and town hall can be attributed to William Trench, who was conferred with the Earldom of Clancarty at this time. The town can trace its roots back even further with the existence of three ringforts in the town and two possible Crannog sites dating back to the 1st century. Three Medieval Tower Houses are located within the Urban District in addition to a well preserved Early medieval parish Church at Templepoilin Pollboy, built in about the 9th Century by the Augustinian Monks of Clontuskert.
The town derives its name from the ford of the River Suck near the old Norman castle at River Street, which became a meeting place for the hostings of the Connacht tribesmen, chiefs and warriors of Breifne and Meath. The ford became known as 'Beal Atha na Sluaigheadh' meaning the 'mouth of the ford of Hostings'.
Ballinasloe is also famous for its limestone which was used in many public buildings in the town as well as several important buildings nationally and internationally. The most recent example of note is Galway County Council's Civic Offices in Prospect Hill, Galway City, which were completed in 1999.
Just that there was a strange confluence of Ballinasloes yesterday. I got an email from a cousin telling of our great great grandfather who left Ballinasloe about 1842 and then I was texted by a musical friend telling me to learn Ballinasloe Fair. There's a question forming in my mind somewhere ...
Apropos of nothing much, on my noticeboard next to the PC monitor, among other scraps of paper is my grandfather's (the Galway's man's grandson) citation for bravery medals at Ypres in, one of them for 17/10/1917. Reading the links from my cousin's email, I see that his cousin was killed at Passchendale the same day, ANZACS both. My grandfather lived to an old age and I knew him well. The cousin had no descendants
I think the implications are that the horse fair is much older than the 1700's, though it does seem to have been boosted by the arrival of the Trench family, of French Huguenot stock. Certainly, the horse fair site dominates the town. And the horse fair website (linked below) suggests that the town's name may, from the beginning, have been because those clan gatherings were actually coming to the fair. Which used to be horses, cattle and everything else, btw ...
I have a very good friend who lives halfway between Athlone and Ballinasloe and I walked round both towns when I last went to see him. Athlone is - though full to the brim of beautiful historic buildings - a modern bustling town. Balllinasloe had a somewhat melancholy air of decay to my mind. I suspect it's one of those places that truly comes to life when the fair comes to town.
The Trenchs get a mention at the Battle of Aughrim here, refering to the death of the General St Ruth, the leader of the Jacobite army:
"The first shot missed and a young ensign named Trench took the gun in hand and fired. The gunner remarked to Trench "his hat is knocked off Sir." "Yes," said Trench, "but you will find his head in it too." http://www.orangeordersouthernengland.org/battle_of_aughrim.htm
I think it was particularly devastated by famine, which would be one reason why g-g-gf would have left between 1825 and 1840.
He met a woman in Dublin, married and had family, then went to Australia and had family bigamously with another Irish woman, then moved to NZ and sent for the first one, then apparently sailed back and forth between the "legitimate" NZ family and the "illegitimate" Aus one.
No prizes for guessing which branch I'm descended from.
So I'm learning Ballinasloe Fair from the dots and a recording where it's coupled with Paddy Ryan's Dream on an album entitled "25 All the Best IrishPub Songs" !!! (haven't worked out who is playing it ) and thinking of my roguish ancestor, whose contemporary namesake is another cousin who also had several women on the go at once.
Will compare with my friend's version when we meet up.
Hmm. Recording seems to have box, fiddle and piano - perhaps two boxes -- would that be Burke, McGann & Dolan?
I'm not familiar enough with any of them to tell
After the horrors of the famine in Ireland, many people who came to Australia in the 1840s would have found a very frontier country without the normal "rules" and "norms" of the countries they had left. It must have been like going to another planet - and there was little prospect or reason to go back. People must have acutely felt that they had cut every tie they had with anything that they knew. Australia in those days was not like America I think, but much less developed in terms of social "norms". The story of your ancestor, Bren, would have been a very common situation - almost the "norm" in the very early days. We would all be very surprised I think, as to whom is related to whom in Australia from those early days.
And come to think of it, the same thing would probably be the case in any other country you can think of, maybe even more so, given the much longer histories of those countries.
I think even going from Galway to Dublin at that time of upheaval was a bit like that DD, let alone six months on a leaky boat!
To be honest, although he (or someone who could write) put "Ballinasloe" as his birthplace, we're not even sure of that. One of my rellies even consulted a "genealogist" in Dublin a few years ago who assured her there was no family of that name around Ballinasloe at that time. Similarly, another g-gf put "Tipperary" as birthplace but signed with an "X -his mark" and oral history has it that he came from Kerry. Nobody cared much until recently.
Interesting, Bren. Most of the Irish who came to Australia, I understand, came from Tipperary or Clare. (Or a large proportion anyway). Sometimes people just recorded the nearest town in immigration records in Australia, rather than townland details. When I did a bit of research, I too was told that there were no descendants in the townland where they had been when they migrated to Australia in the famine. Thing was, they were in the next parish, different townland name, but only a few hundred metres up the road! In fact, I didn't find any of my relatives there, until I was having lunch in a local pub in the nearest town they came from. The publican asked me whether I had relatives in the local area, just striking up a conversation, I said I didn't know. He asked me the surname, and said sure, they up there!
The rest is history. That was the family. And spiting image too, even after all that time.
Lots of people signed X in those days, so you can imagine being lined up in colonial Sydney thinking how you are going to get the clerk to understand the name of your townland, parish, etc, from Ireland. Many people just said "Ireland" - and the clerks recorded it like that.
All ties were cut for all intents and purposes, no one really had a view to historical details. They were either very thankful to be out of the places they came from, or just didn't think it important in any way. It seems to be for us today though. Interesting. I wonder why.
Note again, Bren, your ancestor married Irish women, and he being an Irish man.
Don't underestimate the cultural and religion divide that existed in Australia (and elsewhere) in those times. There had been an attempted revolution in Ireland in 1798, and a subsequent uprising at Castle Hill in Sydney featuring some of those same people involved, not long after that.
Even the real King of England lives in Australia (according to a BBC doco). Looks like King Edward IV's father might have been an archer (rather than the King). Here he is sitting on the throne if you want proof (the Australian King of England that is, not Edward IV, his father, or the archer):
Thanks DD, but I'm well acquainted with this stuff - the remnants of sectarianism were still alive and well in my part of Australia until well after WW2.
I just don't know much about Ballinasloe, apart from what I (and paramountbackwards) can Google. It seemed this might be a good place to ask. Folk interested in tunes often have a good appreciation of the unrecorded by-roads of history .
They're often obsessive nutters too but I'll take my chances.
The Emerald bar in Ballinasloe boasts to have one of the longest running ITM sessions every Friday night. Whenever i'm in the locality i go and are never dissapointed.
I once watched a line of portaloos burn down in Ballinasloe. It took about twenty minutes for the fire department to get to the scene after someone rang them. Once the excitement ended, fire out out, portaloos reduced to a heap of melted plastic, I went on to continue my (what tuned out to be fruitless... long story) search for the bus station. As soon as I tuned the corner from the scene of the portaloo destruction, I passed the fire station. Awesome.
When I hear of Ballinasloe it reminds me of the time when a crowd of us were heading down to Miltown for the Willie Clancy week. We left Maddens bar at about five in the evening and drove through the night in a Volkswagen camper van. During the course of the drive we managed to run out of petrol half an hour after leaving Belfast, break down and fix the van with a bouzouki string, and pick up a hitcher in Ballinasloe.
The hitcher was a big farmer who heard us driving up the road. He didn't bother to turn around - just stuck his thumb in the air.
We got him into the van and it transpired that he'd had 16 pints of Guinness (or so he said). We thought his name was "Jake", but it turned out that's just how he pronounced "Jack".
Anyway we were all drunk too and suggested that he come with us to Miltown (which was bloody miles away).
To cut a long story short, he wasn't a happy camper when he woke up on the White Strand the next morning without a clue how he got there, who we were or how he was going to get home.
Some of those towns listed in the link just above sound like particularly rough places. Ballinasloe gets a mention a few times by contributors. On the other hand Abbeyleix, Tullamore and just a few others get a positive vote. Bandon gets a positive vote too, except that posters seem to think that it is particularly Protestant! A lot of posters there seem to think that actually getting stabbed is a risk in some of these places - notably Sligo town!
Sounds from the posts that a lot of towns in Ireland which people used to like are being ruined in many people's view by having large housing estates built around them which turn into no-go areas of social deprivation.
Makes me wonder whether a stab-free list of towns that also have good ITM mightn't be a handy thing to have for a music trip to Ireland.
Is it really that bad over there! Please tell me it is not - or where it is not.
Hey, of course I've heard of those things Hugo - that's my point.
That's all you ever hear about Limerick - yet as your link points out, Glasgow has a higher murder rate. Do we hear of musicians avoiding Glasgow for that reason (unless they owe money of course)?
Ballinasloe is where Larry Reynolds grew up. Larry is a fiddler who moved to Boston in the 50s and has played here since. Larry is not only the president of the CCE chapter here (Hanifin-Cooley branch) but a leader and institution in himself. The Boston Irish music scene has a tireless, generous man in our midst.
Ballinasloe
Ballinasloe
What do you know?
# Posted on May 10th 2008 by Bren
Re: Ballinasloe
Ballinasloe occupies a strategic location on the N6 National Primary route linking Dublin and Galway and is one of the principal gateways to the West. The town owes its origins to its location as a crossing point on the River Suck, a tributary of the Shannon, on the borders of Counties Galway and Roscommon.
It is the largest town in County Galway after Galway City, and its hinterland extends up to twelve miles from the town boundary into County Galway, and up to six miles into County Roscommon. The population of the town is over 6,000 and over 9,000 residing in the environs (according to the Census 2006). Ballinasloe is a prosperous and expanding town, and is the main commercial/industrial center for East Galway.
The town is within easy access of other major regional center's and functions mainly as:
A commercial and market centre
A centre for hospital and educational facilities
A centre for Enterprise & Technology investment
A centre for manufacturing industry
A centre for Research and Development
A central base for tourists, offering a plethora of leisure pursuits including coarse angling, boating, shooting, golf and horse riding and a marina.
Ballinasloe Urban District covers in excess of 4,000 acres, making it in geographical terms the third largest of Ireland's Town Authorities. Relative to other large towns, Ballinasloe would appear to have a low population density. This however, is more accurately explained by its large tracts of undeveloped lands including the Garbally Demesne and the Western Health Board lands in Creagh. Every October, Ballinasloe is host to one of Europe's oldest and largest Horse Fairs, dating back to the 1700's. This annual event attracts up to 100,000 visitors from all over the world, with many returning to the town year after year. This festival is one of the most important social and economic events in the life of the town. The town is also renowned for horse and pony riding, show jumping and other equestrian activities which take place throughout the year.
Ballinasloe is steeped in history, and has been lauded for the architectural character of its fine streetscapes. This planned layout of the town in the 19th Century consisting of wide streets, a market square, fair green, show grounds and town hall can be attributed to William Trench, who was conferred with the Earldom of Clancarty at this time. The town can trace its roots back even further with the existence of three ringforts in the town and two possible Crannog sites dating back to the 1st century. Three Medieval Tower Houses are located within the Urban District in addition to a well preserved Early medieval parish Church at Templepoilin Pollboy, built in about the 9th Century by the Augustinian Monks of Clontuskert.
The town derives its name from the ford of the River Suck near the old Norman castle at River Street, which became a meeting place for the hostings of the Connacht tribesmen, chiefs and warriors of Breifne and Meath. The ford became known as 'Beal Atha na Sluaigheadh' meaning the 'mouth of the ford of Hostings'.
Ballinasloe is also famous for its limestone which was used in many public buildings in the town as well as several important buildings nationally and internationally. The most recent example of note is Galway County Council's Civic Offices in Prospect Hill, Galway City, which were completed in 1999.
# Posted on May 10th 2008 by tnoumarap
Re: Ballinasloe
or so I'm told anyway...
# Posted on May 10th 2008 by tnoumarap
Re: Ballinasloe
gotta love copy and paste!!!
# Posted on May 10th 2008 by WorzelGummidge
Re: Ballinasloe
Obviously it Sucks.
# Posted on May 10th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Ballinasloe
Hey tnoumarap, what do you know about plagiarism?
# Posted on May 10th 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: Ballinasloe
Just that there was a strange confluence of Ballinasloes yesterday. I got an email from a cousin telling of our great great grandfather who left Ballinasloe about 1842 and then I was texted by a musical friend telling me to learn Ballinasloe Fair. There's a question forming in my mind somewhere ...
Apropos of nothing much, on my noticeboard next to the PC monitor, among other scraps of paper is my grandfather's (the Galway's man's grandson) citation for bravery medals at Ypres in, one of them for 17/10/1917. Reading the links from my cousin's email, I see that his cousin was killed at Passchendale the same day, ANZACS both. My grandfather lived to an old age and I knew him well. The cousin had no descendants
# Posted on May 11th 2008 by Bren
Re: Ballinasloe
Ballinasloe Fair... great tune. Aren't the Kane sisters from Ballinasloe?
# Posted on May 11th 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: Ballinasloe
No. They're from Letterfrack.
# Posted on May 11th 2008 by GaryAMartin
Re: Ballinasloe
I think the implications are that the horse fair is much older than the 1700's, though it does seem to have been boosted by the arrival of the Trench family, of French Huguenot stock. Certainly, the horse fair site dominates the town. And the horse fair website (linked below) suggests that the town's name may, from the beginning, have been because those clan gatherings were actually coming to the fair. Which used to be horses, cattle and everything else, btw ...
I have a very good friend who lives halfway between Athlone and Ballinasloe and I walked round both towns when I last went to see him. Athlone is - though full to the brim of beautiful historic buildings - a modern bustling town. Balllinasloe had a somewhat melancholy air of decay to my mind. I suspect it's one of those places that truly comes to life when the fair comes to town.
# Posted on May 11th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: Ballinasloe
Historically, Ballinasloe usually gets a mention with the Battle of Aughrim.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Aughrim
The Trenchs get a mention at the Battle of Aughrim here, refering to the death of the General St Ruth, the leader of the Jacobite army:
"The first shot missed and a young ensign named Trench took the gun in hand and fired. The gunner remarked to Trench "his hat is knocked off Sir." "Yes," said Trench, "but you will find his head in it too." http://www.orangeordersouthernengland.org/battle_of_aughrim.htm
# Posted on May 11th 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Ballinasloe
I think it was particularly devastated by famine, which would be one reason why g-g-gf would have left between 1825 and 1840.
He met a woman in Dublin, married and had family, then went to Australia and had family bigamously with another Irish woman, then moved to NZ and sent for the first one, then apparently sailed back and forth between the "legitimate" NZ family and the "illegitimate" Aus one.
No prizes for guessing which branch I'm descended from.
So I'm learning Ballinasloe Fair from the dots and a recording where it's coupled with Paddy Ryan's Dream on an album entitled "25 All the Best IrishPub Songs" !!! (haven't worked out who is playing it ) and thinking of my roguish ancestor, whose contemporary namesake is another cousin who also had several women on the go at once.
Will compare with my friend's version when we meet up.
# Posted on May 11th 2008 by Bren
Re: Ballinasloe
Hmm. Recording seems to have box, fiddle and piano - perhaps two boxes -- would that be Burke, McGann & Dolan?
I'm not familiar enough with any of them to tell
# Posted on May 11th 2008 by Bren
Re: Ballinasloe
After the horrors of the famine in Ireland, many people who came to Australia in the 1840s would have found a very frontier country without the normal "rules" and "norms" of the countries they had left. It must have been like going to another planet - and there was little prospect or reason to go back. People must have acutely felt that they had cut every tie they had with anything that they knew. Australia in those days was not like America I think, but much less developed in terms of social "norms". The story of your ancestor, Bren, would have been a very common situation - almost the "norm" in the very early days. We would all be very surprised I think, as to whom is related to whom in Australia from those early days.
# Posted on May 11th 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Ballinasloe
And come to think of it, the same thing would probably be the case in any other country you can think of, maybe even more so, given the much longer histories of those countries.
# Posted on May 11th 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Ballinasloe
It still is like going to another planet
# Posted on May 11th 2008 by Dow
Re: Ballinasloe
It is another planet.
Thank goodness.
# Posted on May 11th 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Ballinasloe
I think even going from Galway to Dublin at that time of upheaval was a bit like that DD, let alone six months on a leaky boat!
To be honest, although he (or someone who could write) put "Ballinasloe" as his birthplace, we're not even sure of that. One of my rellies even consulted a "genealogist" in Dublin a few years ago who assured her there was no family of that name around Ballinasloe at that time. Similarly, another g-gf put "Tipperary" as birthplace but signed with an "X -his mark" and oral history has it that he came from Kerry. Nobody cared much until recently.
# Posted on May 11th 2008 by Bren
Re: Ballinasloe
Interesting, Bren. Most of the Irish who came to Australia, I understand, came from Tipperary or Clare. (Or a large proportion anyway). Sometimes people just recorded the nearest town in immigration records in Australia, rather than townland details. When I did a bit of research, I too was told that there were no descendants in the townland where they had been when they migrated to Australia in the famine. Thing was, they were in the next parish, different townland name, but only a few hundred metres up the road! In fact, I didn't find any of my relatives there, until I was having lunch in a local pub in the nearest town they came from. The publican asked me whether I had relatives in the local area, just striking up a conversation, I said I didn't know. He asked me the surname, and said sure, they up there!
The rest is history. That was the family. And spiting image too, even after all that time.
Lots of people signed X in those days, so you can imagine being lined up in colonial Sydney thinking how you are going to get the clerk to understand the name of your townland, parish, etc, from Ireland. Many people just said "Ireland" - and the clerks recorded it like that.
All ties were cut for all intents and purposes, no one really had a view to historical details. They were either very thankful to be out of the places they came from, or just didn't think it important in any way. It seems to be for us today though. Interesting. I wonder why.
# Posted on May 11th 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Ballinasloe
sorry about all the typos. They are typos, I don't have alzheimers disease - yet anyway. I think.
# Posted on May 11th 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Ballinasloe
Note again, Bren, your ancestor married Irish women, and he being an Irish man.
Don't underestimate the cultural and religion divide that existed in Australia (and elsewhere) in those times. There had been an attempted revolution in Ireland in 1798, and a subsequent uprising at Castle Hill in Sydney featuring some of those same people involved, not long after that.
# Posted on May 11th 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Ballinasloe
Even the real King of England lives in Australia (according to a BBC doco). Looks like King Edward IV's father might have been an archer (rather than the King). Here he is sitting on the throne if you want proof (the Australian King of England that is, not Edward IV, his father, or the archer):
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/aussie-mike-the-true-king-of-england/2005/09/10/1125772732666.html
# Posted on May 11th 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Ballinasloe
Thanks DD, but I'm well acquainted with this stuff - the remnants of sectarianism were still alive and well in my part of Australia until well after WW2.
I just don't know much about Ballinasloe, apart from what I (and paramountbackwards) can Google. It seemed this might be a good place to ask. Folk interested in tunes often have a good appreciation of the unrecorded by-roads of history .
They're often obsessive nutters too but I'll take my chances.
# Posted on May 11th 2008 by Bren
Re: Ballinasloe
Now why would people immersed in ITM tunes be obsessive nutters, Bren. Is that really a reasonable conclusion to come to?
# Posted on May 11th 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Ballinasloe
The Emerald bar in Ballinasloe boasts to have one of the longest running ITM sessions every Friday night. Whenever i'm in the locality i go and are never dissapointed.
# Posted on May 11th 2008 by murcu
Re: Ballinasloe
I think there is a song about the little towns in the middle of Ireland that goes:
Ballinasloe is no place to go,
But f**k me, Kinegad!
You won't find the full lyrics of this song in the tourist information offices of the above-mentioned towns, should anyone have bothered to open one.
# Posted on May 11th 2008 by de Selby
Re: Ballinasloe
I once watched a line of portaloos burn down in Ballinasloe. It took about twenty minutes for the fire department to get to the scene after someone rang them. Once the excitement ended, fire out out, portaloos reduced to a heap of melted plastic, I went on to continue my (what tuned out to be fruitless... long story) search for the bus station. As soon as I tuned the corner from the scene of the portaloo destruction, I passed the fire station. Awesome.
# Posted on May 11th 2008 by TheSilverSpear
Re: Ballinasloe
This would be it, I guess, de Selby:
"They say that Naas is an awful place
And Navan's twice as bad.
Ballinasloe is no place to go
But fcuk me Kinnegad!"
An interesting list here of the “Worst place in Ireland” forum.
Jayz, by the look of that is there a nicest place at all?
http://www.anfearrua.com/db.asp?a=topicdisplay&tid=360205&xpos=0
# Posted on May 12th 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Ballinasloe
When I hear of Ballinasloe it reminds me of the time when a crowd of us were heading down to Miltown for the Willie Clancy week. We left Maddens bar at about five in the evening and drove through the night in a Volkswagen camper van. During the course of the drive we managed to run out of petrol half an hour after leaving Belfast, break down and fix the van with a bouzouki string, and pick up a hitcher in Ballinasloe.
The hitcher was a big farmer who heard us driving up the road. He didn't bother to turn around - just stuck his thumb in the air.
We got him into the van and it transpired that he'd had 16 pints of Guinness (or so he said). We thought his name was "Jake", but it turned out that's just how he pronounced "Jack".
Anyway we were all drunk too and suggested that he come with us to Miltown (which was bloody miles away).
To cut a long story short, he wasn't a happy camper when he woke up on the White Strand the next morning without a clue how he got there, who we were or how he was going to get home.
# Posted on May 12th 2008 by Conán McDonnell
Re: Ballinasloe
Some of those towns listed in the link just above sound like particularly rough places. Ballinasloe gets a mention a few times by contributors. On the other hand Abbeyleix, Tullamore and just a few others get a positive vote. Bandon gets a positive vote too, except that posters seem to think that it is particularly Protestant! A lot of posters there seem to think that actually getting stabbed is a risk in some of these places - notably Sligo town!
Sounds from the posts that a lot of towns in Ireland which people used to like are being ruined in many people's view by having large housing estates built around them which turn into no-go areas of social deprivation.
Makes me wonder whether a stab-free list of towns that also have good ITM mightn't be a handy thing to have for a music trip to Ireland.
Is it really that bad over there! Please tell me it is not - or where it is not.
# Posted on May 12th 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: Ballinasloe
They call Limerick "Stab City" and everyone tells you not to go there, but I've never had the slightest problem
# Posted on May 12th 2008 by Bren
Re: Ballinasloe
The essay on the deficiencies of Athlone and its inhabitants was quite magisterial.
# Posted on May 12th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Ballinasloe
Bren,
It's good you haven't had any problems there.
That's not to say they don't exist...
http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2003/11/09/story909821203.asp
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/one-more-killing-and-limerick-is-murder-capital-of-western-europe-134911.html
...all over a schoolyard tussle..
# Posted on May 12th 2008 by Hugo Chavez
Re: Ballinasloe
...didn't mean that to come across morose, but some outsiders may find the above links interesting.
# Posted on May 12th 2008 by Hugo Chavez
Re: Ballinasloe
Hey, of course I've heard of those things Hugo - that's my point.
That's all you ever hear about Limerick - yet as your link points out, Glasgow has a higher murder rate. Do we hear of musicians avoiding Glasgow for that reason (unless they owe money of course)?
# Posted on May 12th 2008 by Bren
Re: Ballinasloe
Jeez!
# Posted on May 12th 2008 by mcknowall
Re: Ballinasloe
Ballinasloe is where Larry Reynolds grew up. Larry is a fiddler who moved to Boston in the 50s and has played here since. Larry is not only the president of the CCE chapter here (Hanifin-Cooley branch) but a leader and institution in himself. The Boston Irish music scene has a tireless, generous man in our midst.
Salt
# Posted on May 12th 2008 by saltcast