Published: Wednesday, 16th December, 2009 5:00pm

Pages from the Past

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1859

150 Years Ago

Human toll of railroad construction laid bare

The human cost of the creation of the railroad across America has gone down in history and been immortalised on screen in countless Westerns.

However, in Ireland, the fatalities arising from the building of the iron roads across this country, have rarely been recognised.

Through the 1850s, construction workers met their end, often in gruesome circumstances, and their passings were recorded in the pages of the Westmeath Independent.

December 1859 was no different as the human death toll continued. The paper reported on an inquest held in the workhouse that month following the death of man named Simon Feeling.

His death was recorded as being caused by "the rolling of a large stone down the embankment on the Great Northern and Western Railway near Berries".

"The stone was about two tons weight and rolled over the unfortunate man, rupturing him internally. He died shortly after he was conveyed to the workhouse."

1909

100 Years Ago

Procession to honour memory of Manchester Martyrs

Athlone hosted what was termed an annual event in memory of the Manchester Martyrs in early December 1909.

A procession was held in the town, starting on Connacht Street and travelling down O'Connell Street, Chapel Street, Excise Street and Main Street to Bridge Street and onwards to Church Street and Mardyke Street through Irishtown and returning by St Mary's Terrace back across town to what was then Castle Square (St Peter's Square).

The Manchester Martyrs were members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood who were executed after having been found guilty of the murder of a police officer during an escape that took place close to Manchester city centre in 1867.

The event was organised by a number of local groups, following a meeting hosted in the Irish National Foresters Hall in King Street. The meeting was chaired by Michael McDermott Hayes, editor of the Westmeath Independent.

The procession itself was badly affected by the weather. It was led by the Brass and Reed Band and comprised members of the Foresters, headed up by chief ranger McDermott Hayes, sub chief ranger, W. Nesbitt, Treasurer J. Coughlan and woodwards, P. Gough an W. Farrell.

Also present were Sinn Féin and the Pipers Club, led by Chairman J. O'Byrne and the Trade and Labour Society, headed by their Fife and Drum Band, led by President Michael Broderick.

The intellectual level of Athlone?: Attendance at a circus!

The Westmeath Independent lamented the town's lack of interest in matters cultural and literary in a hard-hitting editorial in December 1909.

"The authority who somewhere stated that the intellectual level of Athlone was attendance at a circus was probably not wrong."

"We are noticed even among small communities for our general educational backwardness and for what is worse still for a general indifference to the fact. With the people of Athlone education seems to be a matter of very secondary consideration and they do not at all feel the want of a good library or instructive lectures, or any other form of mental training which is looked for with eagerness in other of our provincial towns.

"The tastes of the people are not bent in this direction and so far as we see the subject is not at all considered.

"Being in that state, it is no wonder that our backwardness is sometimes noticed, and that the stranger observes that our patronage of the arts and sciences reduces itself to attendance at a circus or some other exciting attraction of the same kind."

1959

50 Years Ago

Vegetable growing project mooted

This week five decades ago, a Westmeath Committee of Agriculture meeting heard a call for a vegetable growing project to be launched in the Athlone area with the hope of the eventual establishment of a processing and freezing plant in the area.

JJ McAuley said an area from Ballinahown to Tubberclair could be developed as vegetable growing project along with the areas west of the Shannon.

"As a first step in the furtherance of his aim he advocated at the a meeting of Westmeath Committee of Agriculture this week that the small farmers with marginal and moory land in the area should have the services of a full-time horticultural instructor."

It continued: "The question of the proper marketing of vegetables was also an important matter and he believed that a proper vegetable processing and freezing plant should be set up in Athlone town to serve both sides of the Shannon in the Athlone district".

The committee approved Mr Auley's proposal.

Athlone man is weight-lifting champion

An Athlone man who scooped a major weightlifting title made page two of the Westmeath Independent back in December 1959, the annals of the newspaper have revealed.

22-year-old Sylvester Nestor, son of Mr and Mrs E.Nestor, St Francis Terrace, Athlone won the South of Great Britain weight lifting championship with a lift of an amazing 750 lbs. One of a family of thirteen, Mr Nestor, the paper tells us, had been living in England for a number of years. Before leaving Athlone he was employed by General Textiles Ltd, and was promising member of Gentex Boxing Club.