12 Monday Jan 2015
Posted in Uncategorized
Photograph of Directors and Managers of Schull and Skibbereen Light Railway 1910-20, including Ned Roycroft, Mount Gabriel, Chairman Cork County Council, his daughter married Michael Pat Murphy, Caheragh, Labour TD for West Cork. Jasper Travers Wolfe Solicitor (former Crown Prosecutor West Cork and later TD) and his father Eddie.
15 Wednesday Jan 2014
Posted in Uncategorized
Strike in Log-na-gCapall Bog, Caheragh, during the Emergency, Michael Pat Murphy TD and James Gilhooley MP, Jasper Wolfe TD, the Durrus Clan running Rochester New York, 1840s 50s, US Senator Patrick Joseph Sullivan, Kilcrohane and Wyoming
During the Emergency:
There was a shortage of fuel and every bog was pressed into service. In the Caheragh area one of the main bogs was at Log-na-gCapall and a large number of young men were employed by the Local Authority to save the turf. Conditions were primitive and there was great dissatisfaction among the men. This crystallised in a strike led by one of them Michael Pat Murphy which succeeded in improving conditions.
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The Commentariat in Dublin constantly derides the Country TD ‘Parish Pump Politics’.
However an alternative view is that these mostly men in the past performed a very valuable community service when people did not have a level of education and acted as intermediaries with Statutory Authorities.
Examples:
Dick Barry:
http://www.avondhupress.ie/20130502/news/passing-of-gentleman-politician-dick-barry-S20434.html
Michael Pat Murphy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Murphy_(Irish_politician)
Jasper Wolfe:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasper_Wolfe
Pearse Wyse;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearse_Wyse
They continued a pattern set by James Gilhooley MP for the area which a perusal of the questions he asked in the Westminster Parliament wold show:
http://eppi.dippam.ac.uk/documents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Gilhooly
There was a strong political tradition in the area which transferred to running the City Government in Rochester New York in the 1840s and 1850s:
https://durrushistory.wordpress.com/2013/03/10/emigration-of-west-cork-protestant-families-19th-century-to-rochester-new-york-and-wisconsin/
US Senator for Wyoming, Patrick Joseph Sullivan (1835-1935) born Kilcrohane:
West Cork History 