BY JOHN FITZGERALD
(Part one)
In the early years of the 20th century, Callan Workhouse continued to serve the community. The famine was in the past, and life had more or less returned to what passed for normal in the once again thriving market town.
Apart from catering for the less-well-off and providing a measure of basic education, the Workhouse was seldom out of the news due to the hectic meetings of its Board of Guardians
These men gave the local newspapers enough material to fill entire pages each week, with their endless debates and deliberations in the boardroom about every subject under the sun. Local correspondent Peter Roughan was enthralled by the minutes of Board meetings and reported on these weekly.
Apart from overseeing the day-to-day running of the Workhouse itself, the Guardians took it upon themselves to render opinions- for the benefit of the press- on all the topical issues of the day.
When a prominent person died in the locality, there would be a vote of sympathy from the Board that would be accompanied by hours of speech-making, with all the members- or Guardians- saying how pleased they were to be associated with the motion, and delivering well-crafted orations.
Politics entered the boardroom, with motions supporting one or other political point of view sparking ferocious verbal slagging and mud-slinging between rival factions.
But one of the most contentious issues to come up for consideration was the increased consumption of “foreign-made beer” in Kilkenny. On a Saturday morning in May 1906, the Guardians met to discuss a motion circulated by the Brewery Employees Trade Union calling for a strong protest against the drinking of imported booze in the county.
When a copy of the motion reached the Callan Workhouse Boardroom, it was placed at the top of the agenda for its next meeting.
Guardian Jack Molloy set the ball rolling by asserting that this was among the most important matters ever to come before the board. He urged strong backing of the Brewery Union’s opposition to foreign beer.
He said the farmers of the county were “a disgrace to the world to be drinking Stretton’s bass, German lager, and Hennessy’s whiskey”, when there was good locally brewed beer and spirits to be had. Jack had seen many of them in the pubs imbibing the produce of other lands, he informed the board…”T’ would serve them right if all their barley was left on the ground”, he fumed.
A number of other Guardians agreed, and it seemed to a reporter from the Kilkenny Journal as if the Board was about to declare unanimous support for the brewery workers and give a stinging thumbs-down to the drinking of foreign beer.
That was until Pat Keating, a confirmed teetotaler, proposed that the motion ought not to be discussed at all because the manufacture of any kind of drink (“here in Kilkenny or in foreign climes”) should be anathema to all God-fearing Christians.
Jack Molloy rose to his feet in a fury. “What in the name of God are you saying, man?” he roared, “I’m telling ye now it would be a bad day for Ireland if we give up growing barley and making drink.”
Undaunted, Pat waved at Jack to shut up and continued with a sustained attack on the recreational consumption of alcohol.
“I envisage a country in which we are all obliged by law to take the pledge and refrain from that most heinous habit of poisoning our minds and bodies with drink. If we hold fast to our Christian principles and have the necessary courage and commitment, we can defeat this dreadful foe of clean living and sobriety. Gentlemen, I see, as in a vision fair and bright, an Ireland sober and an Ireland free.”
“What a load of Shite!” howled Jack Molloy. Pat Keating then read aloud the draft wording of his counter-motion that he recommended the Board adopt and publicize: “I propose that all public bodies be asked to condemn the use and making of drink.
“I draw your attention to the fact that errant characters indulge in this sort of business. Such men are very glad to have this stout-making going on around; but I believe that any man of common sense who wishes for the prosperity of our country will do away with this thing called drink except when it is taken as medicine. I would wish to see it taken under the supervision of a medical man and I believe that men should take it only when their nerves require a tonic…”
To be continued…
