History of the Ballinrobe Chronicle: 1866 - 1903
The Ballinrobe Chronicle was published in Ballinrobe from 1866 to 1903. It was issued every Saturday from the printing works on Church Lane and had front offices on Main Street.
The paper consisted of four pages, with the two centre pages arriving already printed from England and contained international news.
The front page had local news with the back page running advertisements and notices.
Every week one would find regular features, usually in the same location, covering the local news, petty sessions records, financial matters, payments to various officials, which would have been in the Minutes of the Board of Guardians meetings which were held weekly. All other local news like cattle and sheep prices, notices of meetings, appeals for funds, appeared on this page also.
Mr. Jim Kierans* states “that regular features were the weekly report of the local petty sessions court…with an never-ending catalogue of claims for damage arising from trespass on crops – sometimes the trespass of a few hens another common case was where the police or the road contractors summoned people for having animals, mostly pigs wandering on the roads. Pigs of course, could do a great deal of harm to the roads, as they were at that time, with loose stone common”.
One can examine the contents of the Ballinrobe Chronicle at the Mayo County Library, Castlebar where they are available on microfilm in the Local History Department upstairs. Booking a viewing machine is recommended and required pages etc can be printed for a small fee.
TIP – bring a memory stick as the contents can also be uploaded from a computer on site.
Sources: Interviews with Mr. Oliver Brown, Ballinrobe, Mr. Ivor Hamrock, Local Studies Dept., Mayo Co. Library and many others.
Publication: A Chronicle of Ballinrobe featuring snippets from the newspaper (1866-1903) sponsored by the Mayo News, Westport, ND. Compiled from the archives by historian Mr. Jim Kierans.
Note: Mr. Kerins was a local historian and was a teacher in the local boys’ school for many years.
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The Ballinrobe Chronicle was founded in 1866 by Gore Ouseley Kelly (1816-1891). He was a brother of Richard Kelly, founder of The Tuam Herald. The Tully’s who were related to the Kelly’s through various marriages were the publishers of The Roscommon Journal and The Roscommon Herald. When Gore Ouseley Kelly died the paper was taken over and run for a number of years by his daughter Mary Gore Kelly.
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