Murphy’s Town Hall Athenry 197 Endnote 5: Aggie Qualter, in Athenry – A Local History 1850 – 1983, (the July 1983 edition) states on page 8: “The Town Hall was built by Dick Murphy in 1907. The IRB and Volunteers had it free. Volunteers carried out an intensive training course there under Liam Mellows...” 163 Endnote 6: Joan Murphy, (youngest daughter of Dick & Nora Murphy, and stalwart of the Athenry Drama for many years), left her own very valuable history of the Hall which is available to view at the following link (Source: Athenry Fás Teamwork Scheme 1991-1993): Joan starts her account of the Hall as follows: “The Athenry Town Hall, Clarke Street, Athenry, licenced for the showing of Films and Public Dancing, was built by the late Richard Murphy... in the year 1907. It was owned and managed by him up to the time of his death in 1945. After his death the Hall was run by his widow, Norah, and very young family, Patsy, Marjorie, Joan and Richard. It continued to be run by them up to the time of the sale of the hall in 1976 to Athenry Community Council.” 164 Endnote 7: Stephen Jordan, in his 1950 Witness Statement (BMH.WS.0346) to the Bureau of Military History confirms a number of items asserted above: https://www.militaryarchives.ie/collections/online-collections/bureau-of-military-history-1913-1921/reels/bmh/BMH.WS0346.pdf#page=7 “I joined the I.R.B. in Athenry in 1906. The Centre was Richard Murphy. Larry Lardner was Secretary. Meetings were held regularly every month.” (Page 2) “I returned from Galway on the night mail reaching Athenry at 12 midnight. I was met at the station by two members of the Athenry Company who had been sent by Commandant Lardner to escort me to the Town Hall where the Company was mobilised. In the early hours of Tuesday morning we were instructed by Commandant Lardner to go to our homes, bring our arms with us and to hold ourselves in readiness for further orders. On Tuesday afternoon we were re-mobilised at the Town Hall and marched to the Agricultural College near Athenry where we were joined by Commandant Liam Mellows...” (Page 5) “After the disbanding I went on the run with Dick Murphy, staying in various parts of the county. We were arrested in Tuam in early June and conveyed to Galway jail.” (Page 8) Endnote 8: The Connacht Tribune 8th November 1952 carries an interesting piece on page 5, headed Planning for the 1916 Rebellion: “...All Meetings in connection with the Volunteers in the Athenry area, and all organising work, also mobilisation of Athenry Coy, for participation in the Rebellion were held in the Town Hall, Athenry, which was the recognised Headquarters of the Company since its inauguration, and we, as Staff Officers never attended meetings in any other place.” Endnote 9: The Irish News Archive (www.irishnewsarchive.com) proved to be an invaluable resource in the course of this research, in particular the Connacht Tribune and Tuam Herald archives. (NB: we are not associated with the News Archive in anyway but are simply acknowledging how useful it was to us). IMDb and Wikipedia were also very helpful in our research. Endnote 10: Films were normally delivered to Athenry by train and then returned to the Film Distributors the same way. However we have a handwritten note to the effect that, in somewhat of a departure from standard practice, Richard returned Carry On Cleo in person, by car, in May 1972. Endnote 11: Some readers may bemoan the absence of an index which is entirely understandable. However, on balance, we decided to maximise the content here, rather than have to omit some material, in order to create space for an index. By taking this approach, we managed to incorporate well over 100 pages of illustrations as a result. 163 Again, we believe it was built ‘for’ Dick, rather than ‘by’ himself 164 As indicated in Endnote 2, it was built ‘for’ Dick Murphy by Thomas Cleary, as opposed to ‘by’ Dick himself
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