Fighting on the street, drunks shouting abuse, men assaulting their wives . . . It was a busy Christmas for the authorities in Carlow and Kildare.
Christmas 1899, that is, which was recounted in vivid detail over the past fortnight for readers of the Nationalist and Leinster Times. In one of the best ideas to mark the arrival of 2000, the newspaper reprinted its final edition of 1899 and the first of 1900.
Both papers were largely taken up with colourfully written court reports, detailing the exploits of characters such as "The Ass" Byrne. Where today will you find a news story with a headline and opening paragraph to match the following report from the Bagenalstown Petty Sessions?
"Charge Of Serious Assault - `The Ass' Byrne Indulges In Indian Warfare On His Wife And Gets Three Months"
"During the Christmas season, Patrick Byrne (`The Ass') attempted to relieve the dull monotony and calmness of the time by practising a little Indian tomahawk throwing, but whether his aim was unsteady and his vision unclear from recent potations, or whether he had not yet attained to perfection in his delicate art, so much neglected in recent years, certainly the exercise on the present occasion was brought to a sad termination, especially from Mrs Byrne's point of view, which point of view is now diminished by one-half, as she wears a bandage on her right eye."
Other stories are models of brevity. In the "List of Drunks" section, also from the Bagenalstown court, an entire report concerning one John Monck reads: "Defendant was drunk and disorderly in Kilcarrig street. When he saw the police approaching he shouted: `Let 'em all come', and they went, and consequently he was fined 5s and 1s 6d costs."
Comical court reports aside, the newspapers demonstrate that while everything changes, some things stay the same. Members of Queen's County Council, for example, were discussing what to do about the state of the roads in what is now Co Laois.
"Viscount de Vesci wrote complaining of the state of the county roads which, he said, have been getting worse every year for the past three or four years, especially in the neighbourhood of Abbeyleix. The roads are never picked, and the stones put out are entirely too large," said a report in the January 6th, 1900, edition.
Not every councillor was sympathetic to the Viscount's complaint: "Mr Breen proposed that the letter be marked read. As long as his confreres were in office, Lord de Vesci never wrote a line complaining of the roads, and they are as good now as they were then."
A front-page advertisement carried a prominent notice of a public meeting in the town hall in Carlow in aid of the evicted tenants' restoration fund. Alongside is a small ads column advertising vacancies for "good girls" as servants and a yardman who "must be sober and steady".
National and international is sues are also debated. A letter writer, described only as a "county Carlow lady", takes the editor to task over the paper's expression of sympathy for the Boers in the war taking place at that time. "Why can't we be thankful to be part of a great empire?" she asks.
In a lengthy and eloquent reply, the editor concludes: "Let England allow us to manage our own affairs and give us power to stop our poor country from bleeding to death, and we shall be friendly to her, but good feeling and friendship were never yet begotten of justice and wrong."
Also on December 30th, 1899, page one carried a letter from the front to his Carlow family from a Royal Dublin Fusilier. "We are 600 strong out of 1,000 men we had. The other day we had a company blown up and those who were not killed were captured by the Boers." All was not lost, however, as he added: "There is no Carlow-man hurt yet."
