There were
about twenty-five disused quarries in and around
During this
time many children would have swam and fished in these quarry pools. They may
have been under the misguided belief that since these pools were still that
they were safer than swimming in rivers or streams. The children would often go
in groups to these pools but would rarely be accompanied by adults.
These following stories demonstrate the causes of some of these tragedies:
In Sheedy’s
quarry in Ballingarry, on Saturday evening
William
Joseph Tuohy who was eleven years old, and his brother John, went to swim with
a few other boys in the quarry at Mr. Hanrahan’s field off the
Occasionally
the children would fish from these quarry pools but this was also more hazards
than it seemed as demonstrated by the story of:
23rd
of June 1901, thirteen year old Edward Corbett who lived at 2 Summer Street,
was fishing at the quarry on Carey’s Road when he fell in the water. His friend
James McNamara stretched out his fishing rod to the boy who grasped it, he
pulled Edward in about two foot but it appeared that he got exhausted, let go
of the rod and sank. Edward ran to get help and a Mr James Clancy brought the
boy to the surface and administered artificial resuscitation but he had already
died.
Not all the
quarries were left vacant to gather water, Mr. Mahon’s quarry at
Two young
girls, named Susan Walters who was only eight and Mary Brew were reading in Mr.
McMahon’s quarry on Friday 8th of September 1899. After sometime
there Mary Brew got up to leave, she turned her back on Susan Walters and took
a few steps away. Suddenly she heard a cry from where she had been sitting and
found Susan in the water. Mary ran to
On
Three men
were in the seed loft at Denny’s bacon factory at
Frank
Delaney was arrested for his part in contributing to the death of John Lynch,
but after evidence was heard at the inquest the charges were dropped.
One of the
many workers at Cleeve’s condensed milk factory at Lansdowne, which was the
largest factory of its kind in the
He set
about his work of carrying sheets of tin to the workers of the factory who in
turn made them into tin cans, for the condensed milk. One of the rooms he
passed through was filled with machines all worked by leather bands from a
principal shaft line, but on this day at about half past four, one of the bands
had become loose from a pulley causing a machine to stop. The foreman, a
Michael Collins, retrieved a ladder to remedy this, as he placed the ladder
against the machine; then he was called away by another employee for a moment.
On turning around Mr Collins, noticed that Michael Frawley was half way up the
ladder. He called to Michael to get down, but instead of doing so his respond
was “let us get the tin cut”, which was the purpose of that particular machine.
No sooner
than it was said, than the pulley trapped the sleeve of Michael Frawley’s coat.
Before the machine could come to a full stop, Michael had become entangled in
the machine. A car was sent to his house where his sister and brother-in-law
Matthew Loughlin were collected and they comforted the boy.
At
The
following day at the inquest into the Michael’s death, Matthew Loughlin would
accuse Michael Collins of sending the boy up the ladder in turn killing him.
This was dismissed when interviews the employees of the factory were
taken.
There were
very two similar fatal accidents in two of the bacon factories of the city
during the month of May 1904.
John Hogan
was a 35-year-old married man with five children who lived at Pump lane. He had
worked at W.J. Shaw & son,
Later on
the 28 of the month, in the sausage department of Matterson &
sons bacon factory, on
When Dr
George Myles attended the scene William Young was being removed from the machine,
it was discovered that both his legs had been separated from his body just
below the knee and that he would have died more or less instantaneously from
the shock of his injuries.
It was decided at the inquest that no blame should be attached to the firm or management as William Young acted without authorization. The matter of providing for the widow of the deceased was left up to the generosity of the owner of the factory, Mr Joseph Matterson.
The first English Employer's Liability Act was passed in 1880. The original Act was very weak. In fact, the Act only provided benefits for seven out of one hundred workers. In 1897, the British legislature proposed new legislation to provide a remedy for the injured worker. The authors of the legislation sought to have injured workers compensated for each industrial accident and to make the economic burden for the compensation system part of the cost of production. The employee was not required to prove negligence on the part of the employer but rather had to demonstrate that the injury had occurred during the employment situation. The Act was limited to certain occupations, which included factory labour, mine and quarry activities and engineering. Neither the original Employers' Liability Act of 1880 nor the Workmen's Compensation Act of 1897, the latter having been intended to encourage greater attention to safety in the industrial environment, was successful in reducing the number of industrial accidents in the British work place.
Michael O’Brien
had an argument with his mother with whom he lived at 10 Frederick Street in the
city. After the argument he left the house and did not return. This was on Wednesday
the 1st of April 1897, the next few nights he spent sleeping rough and
the following Saturday he went into Hanrahan’s field on the Dock Road, where there
were two lime kilns in the field one disused and the other still in use. It was
raining very heavy that night so Michael took shelter in the warmth of the lime
kiln that was used.
Carbolic acid
gas was produced during the making of the lime and during the night this engulfed
the man in the kiln. This acid was poisonous and caused the man to become drowsy.
Following this he left the kiln to get some air but burnt himself in the process.
Then he lay on the ground close to the kiln and fell asleep. The carbolic acid took
full effect while he was sleeping causing him to go into a coma and he was found
dead the next morning.
In November
that year four men were caught and fined for sleeping in the same kiln in Hanrahan’s
field.
Another of these lime kiln fatalities took place when William Carroll, who worked as a blacksmith, left his brothers house which he shared, on Saturday night 3rd of June 1899, to go drinking, as he would often do, usually not returning home for days at a time. On his way home this night, he walked towards Gilligan’s limekiln on the Clare road near Ennis, where he climbed in to the kiln to keep himself warm but the fumes from the kiln also overpowered and poisoned him. It was the next morning when his remains were recovered by Joseph Grehan who worked at the kiln. This was the third incident of its kind in this kiln.
Bridget
Carroll an inmate of the blind ward of the Workhouse had retired to bed at
seven on the night of Tuesday, 20th of March 1900, she arose again
at half past nine. There was a fire stove in the centre of the ward, and an
open grate with a fire at either end. The attendant and some others were
sitting around the stove and on looking to the other end of the room it was
noticed that someone had caught fire. They immediately went to assist the woman
who however had been injured and subsequently died from shock.
The jury at
the inquest held the following day, decided that the open grates in the
Workhouse should be protected by wiring.
Unfortunately, this recommendation was only applied to the blind ward as three days later in another ward of the workhouse an elderly woman caught fire, only to be extinguished by a Mr. P. McNamara of The Abbey, luckily the old woman survived.
|
Year |
Drown |
Fire |
Horse Cart |
Railway |
Other |
|
1899 |
4 |
2 |
3 |
1 |
2 |
|
1900 |
3 |
3 |
5 |
1 |
4 |
|
1901 |
10 |
1 |
2 |
0 |
4 |
|
1902 |
7 |
5 |
3 |
3 |
2 |
|
1903 |
4 |
1 |
1 |
3 |
8 |
|
1904 |
10 |
3 |
2 |
2 |
5 |
