13. The Newspaper Cutting Story

The Newspaper Cutting Story

In 2009, 127 years after the accident on the railway, my father Tom, a grandson of John and Catherine, was searching for a cutting he had taken from the newspaper. He said it was from around 1995 and that it was no longer where he had left it. He accused me of throwing it out in an over zealous tidying up effort. Those who know me would find this an unlikely possibility. He also blamed the home help and my sister-in-law.

My daughter remembers an earlier occasion when the same piece of paper disappeared and a similar hunt was going on. It must have been found on that occasion but had disappeared again by 2009. It was clear, despite the fact that the cutting was misplaced at least twice, that it held an importance for my father and that at the age of 97 he was quite upset that he was unable to locate it.

Later in 2009 my father went into hospital and then into a nursing home. I collected and removed all the family memorabilia for safe keeping as the house was then unoccupied. During this collection I

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found the piece of paper that had been allegedly thrown out. It was from the Dundalk Democrat dated Saturday the 20th of November 1982.

In November 1982 my father picked up his copy of the Democrat and was reading it as usual when he came upon an article with the heading “This week in the Democrat a century ago.” Under this heading was a story with the headline “Fatal Accident at Greenore.” The story recounted the fateful events of the night of the 15th of November 1882. This was when my father discovered how his grandfather had died: a hundred years after the event. My father was 70 years old at the time and no one had ever told him the story. He had fond memories of his grandmother, Catherine, and I have no doubt that reading the story of what she went through on that night would have added to his respect and admiration for her.

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The 1882 report

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