Pakie Conroy

 

A wonderful man who lived through the Ballygowan evictions.

Photo courtesy: Marina Conroy

Editor’s Note

Pakie Conroy of Ballygowan, Abbey, Co Galway was born in 1887 and lived a long life until his death on Christmas night 1983.  Pakie was blessed with a very clear memory and he was renowned for the stories he could recall of times gone by.  Growing up as a small boy in Ballygowan, he clearly remembered and recalled the evictions that took place in the east-Galway area in the late 1880s and 1890s.  Over the years stories of these events were told and retold but never recorded.

Fortunately, the Conroy family was anxious to have a record of these stories and they invited Jim Fahy, who presented a programme with RTE to do an interview with Pakie.  This interview was later aired as a documentary on RTE and the Conroy family gave a copy of the recording to Abbey Heritage with permission to use it on the Abbey Heritage website.  We are most appreciative of this as it is first-hand evidence of the heritage of our area.

You can listen to the full interview here: https://on.soundcloud.com/Hn3fN