Day: May 25, 2020

New Opening Hours for Wordsworth

We are back open and looking forward to seeing you all. We would like draw your attention to our new opening hours. Open daily Monday to Sat  from 10 am to 5.30 pm. Opened during lunch hours. We are still offering our call and collect service. Call us on 029 70154. Safety procedures and restrictions will be strictly in place for entering the shop but this is for all of our safety.
Lots of love Niamh and all the Wordsworth gang xx  😊  [f]

Please Slow Down and Mind the Children

We have been asked to tell people to Please Slow Down and Drive With Care in Tanyard Wood and other estates around town, as a lot more children are out playing, and walking these days. For most it’s their only source of freedom, and the speed of some cars is scary. The last thing anyone wants now is a tragedy, especially because someone is being reckless.

Thank u all so much for an amazing first week

Thank u all so much for an amazing first week at Kall & Dyyne, it has been unbelievable. As I just started out going day by day to see how we went offering a takeaway service, I’ve had complete sell outs ever single day since I opened so its definitely been needed in the town I think  🙏🙏

So here’s to the start of another successful week. Thank you all again for calling & supporting me it’s very much appreciated 😘  – Sharon

 

The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919 – How it affected Millstreet

During this Covid-19 pandemic, it has often been compared to the Influenza Pandemic of 1918/1919. We were wondering how it affected this area, so we delved into the records to try to figure it out.

Surprisingly, what we found was that there was no big spike in deaths locally at that time compared to the surrounding years (see the graph below **). So we though that maybe it didn’t affect the Millstreet area at all … but we were wrong.

When we looked at the case by case influenza and pneumonia figures (flu was often misdiagnosed as pneumonia) in the death registers, we saw that around March 1919, there was a big jump in numbers when about 20 died from flu and pneumonia. This coincided with what was referred to as the third wave of that pandemic in Ireland, and is easily seen by the yellow spike in the graph below. The smaller orange spike (November 1918) also coincided with the second wave of the pandemic in Ireland.

In total, we think about 30 people died locally died from it over the duration of that pandemic.

Some families here got destroyed by it … Twomeys of Islandhill lost 3 in a week, Sullivans of Umeraboy lost three in a month, Butlers of Liscahane lost two in a fortnight. The one very surprising thing  though is that most of the deaths were people that died locally were in their 20’s and 30’s, which we were unaware of but was a feature of that disease.

If that many died in the spring of 1919, then about 1,000 must have been infected locally at the time. That’s a lot of sick people.

Below we first look at the disease in Ireland, and also we break down the death registers to see those that died from it locally, when they got it, and where they were from: [read more …] “The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919 – How it affected Millstreet”