Katherine Daly, bootlegger, distiller of Irish poteen,Alcatraz’s only female inmate, and daughter of a Roscrea-man was born on this day in 1872.
She was immortalised in the well-known folk song ‘Come Down the Mountain Katy Daly’.
Bill Daly from Roscrea moved to Oakland, California in the mid-19th century. There, he and his wife had twelve children, one of whom was Katherine Rose Daly who was born in 1872. Bill manufactured what he called ‘poteen’ but what his customers called moonshine. Katherine’s intimate knowledge of the hills surrounding Oakland garnered as an adventurous child helped the Daly’s escape the clutches of the authorities, who never seemed able to locate the family’s illicit stills.
When the attention of law enforcement became too intrusive,the family moved to Tombstone, Arizona. There Bill Daly was killed in a shootout with lawman Wyatt Earp in the 1880s. Nevertheless, Katie kept the family business going but this time in Chicago where she continued to manufacture moonshine successfully for three decades.
In the early 1930s, Katie was on the move again, back to California and the Bay Area. It seems her fatal error was greed at this point as her desire to expand her business across state boundaries into Nevada once more brought her to the attention of the authorities, as well as mob bosses.
She was arrested and imprisoned by the FBI and was sentenced to 15 years in Alcatraz- the only female inmate in the notorious prison in San Francisco harbour. She would not survive her incarceration and died in Alcatraz prison.
The full lyrics to ‘Come Down the Mountain Katie Daly’ areas follows:
Come down the mountain, Katie Daly,
Come down the mountain, Katie do;
Oh can’t you hear us callin’, Katie Daly,
We want to drink your good old mountain dew.
With her old man, Katie came from Tipperary,
In the pioneering days of ’42;
And her father, he was shot in Tombstone City,
For the making of his Irish mountain dew.
Wake up and pay attention, Katie Daly,
I am the judge that’s a-gonna sentence you;
And all the boys in court have drunk your whiskey,
And to tell the truth, dear Katie, I drunk it too.
And so to jail they took poor Katie Daly,
Very soon the gates were open wide;
An angel come and took poor Katie Daly,
And he took her far across the Great Divide.
Sources:
Myles Dungan, On This Day – Volume 2, New Island Books, (2017) pp92-94
Tipperary won the first ever All Ireland Hurling Championship on this day in 1888.
Tipperary, represented by Thurles, defeated Galway (Meelick) on a scoreline of 1-1 – 0-0 in Birr.
In his book, ‘The Hurlers’, historian Paul Rouse magnificently sets the scene for what was to unfold on the day of the first ever All Ireland Hurling Final. He states that on Easter Sunday, 1 April 1888, 42 men stand in military formation outside William Cunningham’s hotel in the middle of Birr, then in King’s County. At the head of the formation are three Fenians, members of the IRB. The one giving orders is James Lynam from Galway while the other two are Andrew Callanan and Hugh Ryan, who regularly feature in Special Branch reports of subversive activity in Tipperary.
The forty-two men arrayed behind these three are the hurlers. They represent Thurles and Meelick, from East Galway. They stand in parallel lines in front of the hotel. The Thurles men are carrying their hurleys upright against their shoulders like long rifles. Their jerseys are green, with a little galaxy of stars around the centre. The Meelick men are also wearing green jerseys, but with a large white stripe running across the middle; and on their heads are green knitted caps with tassels. The hurlers still have on their everyday boots, though these will later mostly be discarded: many of the players will compete barefooted.
With everyone in position, James Lynam calls them to attention and shouts: ‘Right, about.’ The hurlers turn as one and march shoulder to shoulder through the streets of Birr. It has quickly become a tradition that, when a big hurling match is played in a town, the parade of hurlers is led by a local band, to draw people to the match and to create a sense of pageant. However, that was not the case on this day as the local band is out at a huge demonstration at nearby Broughal Castle, where 2,000 people are protesting against the eviction of a farmer. To the cheering of the townspeople, the hurlers parade through the streets towards the hurling field, off Railway Road on the edge of town.
Around 3,000 people wait in the field for the hurlers. Hawkers sell their wares, and tricks- o’- the- loop do a roaring trade while other men try to entice spectators to gamble on which of three thimbles covers the pea. Some of the spectators have travelled with the teams from Thurles and from Meelick; many more have come by train, by horse and cart, by bicycle and on foot from all across North Tipperary, King’s County, Queen’s County and Galway, even though they are not associated with either team. They have come to the final for the love of hurling and for the day out.
Waiting in the centre of the field is the referee, Patrick White, a native of Toomevara. At 3 p.m. he calls the hurlers to the middle of the field and, for the second time that day, the two teams line up alongside one another. They lower the blades of their hurleys to the ground and set themselves to play. White takes the red leather ball into his hand and throws it in between the hurlers. Amid the jostling shoulders and swinging timber, the first All-Ireland hurling final is under way.
Sources:
https://www.rte.ie/culture/2018/0920/994350-the-day-of-the-first-all-ireland-hurling-final/
