Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1932)

[murf]

Images and transcriptions of the Sydney version of The Freemans Journal are now available on the Trove website http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/resul ... acets=true
This newspaper contains a mine of articles on County Clare, as well as Ireland in general. A search using "county clare" turns up about 800 items. Judicious juggling of search terms will focus your search. The attached article caught my eye because it makes reference to my g.g. grandfather Edmond Murphy. This story is apparently a repeat of a similar item in the Irishman, which in turn was probably prompted by the wash-up from the fair rents tribunals of 1882. I have previously made reference to this in Murphys of the Ballynacally Area. http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclar ... /index.htm
The article doesn't mention that Edmond Murphy had his rent reduced from £89 down to £72. Some landholders received rent reductions of 50% or more. I'm not sure that Thomas Rice Henn was the ogre that the article seems to portray him. I gained the impression from my research that he was one of the more tolerant landlords, but I must admit that I didn't explore this aspect in detail.

PS
The degree of success of any newspaper search will rely to some extent on clean transcriptions of the search term. Let's take the case of the search term "clare". The letter "e" can often be mistranscribed as an "o" or "c". Similarly, uppercase "C" can be misinterpreted as a "G". So additional searches using, for instance, "claro", clarc", or "glare", may retrieve additional material not returned by the original search.

[smcarberry]

This is what I have been awaiting. Thanks so much for the immediate alert on this new addition to Trove. I have been aware that this entire series has been available on microfilm for Australian residents near the involved university collection of it. I assume your referencing Sydney must be that university's location. I will be spending a lot of time with it now, reaping the benefits of this excellent resource. It has not been freely available in the U.S.

Just a reminder: this newspaper was the creation of a Clare man forced by his family's reduced circumstances to seek his fortune in Dublin. He did well enough that there is a statue in his honor in, I think, the Dublin City Hall (or some such civic building).

Sharon Carberry
USA

[murf]

Hi Sharon
When I said "Sydney version" my intention was to avoid confusion with the Irish newspaper of the same name. Apart from the name, I don't believe there was any connection between the two. Please correct me if I'm wrong in saying that.
A short history of the Catholic weeklies in NSW can be found at:
http://www.catholicweekly.com.au/aboutus.php

[smcarberry]

I realize that my comment was made far too quickly. When I later thought about the time span shown for the online newspaper, it doesn't match that of the Dublin paper. However, I really don't care which one it is as long as it provides news articles of use, and the one now on Trove fits the bill for that. I am supposing there has to be some kind of connection between the Dublin and Sydney newspapers, if only that the Australian version borrowed the name of the hugely successful Dublin one.

Thanks again for doing the posting and then ensuring that confusion doesn't remain about the different versions.

Sharon C.