Display Ancestors of
James Groves
Display Descendants of
James Groves
GD006426    Contact contributor     Contributor Number: 32
Born 09/03/1879 at Tellyshelferty
Died 1943 at Johnnesburg
Father: Samuel Groves
Mother: Mary Sommerville
Married Maria Aletta Mccomb
Children.
  • 'Living'  2 Children.
  • 'Living'  3 Children.
  • Ronald Groves  b.21 May 1922 at Johannesburg, m.03 Mar 1947 at Johannesburg, d.03 Oct 1962 at Johannesburg, 2 Children.


Notes: DEPOT KAB SOURCE MOOC TYPE LEER VOLUME_NO 6/9/393 SYSTEM 01 REFERENCE 2589 PART 1 DESCRIPTION GROVES, JAMES. DEATH NOTICE . STARTING 18990000 ENDING 18990000 A Border Town by Patrick J. Power An extract from an article featured in November/December 2002 If you look at a map of Ireland, you will see that the territory of the I rish Republic sticks like a knuckle into Northern Ireland. This knuckle i s County Monaghan. Situated at the northern tip of the county close to th e border is the town of Monaghan itself. This was where my parents met an d fell in love. She was a nurse in the local hospital and he was a youn g newly promoted garda sergeant from County Wexford. The Irish Free State , as it was called then, was but a few years old and they must have fel t the world was at their feet. Inside a decade she would have died of T B and he would have married again. County Monaghan was magic all through my childhood. At mention of the wor d my heart would lift. I was welcomed to the family home in Glenmore, a m ile from the border with Tyrone. I picked up a new vocabulary. Drains wer e sheughs, hills were braes, potatoes were perties and small boys were ca wdies. There were occasional journeys by horse and cart for provisions to the Ty rone towns of Clogher and Aughnacloy five miles away. But it was the tow n of Monaghan which was my great joy. My older aunt had a pub opposite th e Market House and part of my holidays would be spent with her. The tri p was always a great adventure as we would set off on a meandering journe y, which took some three hours to cover ten miles. Around midday we would finally arrive in Monaghan. Stepping into my aunt’ s pub was like entering a theatre. Looking back, many of them probably ha d drink problems, but to a small boy from a quiet Roscommon village the p ub was a study in human nature. My aunt presided over the scene with sinc ere good humour and restored order whenever a row seemed imminent. Year s later, when I started to write short stories, the 2 CONC characters fro m that time came flooding back to me. Whenever I return to Monaghan and catch my first glimpse of the cathedra l spire some distance off, my heart lifts and I’m back again in my childh ood years. As I walk down the hill from the cathedral I remember the acri d smell of the town gasworks below me on my right and beyond that the asy lum where the poor inmates, all dressed alike in institutional suits of h erringbone grey, wander about the grounds. At the bottom of the hill is a n area known as the Shambles, so called because its original jumble of sm all houses followed no apparent pattern. In Dublin Street I pass what use d to be Malocca’s Ice Cream Parlour, now a fast food café. The Market Ba r has long since closed and is now a coffee shop. But the Market House op posite, converted into a Heritage Centre, is still there. As I stand on the steps, the years roll away and the Market House is onc e again bustling with people, farmers and gardeners selling their produce , traders and housewives filling their bags with fresh vegetables, middle men moving around among them making a living out of this primitive commer ce. That was then and this is now. Today County Monaghan is the centre o f the national mushroom and poultry industries and the town itself has a n affluent air. But the ghosts of the past are present also. Patrick J. Power has retired and is now a full-time writer and has ha d a number of plays broadcast on RTÉ and BBC Photographs featured in this article are courtesy of the Monaghan County Museum: Monaghan County Museum 1-2 Hill Street, Monaghan, Ireland Tel: + 353 47 82928 Fax: + 353 47 81189 Email: comuseum@monaghancoco.ie