From the archives: Crying cats caused consternation in Mayo town
By Tom Gillespie
THE nocturnal ‘squalling’ of cats in Castlebar featured at the Castlebar Petty Sessions on Wednesday, May 29, 1861, where the tabbies were described as a ‘fearful nuisance’.
Mr. A.R. Stritch, R.M., presided and the professional gentlemen present were C. O’Malloy, B.L., J.Kelly, M. Jordan and P. Gibbons.
The business of the court was prefaced by a most formal charge on the part of Mr. Kelly against what he described as a fearful nuisance - the cats of Castlebar.
The court was told the vigilance of the Constabulary had been properly called by his worship to the canine nuisance, but he (Mr. Kelly) had no hesitation in saying that there was no comparison between the homely bark of a dog and the lugubrious ‘squall’ of a cat.
Then, the dog was naturally humble and retiring in his habits; he was not, as a rule, given to night-walking and never was found conspiring with his fellas against the peace and quiet of society during hours off repose.
The dog submitted quietly to either log or muzzle, and he (Mr. Kelly) could give no credit to the force of making reprisals among such an orderly body of quadrupeds. On the other hand, the cat was a gregarious animal - a disposer of the powers that be and strongly inclined to conspiracy and rebellion.
The nightly meetings of the cats of this town were now notorious to every class except the Constabulary. In his own neighbourhood, men, women and children were put in terror of their lives, at least three nights of the week, by the unearthly noise issuing from the Courthouse, the Old Jail, and all the passages leading thereto, where the feline tribe and tribes of the town congregate.
There was to be seen marching in scores to the place of meeting black cats, white cats, red cats, yellow cats, and tabby cats; and he was sure if Constable Mulcahy would patrol the Mall on a Saturday night, or between 12 and one o’clock on a Sunday morning, he would, by reconnoitring the nooks and corners of the neighbourhood of the trees, discover cats with nine tails, cats without tails, cats with half tails, and tailless cats; cats with nine lives, ten lives and lifeless cats.
The fact was that some old warriors who had service and bore medals on their breasts now fear to traverse the town after nightfall is consequence of the formidable front the cats oppose to the public.
Even the children had got no strange ideas of the power wielded by cats, and they can hardly use a term in their games or plays without the word cat making a part of it.
‘Cats and clay’, ‘cat-in-pan’, ‘cat and bagpipes’, ‘Jeffrey that faced the cat’, and ‘Whittington and his cat’ are becoming household words.
The lads at school are puzzled to account for the whole catalogue of cats - such as categories, cataracts, cataplasms, catacombs, categorical, catacherises, and a thousand others that cross their path.
Now the concatenation of cats, with this caterwalling and nightly concerts, that infest the town had become quite intolerable, and should be put down by the strong arm of the law.
There could be no greater admirer of the Constabulary than the speaker; but he had hesitation in asserting that nursing ‘vacant’ moustaches and caressing incident ‘imperils’, while an active campaign should be going on against the gregarious enemy of the nightly repose of Her Majesty’s subjects, was a woful neglect of duty.
He held that the owners of cats should be punished for not making their domestics keep regular hours. Can it be endured that a dog should carry a log and a muzzle and a cat go about subject to no restrain?
Mr. Jordan here edged in a plea of justification on the grounds that it was quite natural of cats to make nightly appointments and keep them. If he (Mr. Jordan) were forced to let the cat out of the bag he would show that the police had no more power or legal right to muzzle a cat than Mr. Kelly had to put down their very natural constitutional meetings.
Here there seemed to be for a time a prospect of a more interesting display of natural philosophy between the learned gentlemen when his worship interposed by observing that the regular business before the court should take precedence over all other matters. And so the cats were passed over without any border being put in force against them.
* From The Connaught Telegraph, February 3, 1906.