Events
Published in Editorial, Issue 2 (March/April 2018), Volume 26MARCH
05 Mon 6.30pm
Engineers Ireland Heritage Society, 22 Clyde Road, Dublin 4.
Cast-iron bridges, Ron Cox.
05 Mon 7.30pm
Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 63 Merrion Sq. S.
Everything but the apothecary: recent archaeological excavations, Kevin Street, Dublin, Alan Hayden.
07 Wed 7pm
Irish Association of Professional Historians, National Library of Ireland, Kildare Street.
Annual lecture: Penal Times—Irish Catholics in the eighteenth century, Ian McBride.
07 Wed 8pm
Rathmichael Historical Society, National School, Stonebridge Road.
Georgian Dublin: the forces that shaped the city, Diarmuid Ó Gráda. Adm. €4.
08 Thur 8.30pm
Enniskerry History Society, Powerscourt Arms & Country House Hotel.
Dublin firefighters and the Easter 1941 Belfast Blitz, James Scannell. Adm. €5.
09 Fri 1pm
National Monuments & Buildings Record for Northern Ireland, Ulster Museum, Belfast.
Creggandevesky: excavation of a court cairn in Ulster, Claire Foley.
09 Fri 8pm
Military History Society of Ireland, Griffith College, South Circular Road.
The destruction of the Irish divisions, March 1918, Nicholas Page.
13 Tues 1.05pm
Friends of Medieval Dublin, Dublin City Council Offices, Wood Quay.
The Mayor’s Tale, Howard Clarke.
13 Tues 7pm
Tallaght Historical Society, County Library, The Square.
Joe Poole: the sixth Invincible, Micheál Ó Doibhilin.
14 Wed 6pm
Old Dublin Society, Dublin City Library & Archive, 138–144 Pearse Street.
The Dublin Paving Board (1774–1747): grime and grandeur of the city’s streets, Finnian Ó Connlaith.
14 Wed 8pm
Roe Valley Historical Society, Drumachose Church Hall, Limavady.
1718—emigration, Linde Lunney.
16 Fri 7pm
Shane Kenna Memorial Lecture, Pearse Centre, 27 Pearse Street.
A critical analysis of the First World War and its impact on Ireland, Lorcan Collins.
21 Wed 6.30pm
Irish Texts Society, National Library of Ireland, Kildare Street.
Breandán Ó Buachalla Memorial Lecture: Pilgrims and poets in fifteenth-century Gaelic Ireland, Bernadette Cunningham.
25 Sun 3pm
County Kildare Archaeological Society, Kilcullen Heritage Centre.
‘We have lost our Great Mrs Connolly’: the life and letters of Katherine Connolly (1662–1752) of Castletown House, Gaye Ashford. Adm. €5.
26 Mon 8pm
Clondalkin Historical Society, Áras Chrónáin, Watery Lane.
Matilda Tone—a rebel’s wife, Larry Breen.
26 Mon 8pm
Thomond Archaeological & Historical Society, Room T.1.17, Tara Building, Mary Immaculate College.
The Treaty county Orangemen—historical notes on Orangeism in Limerick, Quentin Dougan.
29 Thurs 5.30pm
Rebel Women of the 20th Century, GPO Witness Visitor Centre.
Eva Gore-Booth, Sonja Tiernan.
Free booking @ www.gpowitnesshistory.ie.
29 Thur 7.30pm
Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 63 Merrion Sq. S.
Frederick William Burton: a life defined by art and antiquity, Marie Bourke.
APRIL
03 Tues 8pm
Kilmacanogue History Society, Glenview Hotel, Glen of the Downs.
The history of the Irish Red Cross in County Wicklow, Frank Kelly. Adm. €3.
05 Thur 8pm
Mount Merrion Historical Society, Community Centre, North Avenue.
The role of women in the Irish Revolution, 1916–23, Liz Gillis. Adm. €4/students €2.
06 Fri 8pm
Military History Society of Ireland, Griffith College, South Circular Road.
‘You may as well recruit Germans’: the conscription crisis of 1918, Adrian Gregory.
09 Mon 7.30pm
Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 63 Merrion Sq. S.
Making Victorian Dublin: an intertwining of archaeology and geology, Patrick N. Wyse Jackson.
10 Tues 7pm
Tallaght Historical Society, County Library, The Square.
Ireland’s ancient roads, John Dolan.
11 Wed 6pm
Old Dublin Society, Dublin City Library & Archive, 138–144 Pearse Street.
St Thomas’s parish Grand Jury records, Seán Magee.
11 Wed 8pm
Roe Valley Historical Society, Drumachose Church Hall, Limavady.
Partition of India, Tom Fraser.
12 Thur 6.30pm
Antrim & Down Branch Western Front Association, Public Records Office of Northern Ireland, Belfast.
History of Palace Barracks (up to 1969) and Holywood as a garrison town, Robin Macefield.
12 Thur 8pm
Kilmacud Stillorgan Local History Society, Glenalbyn Sports Club.
Women, the vote and citizenship: the general election of 1918, Mary McAuliffe. Adm. €3.
13 Fri 1pm
National Monuments & Buildings Record for Northern Ireland, Ulster Museum, Belfast.
Crafting a chronology for early medieval Ireland: rural craft-work from the fifth to twelfth centuries AD, Emma Hanna.
16 Mon 6.30pm
Engineers Ireland Heritage Society, 22 Clyde Road, Ballsbridge.
History of arterial drainage, Tim Joyce.
17 Tues 7pm
Irish Historical Society, Trinity Long Hall Hub.
Symposium: Does Irish History have a future?
19 Thur 5.30pm
Rebel Women of the 20th Century, GPO Witness Visitor Centre.
Grace Gifford Plunkett, Felix M. Larkin.
Free booking @ www.gpowitnesshistory.ie.
21 Sat 2.30pm
Western Front Association (Dublin Branch), National Museum, Collins Barracks.
The 1st Leinsters, a battalion of ‘the Old Contemptibles’: who they were and what became of them, John Goodman. Adm. €3.
23 Mon 8pm
Thomond Archaeological & Historical Society, Room T.1.17, Tara Building, Mary Immaculate College.
Brendan O’Regan, Cian O’Carroll/Brian O’Connell.
26 Thur 7.30pm
Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 63 Merrion Sq. S.
Lords and literature: contents and contexts of some later medieval Irish manuscripts, Rúairí Ó hUiginn.
26 Thur 8pm
Rathmines, Ranelagh & Rathgar Historical Society, Rathmines Town Hall.
The Moravians in Dublin, Ged Walsh. Adm. €3.
Personal Histories
On this Day
April 24
- 1951 Enda Kenny, TD for Mayo West (1975–97) and Mayo (1997–2020), leader of Fine Gael (2002–17) and taoiseach (2011–17), born in Derrycoosh, Islandeady, near Castlebar, Co. Mayo.
- 1945
Above: The steamship Monmouth Coast—torpedoed by a German U-boat near Tory Island on 24 April 1945. (Paul Johnson Collection)
During the last week of the Second World War, the Monmouth Coast, an unescorted steamship en route from Sligo to Liverpool with a cargo of barytes ore from the mines of Ben Bulben, was torpedoed by a German U-boat some seven miles north-east of Tory Island. The captain and fifteen crewmen (including two Irishmen) lost their lives, but one managed to survive, thanks to two locals from Arranmore. Two days later, whilst beachcombing on the north-eastern coast of the island, they spotted a life-raft floating in a remote sandy inlet; they rowed out to it and lifted the tarpaulin, to discover a wide-eyed teenager, Derek Cragg (17) from Liverpool, the mess-room boy from the Monmouth Coast. He explained that the ship had gone down very quickly and that those of the crew who managed to leap clear were sucked down after it. He, too, was dragged down but somehow managed to make it back to the surface, where he spotted the life-raft and clambered on board. He was given every assistance by the islanders and safely repatriated, but had the north-easterly wind that drove him 25 miles blown him into the adjoining inlet, his raft would have been smashed to pieces. Over 30,000 Allied merchant seamen, of every nationality, lost their lives during the war. Despite our neutrality, Irish Shipping lost two ships. The Irish Pine was torpedoed off Greenland in November 1942 with the loss of all 33 on board, and the Irish Oak was sunk in the North Atlantic in May 1943, though her entire crew was rescued by a sister-ship, the Irish Plane.
- 1912 Justin McCarthy (82), Home Rule politician, leader of the anti-Parnellite faction (1891–6), historian and novelist, died.
- 1916 The Easter Rising began.Sir Ernest Shackleton and five of his crew set out on their epic 720-nautical-mile rescue mission in the James Caird, from Elephant Island to South Georgia.
- 1974 The Electricity Supply Board (ESB) announced that Carnsore Point, Co. Wexford, would be the site of its planned nuclear power station.
May 19
- 1935
Above: ‘Lawrence of Arabia’—his father was in fact Sir Thomas Chapman of South Hill, Delvin, Co. Westmeath.
T.E.—Thomas Edward—Lawrence (46), the legendary ‘Lawrence of Arabia’, died as a result of a motorcycle accident in Dorset. For much of his adult life Lawrence was a troubled man. Though his key role in the British-inspired Arab revolt (1916) against Ottoman Turkish rule earned him international celebrity, he was torn by guilt over Britain’s post-war betrayal of the Arabs with the implementation at Versailles of the notorious Sykes–Picot Agreement. Then there was the issue of identity. At the tender age of ten he discovered that his parents were not married, meaning that he and his four brothers were illegitimate. Later he was to learn that ‘Mr Lawrence’, his father, was, in fact, Sir Thomas Chapman of South Hill, Delvin, Co. Westmeath, who, though married with four daughters, had fled with their governess, Sarah Lawrence, first to Wales—where ‘Ned’ was born—and finally to London. He was eventually to find himself increasingly drawn to his father’s homeland. A close friend of George Bernard Shaw and his wife Charlotte—GBS had helped him to edit his major work, Seven pillars of wisdom (1926)—he mentioned his desire in his surviving letters to visit Ireland and often referred to the works of Seán O’Casey, James Joyce and J.M. Synge. Indeed, he hoped to write a biography of Sir Roger Casement. It seems that he never did try to make contact with his half-sisters. In 1954, almost twenty years after his death, some of his old friends visited the two surviving ones, who were living at 39 Northumberland Road, Dublin. They told them that they had followed their half-brother’s career with great interest but likewise had made no attempt to contact him.
- 1870 The Home Government Association of Ireland was founded by Isaac Butt with the aim of establishing a federal system for the United Kingdom, which would grant Ireland a parliament responsible for national affairs. Succeeded by the Home Rule League (1873).
- 1868 Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness, son of Arthur Guinness (1725–1803), brewer and writer who restored St Patrick’s Cathedral (1860), died.