Category: Talks-now

We would like to thank Rory McKenna for his really interesting talk this evening on the Balbriggan Foreshore Dispute 1874-76. Rory gave a great insight into the Hamilton Family particularly George Alexander and his widow Amelia Fancourt and the town Commissioners of the time as well as the dispute that arose between the Hamilton family & Balbriggan Town Commissioners and the Bord of Trade over access to the foreshore.

The Foreshore dispute arose when the Hamilton Lands, which included most of Balbriggan, were being prepared for sale in 1874 and the foreshore and beach was included in the sale. This led to objections from the Balbriggan Town Commission and the Board of Trade in London. The issue arose again in in 1876 in relation to an application by Mrs Amelia Fancourt Hamilton for an exclusive lease of the foreshore adjoining her land, located where Hampton Cove is now. This led to an Enquiry in Balbriggan Courthouse in July 1876 before Arthur Fairfield an official from the Board of Trade in London.

In this talk by Dr David Doolin from neighbouring Lusk he shared his in depth knowledge of the Fenian Brotherhood in America and the meticulous planning of the invasions of Canada in 1866 and American British relations at the time. There were so many questions from the floor we could have stayed there for hours.This year marks the 150th Anniversary of the Fenian rising so it was timely to focus on this organisation which played a huge role in both national and international history. This talk focused on their invasions of Canada in 1866 and their importance in Canadian and US history.

Dr. David Doolin has taught courses in American, European, and Irish history at University College Dublin (UCD), Maynooth University, and the American College Dublin since his return to Ireland in September 2014, after spending the previous decade in the United States. His research and teaching focuses on both Ireland and America with a focus on the Irish in America, Irish American identity, the Fenian Brotherhood, American immigration, the American Civil War era, and aspects of American Empire and America at war.

This talk will be based on his book Transnational Revolutionaries: The Fenian Invasion of Canada 1866 where he investigates the significance of militant Irish Revolutionary nationalists, who managed to flourish in the United States during and immediately after the American Civil War, and the complexities of an Irish-American identity as an ethnic-American category, by taking a closer look at what is arguably a somewhat forgotten historical event. This book was was published in 2016, to coincide with the 150th year anniversary of that event and was launched by the Lord Mayor of Dublin Críona Ní Dhálaigh, in the presence of the Canadian Ambassador to Ireland, Kevin Vickers at Dublin’s Mansion House.

In 2020 the Centenary of the Sack of Balbriggan will take place and Balbriggan & District Historical Society are planning a series of events in the lead up to this. We would like to see further research done on this topic in the next few years and to that end we hosted a half day seminar, in association with Balbriggan Library, on how to do Historical Research.

The following were the speakers:
Brian Gallagher who has recently published a teenager’s historical novel Pawns, set during the Sack Of Balbriggan
Íde Ní Liathain, Balbriggan Library who will speak about the resources Fingal Libraries have for research
Brendan Matthews well known Community Historian who has published a book on the Sack of Balbriggan. He will give a general overview of the Sack and topics for further research and will bring along primary sources, such as newspaper clips to the talk.

The wealth of information to be found in newspapers was stressed by Brendan Matthews, particularly in relation to what else was happening in the period that you were researching, or how you could follow a thread from one snippet in a paper to checking the census etc. Ide illustrated the many resources available in the Library such as the many journals available on Jstor or the information you could research at home on  sites such as http://www.bureauofmilitaryhistory.ie/  If you have some family connection with the Sack of Balbriggan or any other local history, or if you are interested in how to learn about it, be sure to get in touch and we will help you research it further.

For our August talk we were delighted to have such an interesting topic from this excellent speaker. Sinead McCoole is a well known historian who has written extensively in the area of modern Irish History with a focus on the role of women, her books include A Life of Lady Lavery, Guns and Chiffon, No Ordinary Women and Easter Widows -the untold story of the 1916 Rising. As a Curator she has worked on exhibitions on Irish history and Irish Art which have toured Ireland as well as being on show in Northern Ireland, the US and Africa.

She has scripted a number of documentaries including Who is She?, Women of 1916, Guns and Chiffon and a Father’s Letter. In 2012, the Irish Government selected Sinéad as one of 10 historians to serve on an Expert Advisory Group for the Decade of Centenaries 2012-2022. For her Balbriggan talk, as well as looking at the national context, she spoke about local women including Sinéad Ní Fhlannagaín, De Valera and Molly Adrien and the sad death of Muriel McDonagh in Skerries.

2017 marks the 100 anniversary of the Russian Revolution so it was appropriate that we marked this with a talk in our schedule. It is always interesting to look at world events in an Irish context and our talk  also focussed on Irish labour history of the era.

Our speaker was Padraig Yeates who is very well known as a social and labour Historian as well as a publicist, journalist and trade union activist. His book Lockout is considered the standard work on the great Dublin labour dispute of 1913. He is also author of the acclaimed A City in Wartime, A City in Turmoil and A City in Revolution.
This was a great opportunity to hear this well known speaker in a local setting giving a very interesting talk on the Labour Movement in Russia, Ireland and Europe in general in that period. It was interesting to hear about Irish Soviets like the Limerick Soviet in 1919 and the importance of the transport workers refusal to handle British troops and weapons in 1920.

Our April talk was about a figure many are more familiar with after the 1916 Commemorations in Fingal last year as he was the leader of the Fingal Brigade, whose success at the Battle of Ashbourne was one of the few in 1916. But there was much more to Thomas Ashe’s life when he moved from Kerry to Fingal and taught in Corduff National School and founded the Black Raven Pipe Band as well as Round Towers GAA club.

This talk was presented by Brian Arnold, a native of Corduff, Lusk, where he attended Corduff National School. Ashe has a personal interest for Brian as in 1908 Thomas Ashe became a Principal of this small two room school, his first introduction to Corduff and Lusk. Brian is now the Chairperson of Lusk Community Council. The Community Council has highlighted the importance of Ashe in the community and on the national stage for many years and it is planning a series of events in 2017 to commemorate the legacy of Thomas Ashe. Brian designed an exhibition on The Life and Times of Thomas Ashe in 2010 and edited a special 1916 publication titled “Lusk and The 1916 Easter Rising”.