Join us for our May talk ‘Castles, Churches and Cobblestones – The built heritage of Balbriggan’ – by Dr Cora McDonagh
Wednesday May 28th at 8pm Bracken Court Hotel Balbriggan.
Admission €5, Members free All Welcome
‘Rev. Fee won a canary and Miss O’ Fibilley won a chest of tea’ What has this to do with the built heritage of Balbriggan? Both were prize winners at the much-anticipated and widely supported weeklong Balbriggan Bazaar and Fete held in August 1894. This had been organized by the women of Balbriggan as a fundraiser for the new additions to St Peter & Paul’s church. Join us for this fascinating talk on the built heritage of Balbriggan where you will hear more about this bazaar and the history behind some of the most iconic buildings in Balbriggan, who built them, how they were funded and what stories they can tell us. Balbriggan is rich in its built heritage from the site of the 7th century church of St Molaga to the 21st century Lark Theatre and so much in between. Cora will also look at the medallions on the walls at Smyth & Co and explain their significance from Paris to Philadelphia.
Biography of Speaker:
In 2024 Dr Cora Mc Donagh was awarded a PhD for her thesis ‘Irish country house collections, display and dispersal: A social study of Irish art loan exhibitions and auctions, 1798 – 1916’ at Maynooth University, under the supervision of Professor Terence Dooley and Dr Alison FitzGerald. She lectures in Irish Art & Architecture 1600-1900 at the International Summer School at Maynooth University. In 2019 she was awarded a four-year John and Pat Hume Doctoral scholarship. Other scholarships and bursaries include the 2019 Desmond Guinness Scholarship (The Irish Georgian Society), the 2019 Kevin B Nowlan Bursary (The Castletown Foundation) and in 2021 the Sir Alfred Beit Research Bursary (Russborough House). In 2023 she completed a post-doctoral research project for the RDS Library and Archives where she conducted research on the Great Industrial Exhibition of 1853. She co-curated two exhibitions on the role of the RDS in the organisation of the 1853 exhibition for the RDS Library and the Royal Irish Academy Library. In 2025 she was the recipient of the Thomas Damman Junior Memorial Trust award which will aid her research at the archives in Rome where she is examining the work of Sir John Lavery in Italy.