Packed House Again at Second Public Lecture

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It was a wonderful evening last night at Sandra Lefroy’s lecture on her historic family vessel, ‘The Phoenix’. 145 years old and still going strong, The Phoenix has called Killaloe home for more than a century. It was a really amazing lecture! Sandra took us through the incredible Lefroy family story in Killaloe and Ballina, which touched on the historic houses of Ferns Hollow and Cambrai, the old flour mill, the canal, and even a love affair with Jane Austen! She also went through all the skilled craftsmanship involved in maintaining a boat of this vintage, and some hilarious personal stories of what it was like to live on board with dogs, children, almost a horse, and certainly a ghost!

Thanks so much to all who attended, and we hope you enjoyed it. Scroll on down for news of the next lecture! A big thank you to Sandra for donating her time, her knowledge, and her scholarship so generously with us.

Save the date!

We are so delighted to announce that the speaker for November will be Brian J. Goggin. Brian is an accomplished historian of Ireland’s historic waterways; you can browse his encyclopaedic blog here. “Pierhead to Pierhead: Killaloe to Liverpool in the Age of Steam” promises to be unmissable! So don’t miss out – pop on down to the library in Killaloe at 7pm on Wednesday the 29th of November. See you there!

This talk will be entirely FREE to attend, and everyone is welcome.

If you can, please do help us promote this talk. Share the event or poster on Facebook or other social media, or even print out the poster and stick it up in your office or local cafe. Thank you so much!

We are always looking for enthusiastic individuals to get involved with the ‘behind the scenes’ of the Society! Does this sound like you? Hit reply to this email and let us know if you’d like to join in. It requires nothing more than meeting up for coffee once or twice a month, and chatting about local history. Doesn’t that sound great!

Don’t forget you can follow our Facebook page here, and sign up for our Mailing List here. If you want to follow up on any reading after the talk, why not drop into Killaloe Library where Mary or any of the staff will guide you to the brilliant local history section.