View this email in your browser We started our 2023 talks with a very enjoyable presentation by Arlene White on the O’Maras of O’Mara’s Bacon Factory, more below.This month we have a very special speaker who is coming all the way from Australia. We would like to wish everyone a very Happy Easter, and look forward to meeting you at our upcoming talks. If you want to contact us on local history matters here are our numbers Arlene 086 3586293, Deborah 086 8334433. Or you can send an email to KillaloeBallinaLHS@gmail.com Thomas Francis Gleeson, Tipperary’s Boy – Australia’s Man  In April we welcome Phil Gleeson from Perth, Australia who is going to talk to us about his Great Grandfather, Thomas Francis Gleeson’s life in Australia. Thomas was born in Killary-Hayes near Ballina in 1857, and emigrated to Australia in the late 1880s. Phil will be accompanied by his partner Maryellen and his two sons, Lachlan and Thomas. In our correspondence with Phil over the last five months we found out much about his Great Grandfather Thomas’s family in Killary, and connected with local descendants of Thomas’s siblings; many of whom are excited to meet their relative from Australia. This talk will be as much a family reunion as a local history talk, and we are really looking forward to it. Phil is definitely our farthest flung speaker to date. Come along to the Ballroom at the Lakeside Hotel for what is sure to be an interesting talk and a lovely evening. The O’Maras of O’Mara’s Bacon Factory From Toomevara to Vienna  Our first talk of 2023 was a super evening. Arlene gave a very interesting talk about the family history of the O’Maras of O’Mara’s Bacon Factory. Our poster for the talk featured Julie Andrews from The Sound of Music, this seemed a bit random, but Arlene was to reveal the really interesting connection between the O’Maras and the famous Von Trapp family. More surprisingly, in the audience was Mary Shields, who at the end of the talk showed us this wonderful silver tray. The tray was a present from Norrie O’Sullivan (nee O’Mara) to her cousin Connie O’Mara to commemorate Connie’s wedding to Verner Von Trapp in 1913. Verner was killed in action in 1915 and the tray was returned to the O’Sullivans in Limerick. Mary is the granddaughter of Norrie and the great great granddaughter of James O’Mara from Toomevara and the founder of O’Mara’s Bacon Factory. This really rounded off what was a fantastic talk, so full of interesting family history. There were connections O’Mara connections to Killaloe too, pigs were collected locally by Christopher McGrath of Bridge Street for the Limerick bacon factories, Benson Box supplied packaging to O’Mara’s Bacon, and we have a copy of a 1930 receipt from O’Mara’s to Crotty’s Shop, given to us by Paul McGrath.   Contribution from Sean Pender On Monday 3rd of April an interesting looking package was delivered to Kincora House. It contained a glass lantern slide of an image of Killaloe taken from Ballina. We can tell from the cathedral tower that the image is pre-1900. This came from Sean Pender in the UK, who had bought The Album and read our appeal for images. We are very lucky to have been loaned many interesting slides from Antoinette and Martina Ryan, and from Margaret Egan. They are so numerous that we bought a light box for viewing and photographing them. Sean’s is really informative when lit up, it is definitely a candidate for Issue 2 of The Album.   We can’t thank Sean enough for going to the bother of packaging and posting this to us, along with a lovely letter. We are very grateful to him. Our May Talk In May we are expecting Luke McInerney to come to St. Flannan’s Cathedral to give a talk on the Early Medieval Irish Church. Luke is a well-known medieval researcher who has written many papers on the period. A banker by day in Dublin he somehow finds time to pursue his passion for Irish history. Here is his bio from academia.edu. Luke McInerney is an independent researcher with a particular focus on the late medieval history of Gaelic Ireland. His ancillary interests include the economic and social structure of medieval lordships in Ireland; the medieval Gaelic church; and the role and function of the learned class in Gaelic Ireland. Many of his key publications can be found in the issues of the ‘North Munster Antiquarian Journal’; ‘The Other Clare’; ‘Archivium Hibernicum’, ‘Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland ‘, ‘Seanchas Ardmhacha’ and Studia Hibernica. |
Our mailing address is: Kincora House, Church Street, Killaloe, Co Clare V94 H9E2
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