What a celebration of Ballina it was last night, as we welcomed seventy attendees to a brilliantly eclectic tour through the history Ballina and Boher. It was made extra special for us as we held the talk in one of Ballina’s most historic buildings, the Lakeside Hotel.
Our first foray to the Tipperary side of the river went down a treat. Dr Kevin Griffin of the Dublin Institute of Technology (but more importantly, of Ballina!) aimed to ‘taunt, tantalise, tease, and torment’ us, and he accomplished all of this very well yesterday evening. We were guided through an extensive list of the online sources for the study of Ballina’s historical landscape, all of which are freely available to use. These included map, document, and photo archives, and many of them were new to us. Kevin then turned the tables on us, asking us what great remnants of the past lie lurking in our own communities, and challenged us to figure out how best we could collect up these important fragments and then share them. There was so much food for thought, and it is fair to say that everyone went home with their head spinning with new ideas for new local history focuses and projects!
A few of the online sources mentioned by Kevin are:
- The Historic Environment Viewer
- The National Folklore Collection
- Historic OSI Maps
- Griffith’s Valuation Maps
- Beal An Atha Facebook Photo Albums
- Tipperary Photo Archive
Thank you so much to Kevin, who drove a round trip of many hours to deliver this lecture to us. We did send him off with a coffee after to keep him awake! We are so grateful to scholars like Kevin who are so willing and so enthusiastic to share their own hard won research and experience with us.
The December talk is on the first Wednesday of December instead of the last, and that means it is next week! Find out all the details here, and see you there! Don’t forget we will have our fundraiser greeting cards for sale so bring a few bob for that if you would like some, thank you!
Killaloe-Ballina