Each one of them chose an old building in Killaloe or Ballina, and built it in Minecraft, and the results are truly spectacular. Each one of the brilliant winners below will receive a certificate and a prize.

Take a trip through old Killaoe/ Ballina below! (Winners are listed in alphabetical order of their first name.)

Aine C is 9 years old and this is St Flannan’s Cathedral. Glad she didn’t use the TNT block in the menu!

Amelia, age 12, decided to do Killaloe Bridge! Aren’t the arches brilliant?

Anna is 9 years old and this is St Flannans’ Cathedral – isn’t the tower very true to life?

Can you guess what building Cillian built? The steps are a giveaway! It’s the library!

Eoin is 12 years old and these are different views of St Flannan’s Cathedral – click to make them bigger!

Felix age 8 and Casper age 5 worked on St Flannan’s Cathedral too, and submitted it as a team!

Jack age 10 and Daniel age 9 also worked as a team to RECREATE how Brian Boru’s Fort would have looked like when it was still standing! How cool is that! They went and looked at the drawings on the site and everything!

Jamie is 6 years old and this is St Flannan’s Cathedral – aren’t the stained glass windows beautiful!

This is Ballina Church, built by Lucas age 9, check out the detail on the interior!

This St Flannan’s Cathedral is just brilliant – look at the whole landscape that is built around it. This is from Oscar, age 8!

Here is a beautiful interior of Ballina Church by Oskar, age 11 – more beautiful stained glass, and look at that stonework.

Our last winner is Tadhg, age 7, who built St Flannan’s Cathedral, but we might have to let the Bishop know about those TNT blocks before the next service!!

Thank you so much again to all our fantastic junior local historians, and we hope you enjoy building and eating your prizes!

Exactly one year after Ger Browne was due to deliver this lecture in person, he has now kindly agreed to deliver it by Zoom.
In this lecture, Ger will tell us about the Clare WWI project and then recount the stories of the people from Killaloe-Ballina who fought in the Great War. Ger has written extensively on the involvement of the people of Clare in the World Wars.
This will be our first talk on Word War I and it’s sure to be fascinating.
This lecture will be through Zoom – to register, please email killaloeballinalhs@gmail.com.
All are Welcome!

The Journal is full of local history, stories and poems from times past in our beautiful twin towns.

There are fabulous stories from some local people who are sadly no longer with us, including Pa Carey, Birdhill; Jerry Gough, Killaloe; Tom Grimes, Killaloe; Billy Mills, Ballina, Jack O’Sullivan, Kilmastulla and Maureen Scanlan, Killaloe.
Also included are some fantastic articles contributed by Joe Coleman; Joachim Fischer; Sandra Lefroy; Tomás Mac Conmara; Kathleen Hickey McGinnis; Darren O’Connaill; John & Mark Scanlan

If that’s not enough to tempt you, The Journal also includes lots of photos, some paintings and sketches and old newspaper adverts!

And all for only €20!

We would like to say a huge thank you to all those who helped us put this publication together – Fifth Gear Design, the Nenagh Guardian Print and all those who contributed stories, articles and photos.

The Journal will be available for sale from the following local shops: 
Ballina: Larkin’s Gala & T.J.’s Angling Centre
Killaloe: Heaney’s Costcutter & The Forge (John Daly’s)

You can also buy a copy of The Journal HERE and we can post it to you – please add an extra €4 for postage in Ireland or €6 for postage abroad.

In line with COVID-19 restrictions, we are limited to direct sale through shops (as above) or by An Post (local, national and international post). Unfortunately we cannot arrange home delivery or collection.
However, if you have any queries, drop us an email – killaloeballinalhs@gmail.com

Arlene edited the recordings to highlight Past Times and Pastimes which was the theme for Heritage Week 2019. 

Arlene played each recording in segments giving us the background of the subject about to be described by the speaker and also provided a printed transcript to keep up with the recording. The transcript was invaluable as the rhythm of those wonderful voices made it easy to lose track of time and space.  There was also a slide show to illustrate the memories.

It was a wonderful evening, the audience of nearly 90 really enjoyed being transported back to the Killaloe and Ballina of old, with talk of milk cans, making butter, weaving, the railways, the dances at the Creamery, the cinema and the ebb and flow of simpler but harder times.

There are plenty more recordings so look forward to another evening of memories in the future, Arlene will continue to summarise the recordings in our Blog and in the Nenagh Guardian and Clare Champion so keep an eye out. 

Thank you for all your efforts Arlene, they are deserving of the 2018 Hidden Heritage National Award presented to the Society last year. 

We are thrilled to announce details of this month’s talk. Our June lecture will take place on WEDNESDAY 19TH JUNE in the Lakeside Hotel in Ballina, Killaloe. This lecture will be given by Deborah Dudgeon, our committee Secretary and is on the Historic Hotels of Killaloe & Ballina over a period of 150 years.

During the 1800’s, the Shannon had become known throughout the UK as the place to fish for trout and salmon. Lords & Ladies, Dukes and Duchesses and landed Gentry of Mainland Britain traveled to Lough Derg, and specifically Killaloe…..and they needed someplace to stay.

Deborah has researched newspaper archives, old photographs, maps and census records, to provide an insight into the lodgings that were available, who owned them and what the guests had to say about their stay in Killaloe.

The growth in the number of hotels was apparent up to 1928 but then the impact of Ardnacrusha was felt when fish stocks declined. However in the 1960’s & ’70’s there was an initiative to grow tourism numbers and The Lakeside Hotel opened their Country Club and Marina, Ballyvalley Hotel was opened and the area enjoyed a mini tourism boom.

We will see you on the evening of WEDNESDAY 19TH JUNE at 7.30pm in the Oak Room of the Lakeside Hotel. The Lakeside Hotel are providing our Society with this venue for free, and we thank them for this sponsorship. If you want to thank them for this, why not pop in for your lunch or dinner!

Entry to this lecture is FREE as usual, and everyone of all ages and levels of interest is welcome.

Help us promote this event by clicking ‘Going’ on the Facebook event here, or sharing this blogpost. See you there!

At a special Awards ceremony in the Royal Irish Academy on Dawson Street, Dublin last Wednesday, MC Mary Kennedy commended communities and individuals all over the country who in total organised 5,300 events in Ireland to celebrate Heritage Week in August 2018. Prizes were presented on the day by Minister Seán Kyne, accompanied by Virginia Teehan, the newly appointed CEO of the Heritage Council and Michael Parsons, Chairperson of the Heritage Council.

Awards were presented in five different categories:

Heritage Hero Award –
The Heritage Hero Award celebrates an individual who always goes the extra mile for heritage, who makes an outstanding contribution to the protection and promotion of heritage in Ireland. We would like to say huge congratulations to Eugene Dunbar from Co. Westmeath, who was chosen from 592 entries under this category.

Le Cheile san Eoraip Awards
As part of European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018 the new Le Cheile san Eoraip Award recognises event organisers who explore Ireland’s heritage connections with other places in Europe. Three prizes of €1,000 are awarded to the organisers of events during EYCH 2018.

Heritage Communities
The Heritage Communities Award recognises events that bring communities together to celebrate National Heritage Week.

Cool for Kids
The Cool for Kids Award recognises events that helped children learn about and enjoy heritage and encouraged children and families to participate in National Heritage Week.

Hidden Heritage Award –
The Hidden Heritage Award shines a light on Ireland’s hidden heritage. This award recognises event organisers who successfully explored lesser known aspects of Ireland’s heritage during National Heritage Week.

The Killaloe Ballina Local History Society were delighted and honoured to be shortlisted under this category for our Heritage Week event “Sharing Memories”, where we shared recordings from the Killaloe Heritage collection; a project which took place in the early 1990’s and involved interviewing and recording a number of older people from the Killaloe & Ballina area. These oral history projects capture the lives of the ordinary everyday people in our communities and give an insight into what these historical twin-towns were like to live in years ago. The Killaloe Heritage Collection is currently stored in the Local Studies Centre in Ennis and very few people are aware of its existence, including family members of those who were interviewed as part of this project.
The Killaloe-Ballina Local History Society has now digitised this entire collection of cassettes and we aim to make them available locally and online over the coming year.

We would like to say a huge thanks to all those who have assisted with this project.

Further details on Killaloe Ballina Local History Society, and this Oral History project, can be found on http://www.info---links.com

You can listen to the full interview here through Soundcloud!

My husband was John Grimes, one of the “originals” of Killaloe, oh yes, and they were in the Church since he was born until Mary left it about 3 years ago and Mrs Geraghty took it on, they were always sacristans in the Church, oh yes always.
He worked on the Fishery Board for a good while and he worked on the Shannon Scheme and he didn’t like it he was a kind of a naturalist so he liked gardening and he got a job as a gardener at … where the Parish Priest lives now, there was an old lady named Mrs. Lefroy and he worked for her for years and the flowers down there were gorgeous and he used all the time tend his flowers and he brought up a couple of bits and slips and that time our garden was gorgeous.

Your husband’s family – how many generations were they here?

Oh Goodness, the Grimes’s were natives of Fenlea and there’s a field up there and I think John Scanlan bought it and they call it Grimes’s Meadow so they came from up there. And there are tombstones down there in the graveyard, I think they are the second oldest family in Killaloe, they are all buried down there in St. Flannan’s graveyard. There’s a Michael and his wife buried down there and there’s a John and his wife buried down there too and Bunty’s father, her 3 brothers and her sister they are all buried down there but they go back, they are the second oldest family and I’d say the Ryan’s, J.H. Ryan, well they are the oldest family in Killaloe and they are all related to the Daly’s and to Bridget Tully, Bridget Tully’s mother was Grimes and Betty Daly’s mother was Mary Grimes, I remember that. And Gerald Brookes wife was a sister of Bridget’s so they are all mixed up, then John’s mother was Guerin and Danny Guerin was her nephew, that owned the house that those people bought, the Sheedy’s and he left it to Syl Addley and he sold it to the Sheedy’s and of course Mai Sheedy’s husband was related to the Minogue’s too.

In my husband’s family there was Paddy, John, Tommy, Michael, twins John and Tommy too but they died, there was Sadie, Mary, Nellie and Peggy a very big family but they were all big families that time, yeah there are no big families anymore.

What would they have done for a living?

They made their living that time from fishing, always fishing and they were able to make a living and I remember when I married John they had a little house over there and they used to smoke the salmon in there, it was over there beyond in Thomas Street where Rita Corbett lived RIP, well I married John and we lived in that house and there was a whole crowd in it, Mam gave out that “he should have got a house for you” but I said sure I can go up to Fahy’s and work every day and not be down there at all and we got on the finest we never had an argument, never, we got on the grandest.
I was to go to Limerick at the time I came here to Killaloe but Mrs. Minogue over on the Green, they owned where O’Sullivan’s are, Mary’s mother and father now, and Mrs. Minogue told my mother when she came in that Mrs. Fahy wanted someone until whoever was working for her there got better from the measles or something like that, that Eileen Geraghty had, so Mam said to me, “Go in now to Mrs. Fahy for a week or a fortnight” – well I came into Killaloe that time and I never left it. I met John and his lovely hair enticed me so I stayed, love is a killing thing (laughing), it’s a killing thing in a lot of ways (laughing). So they tell us (laughing)

What would your husband have thought of the Shannon Scheme?

He worked in it. They got a £100 when their living through fishing was taken away.

Was that a lot of money then?

Oh it was a lot of money that time. Do you know that I worked for 5 shillings a week? I wouldn’t offer it to one of the lads now because they’d go mad. But the money was a lot more valuable that time.

And that was working I suppose 40 hours or more?

Ah t’was, working all day and half the night, polishing shoes and all those kind of things and I would have had more money if I had gone to Limerick to Lady Shaw but as I told you love prevails (laughing).

Did your husband miss the fishing?

Well he didn’t do much fishing because he was a bailiff himself you see, himself and his brother Tommy, they were on the rivers and it was his father that done the fishing and their Uncle Tom.

When I came here those houses weren’t built along there but there was small houses, and there was Mary Kate Magee, Jimmy Barrington and his mother and there was Willie Geraghty that lived at the corner house and his wife. And down in New Street there was no new houses, they were all old houses with half-doors, at that time and ah, we used to have to draw the water from the pump over there up to Fahy’s but of course now they all have the water in now. Of course the Jail was here, the four houses along here and the Courthouse was up there, and at the time of the Tans there was a Centry shot, I remember the Jail with the big bars on it, the Centry came and he was standing over there near Mary Kate Magee’s and this soldier came there to the gate below and he had a cigarette held liked that and the soldier aimed at the cigarette and he was shot, I remember the Jail well.

Then they knocked down that and they built those four houses, I remember them being built and I on my way to Mountshannon on a bicycle with my first cousin.

And who built them? Were they built and sold privately?

They were built by the Council and the Council leased them to anyone who wanted a house and the first people that got one was Mick Cassidy got the one here, Mick Meade got this one, Johnny Reddan got the one next to me and Paddy Grimes got the one below, so now Bunty Grimes is his daughter and she is still there and Mrs Reddan is still alive out there and I think she is 86 years, she is a great little woman and then Mick Meade went away and John looked for this but his father looked for it too as the one beyond was dangerous but sure it is still standing. Dr. Courtney got them to agree that she would give it to Jack (his father) and “Mud” while they lived and when they died it would go to John and I, so that’s how it happened and now it is fully paid for and it’s my own and I can do what I like with it.
Nana’s is the place where they come for a few bob or a pound if I have it.

I remember the four boys were drowned, I remember that evening well, Bill Brien came in and told Mam, so Mam got into her ass and car and she came in here to see Mrs. Kiely.
Here we were outside and we trying to get those blessed old turkeys down and they sitting above gobbling and they wouldn’t come down for us and we were calling and they would not come down. Then my step-father came over and we told him about the drowning’s and all the rest and we told him we couldn’t get down the turkeys. They were used to me mother. So he said I’ll try and get them down, well you should have seen him trying to get them down. Anyway, I think we got them down in the end, they came down when they got hungry I suppose.

We had oceans of turkeys, ducks and hens out in Ross, all we had to buy was tea, sugar and things like that, we were self supportive. Then we had the turf from the Red Bog, we used to cut turf there. My husband used to say “I brought you in from the Red Bog” and I’d say, “You did not, I came in myself” (laughing)

Where is the Red Bog?

It is between Bridgetown and O’Briensbridge.

Is it still there – do people still cut turf there?

I think they still cut the turf there, ya. We used to pick Ceannbhán.

What is Ceannbhán – I never heard of it!

It’s like a rush and there’s a lovely white flower on it, not really a flower but it’s a lovely thing.
And there was a Well down there and we used to go for water and it was as cold as ice and every evening maybe meself and Liam would go down for 2 gallons of the pure spring water and we’d sit down then and make daisy chains and all that kind of thing and bring up a whole big bunch, me mother used to be overlaid with Ceannbhán I loved it and I haven’t picked a bit of Ceannbhán for years. It was lovely out there. I loved Ross. You’d hear the Cuckoo all over the place and the Corncrey, I think he’s preserved now!

Would you say Killaloe has changed much?

Killaloe has changed a lot, oh very much.

For the better?

No not for the better, every factory is gone but for Bensons factory and they were there when I came into the town and they are still there but they are on a 3 day week, sure didn’t the one go down there the other day and all those that were down there, there is no work around and I think that war finished it all together, at least as regards tourists and things, I wonder if it will pick up, it would be great if it did.
I believe that in time to come they are to build a new bridge, yes that was said, I had a cutting but I looked everywhere for it but I can’t find it.

But Killaloe has changed very, very much and not very much for the better.
I hope it will pick up Please God it will.

This interview was recorded in the early 1990’s.

It was digitized by the Killaloe Ballina Local History Society in 2018 with assistance from Clare County Council and Paddy Collins, Ballina.

We have one Killaloe card, and it shows Church Street (the little street that Whelan’s shop is on today). You can see the old women with their shawls walking down the path, and if you look very closely, you can see the meat hanging outside the butchers. We have one Ballina card, and it shows the river before the Shannon Scheme, as well as a very different riverside street than what is there today. Both cards come with an explanation of the view on the back, as well as an envelope made of recycled paper. Both images are from the Lawrence Collection (courtesy of the National Library of Ireland) and were taken (probably) by Robert French sometime between 1895 and 1910.

You can get two cards for five euro, or five cards for ten euro, and you can mix and match them how you like.

We will have the cards for sale at our upcoming talks – one is this coming Wednesday 28th November, and one is next Wednesday 5th November. If you can’t make it to the talks, or you live abroad, email us at killaloeballinalhs@gmail.com and we will sort you out (we have Paypal and will charge postage at cost).

We plan to use the money raised from our new greeting cards to pay for posters for our talks next year. Thanks so much for your support!