| For Heritage Week Deborah treated us to Tales of the Cathedral at St. Flannan’s Cathedral and officially launched the new Discover St. Flannan’s guide. We have taken down our outdoor exhibition at the Pier Head but the panels haven’t disappeared, you will see them popping up in places around Killaloe and Ballina. Our next batch of Building History Signs have arrived from the printers. We have a series of talks scheduled for September to commemorate The Decade of Centenaries, more below. 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 |
Decade of Centenaries – September Series of Talks – September 22nd, 23rd & 24th at St. Flannan’s Cathedral We are very lucky to have the services of 3 excellent speakers to help us commemorate the Decade of Centenaries. We will hold talks over 3 consecutive days in September at St. Flannan’s Cathedral. Ger Browne, who many of you know, is an authority on Irish military history, his research and writing can be found on Clare Library’s excellent website. Darlene Meskell has researched and published the story of John Meskell and his family on the night of December 17, 1920, when their home was burned by the Auxilliaries and the family had to flee to Castleconnell. Darlene’s father-in-law is the great grandson of John Meskell. Darren O’Connell lives in Killaloe and is a second level History teacher at Borrisokane Community College, in his spare time he researches Irish history topics. He was intrigued by the gravestone of John Charlesworth in St. Flannan’s Cathedral graveyard and he subsequently researched his story, which is fascinating. Darren shared the story of The Lost Forrester over zoom during the lockdowns of 2020/21, we are really looking forward an in person presentation by Darren. We would like to sincerely thank Rev Paul Fitzpatrick and the Select Vestry at St. Flannan’s for enabling us to hold this series of talks at the cathedral. |
Tales of the Cathedral our Heritage Week Event  We had a lovely receptive audience for the launch of the new Discover St. Flannan’s Guide and for Deborah’s talk about Tales of the Cathedral. It will be put on our YouTube channel in the near future. Thank you to all who attended and who donated towards the cathedrals conservation and development fund, we raised €113 for the fund. The guide is available to pick up free of charge at St. Flannan’s Cathedral, we would like to thank the Heritage Council for their grant funding to St. Flannan’s to enable the creation of the guide and to Glance Promotions for covering the print costs. |
The Custom of the Sea – RTE Documentary on One  At Arlene’s brilliant talk on the Spaights of Derry Castle we mentioned that she had contributed to a documentary all about the canabalism on The Francis Spaight ship. The programme was aired and we have to say it is excellent, Arlene’s research was used and she was a super contributor on the show. Our first appearance on a national radio broadcast! You can find it on the Documentary on One website just click here or where ever you get your podcasts. There is even a Doc on One app if you want to download it, all their documentaries are excellent but this one is especially so. |
New Building History Signs We have a new batch of building history signs fresh from the printers. We will be hanging them in the next week so you can expect to see them in situ soon. |
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Killaloe-Ballina
Hi I would like to send a message to Darren O’Connel
The John Charlesworth buried in your churchyard comes from a area where my paternal family have lived for many generations and I know John worked in Langwith pit at the same time has my grandad before my grandad moved to nottingham to play for Notts County Football Club around the time of Ww1 I can still not find out if John was a relative of mine
I know of the unfortunate story of John I just wondered if Darren had found any additional facts about John and if there is any present day family that visits Johns grave
Thank you for your kind response
Andy charlesworth
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