Cumann Seandalaiochta agus Staire Phort Lairge

Monday, March 18, 2024

Upcoming Lecture : Playing at War? by Dr Shane Browne Friday 22/03/2024

 “Playing at war”? The Waterford National Volunteers, 1914-1917

A lecture by Dr Shane Browne to the Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society

The Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society 2023 – 2024 lecture series continues at 8 pm on Friday, March 22nd in St. Patrick’s Gateway Centre, Waterford (Eircode X91 YX61) when historian Dr Shane Browne, will deliver a talk titled “Playing at war”? The Waterford National Volunteers, 1914-1917.



Born from a split in the Irish Volunteers in the autumn of 1914, the National Volunteer movement was one of the largest uniformed paramilitaries operating in Ireland during the First World War. A pro-Home Rule organisation, this citizen army was loyal to John Redmond, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) since 1900. An overlooked organisation in the historiography of Ireland’s revolutionary period, this lecture will examine the Waterford city branch of the National Volunteers.

Drawing on newspaper sources and the organisation’s extensive archival collection at both national and local level, this lecture will investigate the rise and fall of the Waterford National Volunteers, outlining the aims of the movement and the reasons behind its ultimate decline. Across Ireland, the force could boast a paper strength of over 160,000 members in the wake of the split, with the Waterford National Volunteers numbering an estimated 1,000 men at this time. Significantly, the Waterford City National Volunteers had around 200 rifles in their possession, underlining the transformation that had occurred in Irish politics between 1912-14, when the politics of the gun had taken precedent over constitutional methods.
Importantly, what will be outlined in this lecture is that volunteering was part of public life in Waterford city for a time, with men and women taking part in a wide range of military and social activities between 1914-15. Areas we pass everyday were hubs of Volunteer activity, such as the Courthouse on Catherine Street where drilling took place on Sundays, or the former Presentation Convent on Hennessy’s Road, which was used as a headquarters by the Waterford City National Volunteers. The volunteering phenomenon even impacted upon consumers, with shops such as Hearne & Co. selling military attire.

Of course, the story of the National Volunteers is one of decline. Thus, this lecture will detail the reasons behind that decline, paying particular attention to the role John Redmond played in the movement’s demise in Waterford. Notably, numerous men dropped out of the Waterford National Volunteers because they were ridiculed for ‘playing at soldiering’ when the tide turned on the IPP leader for his pro-war stance.

Dr Shane Browne graduated from UCD with a PhD in December 2021. Thesis title, ‘“Defence not defiance”: loyalty, party and organisation, the National Volunteers, 1913-20’. Currently working with University College Dublin School of History as a Module Coordinator on the MA module ‘Practicing Public History’, as well as with UCD Archives on the project A History of the Irish Revolution in 100 Documents. Shane's research interests include the study of conflict, paramilitarism, associational culture, and veteranship.
 


********************* FORTHCOMING LECTURES **********************
The Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society’s 2023 – 2024 lecture series continues in February and March in St Patrick’s Gateway Centre:
26/04/2024 Prof. Terence Dooley will deliver a talk titled The Irish Land Commission and its archives: why they should be opened to the research public
22/04/2024 Dr Edel Bhreathnach will deliver a talk titled Ardmore, Lismore and Waterford: a tale of three competing medieval churches.

********************* ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING **********************
The Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society’s AGM will be held in St Patrick’s Gateway Centre at 8pm on April 12th, 2024.
The committee would like to encourage any members who are interested in joining the committee to contact any of the current committee members.


The on-going success of the Society depends on enthusiastic members volunteering a small amount of time each month.

Saturday, February 17, 2024

Upcoming Lecture on 23 /02/24 : Irish Women's Experiences in the Great War and its Aftermath by Dr Fionnuala Walsh

"Life will never be the same again": Irish women's experiences in the Great War and its aftermath by Dr Fionnuala Walsh

Date: Friday, February 23rd 

Time:  8 pm

Venue: St. Patrick’s Gateway Centre, Waterford (Eircode X91 YX61)

(left) Irish War Savings Committee, Poster No. 3 (source: Imperial War Museum Art.IWM PST 13602)

(right) Hely's Limited, Litho, 1915, unkown artist (source: Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2003668400/)


In this lecture Fionnuala will explore the impact of the Great War on ordinary women's lives in Ireland.

With over 200,000 Irish men serving in the wartime British Army, the war's effects were inevitably felt at home. Drawing on extensive primary research, this lecture explores life on the home front for women.

The war caused an increase in the cost of living and women in Ireland struggled to cope with rising inflation and food shortages. The mobilisation of men for the armed forces brought distress and anxiety for those waiting at home and too many received the telegram with devastating news as the war waged on. Women were keen to do their bit in Ireland as elsewhere and thousands of Irish women participated in war effort activities at home or close to the front in the Red Cross and Irish War Hospital Supply Depot. Some also joined the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps and Women’s Royal Naval Service. The establishment of munitions factories in Ireland, including one in Waterford, provided new opportunities for women’s employment. Many of the war’s effects on women’s role in society were short-lived and the paper briefly explores women’s lives in the aftermath of Armistice and demobilisation. There will be some local case studies of Waterford women included highlighting the commonalities of wartime Waterford with the wider national experience.




Dr Fionnuala Walsh is Assistant Professor of Modern Irish History at University College Dublin.

 She completed her PhD and Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship in Trinity College Dublin. Her first book, Irish women and the Great War was published by Cambridge University Press in 2020. It won the National University of Ireland Publication Prize in Irish History in 2021 and was shortlisted for the Royal Historical Society Whitfield Prize. She has published extensively on the social history of Ireland’s experience during the First World War and its aftermath.

Dr Walsh served as secretary of the Women’s History Association of Ireland from 2020 to 2023.


********************* FORTHCOMING LECTURES ********************** 

The Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society’s 2023 – 2024 lecture series continues in  February and March in St Patrick’s Gateway Centre: 

22/03/2024 Dr Shane Browne will deliver a talk titled "Playing at war"?: The Waterford National  Volunteers, 1914-17. 

26/04/2024 Prof. Terence Dooley will deliver a talk titled The Irish Land Commission and its  archives: why they should be opened to the research public 

********************* ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING ********************** 

The Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society’s AGM will be held in St Patrick’s Gateway  Centre at 8pm on April 12th, 2024

The committee would like to encourage any memberswho are interested in joining the committee to  contact any of the current committee members. 

The on-going success of the Society depends on  enthusiastic members volunteering a small amount of time each month.


Monday, January 22, 2024

Upcoming Lecture by Mr Tony Hennessy : ‘Annestown, Lovely Annestown...' Friday 26/01/24

 On Friday 26th January 2024, genealogist and local historian Tony Hennessy, will deliver a talk titled ‘‘Annestown, Lovely Annestown – oh do you wonder why I dream of you!’’.  

                                                            
This talk is an exploration of the origins, history and development of the village of Annestown, Co. Waterford from its beginnings in the very late 1700s, through the 1800s to the mid-1900s, insofar as all that can be encapsulated within a short presentation.

While the history of Annestown House and its several incumbents ie. Henry Cole, the Palliser and the Galloway families all necessarily play a central part in the story of the Annestown and in the presentation other less prominent members of the community also feature in the story.  ‘History remembers the celebrated; genealogy remembers them all’.

Tony will be exploring the earliest of days in the shape of fascinating new findings from recent excavations at the nearby promontory fort.  Tony will also look at Annestown before it became Annestown.  

We will hear of The Earl of Enniskillen and his cousin Henry St. George Cole, who played a significant role in the story of Annestown.

EXCLUSIVE! Tony will also reveal for the first time who the ‘Anne’ of Annestown is!!

Then there is Ann’s Town Hotel and the latest craze of Sea Bathing - and its impact on the village

Shipwrecks, seaweed, songs, cycling, cauliflower, a swimming pig and even a village pub may also be discussed, with some wistful poetry to finish.

As usual, the lecture will take place at 8 PM in St Patrick's Gateway Centre, Patrick Street, Waterford Eircode X91 YX61






Programme of Events Spring 2024

 Please see below a list of the upcoming lectures up until summer this year, starting  Friday, 26/01/24.




26/01/2024 


Tony Hennessy 

Annestown, lovely Annestown, oh do you wonder why I dream of you! 

23/02/2024 

Dr Fionnuala Walsh 

"Life will never be the same again": Irish women's experiences in the Great War and its aftermath 

22/03/2024 

Dr Shane Browne 

"Playing at war"?: The Waterford National Volunteers, 1914-17 

12/04/2024 

Annual General Meeting 

26/04/2024 

Prof. Terence Dooley 

The Irish Land Commission and its archives: why they should be opened to the research public 


31/05/2024 

Dr Edel Bhreathnach 

Ardmore, Lismore and Waterford: a tale of three competing medieval churches 


Monday, November 20, 2023

Upcoming Lecture 24/11/23 : New Perspectives on the Archaeology of Iron Age 'Celtic' Ireland' by Dr Katharina Becker

Our final lecture of the year will take place on Friday 24th November at 8pm in St Patrick's Gateway Center, Patrick Street, Waterford. 


 

Topic : New Perspectives on the Archaeology of Iron Age 'Celtic' Ireland'.



In this lecture Dr Becker will explore the fundamental changes in our knowledge and interpretation of the archaeology of Ireland's Iron Age past. Until recently the people and communities who lived in Ireland during the Iron Age were solely visible through finds of 'Celtic' Iron Age artefacts. These objects were mostly found in the northern half of the island which led scholars to ponder what sort of society existed in those parts of the country, like Waterford, where these objects were not found. New discoveries, from archaeological excavation and other research, over recent decades now allows us to reconstruct the lifeways of local Iron Age populations across the whole island and to re-visit old questions relating to the cultural and ethnic identity of the people who lived here in this formative period.


 


Dr Katharina Becker is Senior Lecturer in Archaeology in University College Cork, where she teaches on the Late Bronze Age and Iron Archaeology of Ireland, Britain and Europe. Her research is focused on the archaeology of Later Prehistoric Ireland, about which she has published extensively. Katharina is director of UCC's Higher Diploma in Archaeology, a 1-year conversion degree for anyone who already has an undergraduate degree in another subject and would like to obtain an Archaeology qualification, she is always delighted to chat to potential new students.


Sunday, October 22, 2023

Just Published BLAA-THERINGS by Cian Manning

 BLAA-THERINGS

STORIES FROM THE GENTLE COUNTY, WATERFORD 


     BLAA-THERINGS is a collection of stories that look at the forgotten, unusual and quirky tales and lives that concern the history of the Gentle County, Waterford.



     From colourful local characters to titans of European and World History, this eclectic assortment of essays is easy reading for those who wish to discover stories about unfamiliar figures in remarkable times during the history of Waterford city and county.


     There's something for everyone, from music and sport to economics and politics. All these tales come with a Deise-view, that transforms blackguarding to blaggarding into BLAA-THERINGS.


A SELECTION OF WATERFORD STORIES: 

TAKE ME TO THE RIVER: THE SWEET SUIR IN SONG & STORY


ANNE HUNTER: WATERFORD POETESS & HAYDN’S MUSE? 


‘cogomen of the “untouched”’: WATERFORD & A FOILED-PLOT IN THE 1798 REBELLION


KATE TOWNSEND (1830s – 1883): ‘QUEEN OF THE DEMIMONDE’  


WILLIAM J. KENNY: WATERFORD’S BRITISH CONSUL-GENERAL OF THE PHILIPPINES, 1903-1908


DENIS A. MCCARTHY: CARRICK-BORN POET OF BOSTON


A WATERFORD CHANGELING?: ADOPTION & ABDUCTION ABSURDITIES IN 1880


THE WATERFORD ‘WATCHDOG OF ECUADOR’: COMMODORE JAMES F. POWER


MOUNTFORD LUPTON: REMAINS WITH ROYAL CONNECTIONS


KUBELÍK CAN: A CZECH VIOLINIST AT THE THEATRE ROYAL


P.A. POWERS: MICKEY MOUSE’S WATERFORD CONNECTION  


LUCIE DORICE WHITE: TEN YEARS IN SOVIET RUSSIA


MICHEAL O’BRIEN & THE FIRST TELEVISION SET IN WATERFORD CITY


EDWARD MORLAND LEWIS (1903 – 1943): A WELSH OFFICER ARTIST IN WATERFORD


MARY LARKIN: A BIGAMOUS BARMAID OR SOCIETY’S SHAME?


TOWER AT WATERFORD BY L.S. LOWRY (1965)


     Available from Amazon at Blaa-therings by Cian Manning

Thursday, October 12, 2023

Upcoming Lecture 20/10/23 : The Lure of the Sea in Georgian Ireland by Dr Vandra Costello

 Dr Vandra Costello, will deliver a talk titled The lure of the sea in Georgian Ireland , how the pursuit of the sublime and the fashion for sea bathing changed the appearance of the coast and the ways in which people engaged with the sea’ to the Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society at 8 pm on Friday, October 20th in St Patrick’s Gateway Centre, Waterford (Eircode X91 YX61).


 



From the mid-eighteenth-century seaside resorts began to develop in Ireland and the practice of sea bathing was first popularised. In her lecture, Vandra Costello will explore notions of the therapeutic benefits of sea air which led the aristocracy to build or reorientate houses to give views of, and access to, the sea with resulting effects on coastal landscapes.


Dr Vandra Costello is a garden writer and historic gardens and landscape historian. She publishes widely on garden and landscape history and is the author of Irish Demesne Landscapes 1660–1740 (Four Courts Press, 2015).

The Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society, Ireland.
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